Subject: Seldom won winnable games.
Date: Wed Jan 4 23:16:17 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:[Post removed and game note posted in the "never won winnables" thread.]
Date: Thu Jan 5 07:31:56 2023
User: TitanicTony
Message:TN, There is a thread for "Never won winnables!".
Date: Thu Jan 5 08:29:24 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:I thought there was, but couldn't find it. "Never" brings zero hits in Denny's search function. Would love to have it transfered there.
Date: Thu Jan 5 09:40:37 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
leave the search box empty and look near the top of second page
Date: Thu Jan 5 09:44:34 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:Thanks! Obviously(??), I did that search method first, believing it wouldn't be too far down the list, but somehow missed it.
[game note moved to that thread.]
Date: Thu Jan 5 10:15:25 2023
User: outskirts
Message:Lol obviously didn't think of the obvious
Winnables
Date: Thu Jan 5 10:25:25 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:If you are claiming that I first didn't try to find it doing the normal scanning of threads chronologically backwards, then you are dead wrong. In fact, I looked at (opened) maybe three threads trying to find the proper one, but somehow failed. Apology will be accepted when properly offered, if that's what you're alleging.
Date: Thu Jan 5 10:43:10 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
you said you searched for 'never'. searching for 'winnables' would have worked
Date: Thu Jan 5 10:47:29 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:But I knew there were umpteen threads with that in the title, so went with "never". Usually 5-letter words will work in search. My only theory as to why not in this case is that there are too many threads with that in the title? But that seems somewhat unlikely, too.
Date: Thu Jan 5 10:53:46 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
crazy database text search facility.... it indexes words for fast lookup. 'never' is intentionally excluded along with many more
Date: Thu Jan 5 10:58:16 2023
User: outskirts
Message:You thought there would be too many threads if you searched the word "winnables"? It only takes a few seconds. There aren't that many!
Date: Thu Jan 5 11:11:53 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:Well.........I just now did that, and there's a whole page of 'em. Your definition (Ms. Dictionary) of "many" must be different from mine.
@ cellmate - While I have encountered other cases where some words were excluded because they were too common(?), I 'never' expected "never" to be in that class. And it's still surprising.
Date: Thu Jan 5 11:28:02 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
one page is not 'many' and its in most recent first order
Note that these are the default database search settings
the word exclusion makes more sense for the Body search than for the Subject search
You can see the list of excluded words at the end of the linked page
Link: Stopwords for MyISAM Search Indexes
Date: Thu Jan 5 11:32:30 2023
User: BuzzClik
Message:I guess this is definitely a case where we can never say never.
Date: Thu Jan 5 11:33:04 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:I was gonna ask you how you knew that's what Denny used, but I saw "invisible" in that list, checked it, and Denny's search function delivers hits with it - so...... Ideally, when Denny's function fails, it would be good to know why, but I don't think that's gonna happen.
Date: Thu Jan 5 11:33:41 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:Nice one, Buzz!
Date: Thu Jan 5 11:36:46 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:And one page *is* many most of the time. Believe me, it's failed me again and again and again. WHO on this whole board has historically been more concerned with "putting things in their proper place"? It's been me, and I doubt there's a close second. It's ridiculous to even imagine that I didn't want to put that in the thread you correctly pointed out. I just couldn't find it in a reasonable amount of time.
Date: Thu Jan 5 11:49:46 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
actually 'invisible' is not in the list i referred to
and yes the search function is far more limited than the google searches we've gotten used to
And its a bit off topic for this thread
Date: Thu Jan 5 12:01:29 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:Just sayin'...........
| comes |
| dalloway |
| first |
| flowers |
| happened |
| herself |
| invisible |****
| less |
| love |
| man |
Date: Thu Jan 5 12:07:07 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
section i referred to... "Stopwords for MyISAM Search Indexes"
Date: Thu Jan 5 12:15:13 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:You're a sharp computer guy. Most of us here aren't. I only scanned that list (there were several sub-lists), with no interest in delving into the minutiae of each sub-list. I've personally never heard the term "stopword", for example. Nor do I have a clue what "MyISAM" means. And I suspected this would be the response - not that there's anything wrong with it - only that it makes the point that that page is essentially unintelligible to most of us - *without significant time investment* - which few of us not high-level computer people would want to splurge into. Make sense?
p.s. - and your link didn't take one to just a section - but to a whole page.
p.p.s. - looking at that again, I *did* (originally, and again now) briefly try to interpret the verbiage above the list that "invisible" was in, with no success. In fact, it defies decipherment to those not computer database hep.
