Options ignored on forum search function?

According to the help text for the Search options, I should be able to refine my searches of the forum using, for example, max_age:7 to only look for content from the last seven days.

The search results, however, seem to completely ignore this - I’m getting posts from two years ago included in the result set.

Am I misinterpreting the limited help text that is there?

I think that only works in the Google search box below the help not the search function on the site.

Considered that, tried it, but nope…it doesn’t work with the Google search option either.

Google treats “max_age:7” like just another text search term - its not like “site:abc.com”, for example, where Google interprets that to mean only include content from abc.com.

Hmm, the first google search I tried returned an ok result but trying several other things now doesn’t work very well if at all.

Ahhh, I had a bug there due to search aggregation, can you try it again now, if you have any issues can you link me to a broken search

(tip: hit enter when searching to get to full screen search which is easily linkable by copying URL)

Still not working from what I can see, e.g.

https://community.smartthings.com/search?q=source%20max_age%3A14

I think you may be after min_age here:

https://community.smartthings.com/search?q=source%20min_age%3A14%20order%3Alatest

The “Search help” only states: “max_age:days”.

I want posts made in the last two weeks, nothing older - I would have thought that means a maximum age of 14 days.

The sample you just provided, min_age:15, returned a post made 5 hours ago…?!?

What is the logic here???

What does “min_age:days” mean?
What does “max_age:days” mean?

:confused:

min_age mean posts in the last min_age days

so source min_age:14 will search for stuff with the word source in the last 14 days

max_age does the opposite, so source max_age: 14 will search for stuff that is 14 days or older.

Huh??? I find that completely counter-intuitive.

Surely “Min” = Minimum, and the set of articles with a minimum age of 14 days are those which are 14 days old or older.

Conversely, “Max” = Maximum, and the set of articles with a maximum age of 14 days are those which are 14 days old or newer.

E.g.
I have a set of articles which are 4, 5, 10, 15 and 24 days old.
If I wanted only the articles from the last two weeks (maximum age 14 days) then I should get back 4, 5 and 10.
If I wanted articles two weeks old or older (minimum age 14 days) then I should get back 15 and 24.

I tried it, and it does indeed behave as you’ve described.You really need to explain this in the help text, because I’ll bet pennies to pounds the majority of people will not be expecting that behaviour.

1 Like

I guess we can pick some better words there, definitely want to make a dynamic and intuitive help for search.

semantic intention is max 14 == all numbers up to 14 … meaning your maximum is 14

I get that it is confusing but really we are going to have to pick diff words here to eliminate this confusion

eg:

older_than:14
newer_than:14 

Aha - I agree completely with “max 14 == all numbers up to 14
(I.e. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, … , 12, 13 and 14 but NOT 15, 16, 17, … 24231, 24232, … etc.)

Therefore, does it not logically follow that max_age:14 is all ages up to 14 but nothing over that?
(0, 1, 2, 3, 4, … , 12, 13 and 14 days old, but NOT 15 days, 16 days, 17 days, 2 years, 3 years and six months, … etc.)?

My confusion arises because right now, max_age:14 is returning everything OVER 14 days old, not UNDER 14 days old.

That would certainly make it clear.