Which makes my point about it would be great if a search query told us *why* it didn't work. I'm not expecting Denny to switch to a new search function. If he was gonna do that, he would have done it long ago. I'm only expressing how its limitations manifest themselves.
Date: Thu Jan 5 12:22:37 2023
User: BuzzClik
Message:That's a great list to have. I have often thrown up my hands wondering why I could not get any hits on certain search terms. I wonder how I could possibly remember where to find it. I could search for "search"; maybe a link to the stopwords after a failed search?
Date: Thu Jan 5 12:26:12 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
you embarrass yourself. with your well established attention to detail you should have had no difficulty figuring it out. there was no direct link to the section , but i did say the section name and 'at the end of the linked page'
but i agree that the search function is not documented very well, if at all
Date: Thu Jan 5 12:28:54 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
Buzz, ya... its strange. eg 'next' is on the list but 'previous' is not
Date: Thu Jan 5 12:43:58 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:Don't really mind being "embarrassed" (your word) by this. I'm really trying to make a point. There was also a list on that page named "Stopwords for InnoDB Search Indexes". How am I, a minor freecell peon, supposed to know whether Denny uses "InnoDB", or "MyISAM", or neither - or what a "stopword" is? You didn't state that that's the filter Denny uses, so I didn't have full faith that it was relevant. (It may be, I just didn't have any way to reference that.)
I do now more fully absorb the part of your post "at the end of the linked page"...........(and I guess my bad on that)...................but since that whole page was nigh unto gibberish, I wasn't inclined to do a deep dive on it. Despite the time I've now spent on this, it's a tiny, tiny, tiny matter to me. My point then, and still is, that the page you posted, *without additional information and contextualization*, was essentially unintelligible without significant time investment - to most of us.
Date: Thu Jan 5 12:50:15 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
TN, i don't know how i could have made it simpler for you. its a list of words at the end of that page
Date: Thu Jan 5 13:07:05 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:I could tell you how I'd have done it, but don't have time at the moment. And firenze would complain about its length. Maybe in a bit.......
Date: Thu Jan 5 13:08:11 2023
User: ix
Message:cell, i copied that list to a text file, it will be very useful for figuring out how to search for stuff, thanks for explaining what is going on.
Date: Thu Jan 5 13:28:53 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
keep in mind the database search feature wasn't designed specifically for the freecell message board
The link describes the other things you can put in the search box eg '+stuff', for must include 'stuff' and '-stuff' for exclude matches containing 'stuff'
Link: Boolean Full-Text Searches
Date: Thu Jan 5 15:15:16 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:@ cellmate --
Ok, I'll try to do this quickly, but that may not suffice. I suspect you haven't done much teaching in your life, at least in an academic setting. I may be wrong about that; just a guess. A study I've quoted more than once here noted that about 85% of the responsibility of conveying information from one person to another is on the conveyor/originator. (And don't ask me to find that study; it's been a couple of decades or so, and obviously it varies with several factors; that's just the general message.) So a 'teacher'/communicator has to "meet the student where they are". That works in all kinds of things in life, too. And it's really a lot of what advertising is all about ("connecting with your customer", "knowing your target audience", etc., etc.). You can't teach someone how to do integration if they don't know differentiation. You can't teach someone to bake a cake if they don't have at least rudimentary kitchen skills. Etc. Etc. So.............with all that said..........
I would have first made the point that there are these things called "stopwords", and explained what those are. And then explained how search engines filter out those words. (Some additional information about "whys" would have been helpful, but not a necessity.) Then I may have posted that link you did, or more likely a better one, if one exists. But *very* crucially, I would have 'splained what all that list entailed. I would have 'splained the differences in the types of stopword filters, etc. I would have, at some point, if in fact you know this information, to have revealed which one Denny uses, and thus why it's applicable. That page link is not one decipherable by most folks not somewhat familiar with databases. I think that's enough of how I would have done it - but I'm doing this very hurriedly so may be leaving something out.
Denny makes the same 'mistake' (exaggerated description, of course). Many times, concerning his database, he's told us he "provides" everything - but with no instructions on how to use it. No hint of what skills or procedures would be needed to access, manage, and massage all that data. I think I made that point to him once, but he didn't respond. I figured it's analogous to someone inquiring about how much something costs, and getting the reply "If you have to ask, you can't afford it." Meaning, if one doesn't even know enough to ask the right question(s), then one wouldn't know enough to use that information anyway. Not that I would really want to - but I *was* curious about the process.
An ironic thing about my ignorance on this subject is that I have a younger brother - young enough to have "gotten in on the ground floor" of computers, is a world-class database manager. Like highest level. But I went another direction and that's just fine.
We all, or *virtually* all (sorry GT Charlie and a select few others) here are not only trying to have fun and enjoy this great site, but make it even better. Suggestions from players have been adopted and increased interest. We're all on the same team, so to speak, even tho we definitely disagree about certain things. In the past, I was one to whom others came for advice about using the search function. I was "the man" on that. And that's not bragging, but factual. I was very, very good at finding things on this site. But then search functionality changed (the internet mostly, not here). I don't think I got 'bad' at finding things here. It just became more difficult and equivocal. Some of the pathways got clogged or disappeared. So it's frustrating for me to not be able to find things when I used to be able to. Last night, I simply missed what I was looking for. It wasn't for some lack of proper 'technique', or even effort - altho had I *really, really* wanted to find that specific thread, I likely eventually could have. I knew there was such a thread, even tho I would generally view that whole universe with disdain (since it generally concerns games in the "winnables" universe). It's not terribly common to have games that fit that description that aren't in that universe. Not really rare, but not terribly common. I've probably posted other games on the thread, but likely very few, so I'm not very familiar with what it 'looks' like, or what the exact title was.
Ok - enough about all that/this. But the overall point of "how I would have done it" is to first know at what spot, informationally, your target is. You've got to connect with them where their knowledge base is before proceeding.
Date: Thu Jan 5 16:08:26 2023
User: BuzzClik
Message:Just a note: I am familiar with boolean operators in searches, and I am pretty sure they aren't working in Denny's search engine.
In the realm of TITLE searches:
1) a search for "music" yielded a bunch of stuff, led by World Music
2) a search "music -world" should have excluded World Music but did not. (capitalizing World made no difference)
I tested a bunch of the operators (+, " and others) and they had no impact on the search. For example, a search of vampire weekend yielded a bunch of "weekend" threads with no vampire; this is as it should be because the lack of an operator is an implied OR. But, when I tried to force vampire into the result with +vampire or "vampire weekend", the result was always the same.
I am open to hearing what I am doing wrong.
Date: Thu Jan 5 16:13:10 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:I long, long ago realized that Denny's function wasn't boolean. I sorta thought that was common knowledge - which is why my services were called upon on occasion. In days gone by.........lol.....
I knew cellmate's link wasn't an allusion to Denny's search function. Or at least assumed he wasn't trying to equate their functionality in some way.
Date: Thu Jan 5 21:30:25 2023
User: cellmate
Message:
Buzz, i should have tested that. the capability is there but the query doesn't use that option.
i was on the way out and threw it in as an afterthought
but, like you said, at least you can specify multiple words so it matches when it contains any of those words
TN, (hands over ears) La La La
Date: Thu Jan 5 21:58:36 2023
User: BuzzClik
Message:cellmate, I am fully capable of missing some nuance in these searches. It's good to know that I was doing it correctly.
Date: Mon Feb 13 18:21:56 2023
User: sebcbien2
Message:lots of apparent options to start
Game: 12x0 5835-5
Game stats: 51/4/7.8%/1908
Date: Wed Apr 26 06:38:55 2023
User: sebcbien2
Message:it was worth to spend some time on it
Game: W6x5 21195-5
Game stats: 32/2/6.3%/2052
Player Elo: 1940.040 ▲ 5.361
Elapsed: 11:12
Date: Mon May 1 07:17:45 2023
User: sebcbien2
Message:unfortunately at 3rd attempt, very subtle game
You Win
Game: 12x0 17524-5
Game stats: 54/2/3.7%
Date: Fri Jul 28 11:23:55 2023
User: sebcbien2
Message:I was playing in the train back from vacation, in a good mood, I took a little nap and restarted on this 5329, can't find the key of it, try something and failed, time to get off from the train, back home, gave it a try and saw the light immediately !
| 7/28 | 11:18 | 12x0 5329-5 | Not scored | 2:31 | Won | 5.6% | 1895 | 2 | 36
|
| 7/28 | 9:05 | 12x0 5329-5 | Streak | 18:44 | Lost | 5.6% | 1895 | 2 | 36
|
| 7/28 | 7:44 | 12x0 14174-5 | Streak | 7:52 | Won | 16.9% | 1815 | 11 | 65
|
| 7/28 | 7:36 | 12x0 7458-5 | Streak | 1:10 | Won | 97.4% | 1074 | 37 | 38
|
| 7/28 | 7:35 | 12x0 15030-5 | Streak | 4:15 | Won | 29.1% | 1692 | 16 | 55 |
Date: Fri Jul 28 14:57:15 2023
User: Dr.Bombay
Message:You Win
| Game: | 6x2 5576-5 |
| Game stats: | 23/2/8.7%/2052 |
| Player Elo: | 1866.428 ▲ 6.064 |
| Elapsed: | 3:37 |
| Streak: | 1 |
| Today: | 1 |
Date: Fri Jul 28 21:04:55 2023
User: Punster
Message:Wow !!! You won a 6X2 game in 3:37....nice going !!
Date: Mon Jul 31 14:12:02 2023
User: sebcbien2
Message:Unfortunately, at the second try
You Win
Date: Mon Jul 31 15:32:19 2023
User: TNmountainman
Message:"From error to error, one discovers the entire truth."
-- fortune in a fortune cookie I opened about 30 minutes ago
Date: Fri Sep 8 12:44:29 2023
User: rbw--3
Message:
Date: Sun Sep 10 10:13:33 2023
User: TitanicTony
Message: Game: 6x5 13789-8
Game stats: 10/2/20%/1904
Player Elo: 2344.753 ▲ 0.591.
Date: Sun Sep 10 11:31:15 2023
User: TitanicTony
Message: Game: 10x0 6187-5
Game stats: 33/4/12.1%/1966
Player Elo: 2345.568 ▲ 0.816.
Date: Sun Sep 10 17:04:51 2023
User: TitanicTony
Message: Game: W6x5 6416-10
Game stats: 25/4/16%/2031
Player Elo: 2347.545 ▲ 1.124.
Date: Sun Sep 10 17:47:37 2023
User: TitanicTony
Message: Game: W6x5 2080-10
Game stats: 19/3/15.8%/2043
Player Elo: 2348.736 ▲ 1.191.
Date: Mon Sep 11 06:53:35 2023
User: Ellie2
Message:Game: W7x4 8467-8, .... Game stats: 21/3/14.3%/1905, .... Player Elo: 2261.093 ▲ 0.922.
Date: Tue Sep 12 16:00:30 2023
User: 82nd_Airborne
Message:8x0 are always seldom won, so that's why this is here. It's the easiest one I've come across, managed to open three columns and didn't need them. If you've never tried one it's a good one to get experience on. Very forgiving.
| 8x0 15026-5 | Streak | 6:56 | Won | 100% | 1935 | 1 | 1 |
Date: Wed Sep 13 15:42:01 2023
User: Ellie2
Message:Game: W7x4 29610-10; .... Game stats: 79/5/6.3%/2117; .... Player Elo: 2269.984 ▲ 2.393.
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