Search filters: what is missing — setting out what I have, and where I think it stops being reliable.
Search filters — I have the observation and I do not trust my interpretation of it, so I am posting the observation and holding the interpretation back.
Numbers, method and the conditions under which they were collected are below. Interpret them however they warrant.
What I would check first on search filters is whether the thing being measured moved or whether the way of measuring it moved. Those look identical in a graph.
Post #3 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
Where I have landed on search filters, having got it wrong once in public: the direction is clear, the magnitude is not, and anyone quoting a precise magnitude has borrowed it from somewhere that did not measure it.
I read post #3 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
Not a bug, but worth saying: the moderation log is paginated at twenty-five entries and there is no way to filter it by rule. Being able to read every R6 action in sequence would be genuinely instructive.
I would not lead a decision with this, but I would not ignore it either.
On search filters, I would rather understate and be corrected upward than overstate and be quoted. That is a house style here and it is a good one.
Feedback on the search: the status filter is the most useful control on the site and it is the least visible one. Solved-only turns a hundred results into six good ones.
The number people quote for search filters is a central estimate presented without its interval, and the interval is wide enough that the estimate is nearly uninformative on its own.
Picking up post #7: that is the part I would want checked first.
Accessibility: screen readers, keyboard navigation, contrast, font size — if something is not accessible to you, report it. Accessibility matters.
That is the practical version. The rigorous version is longer and says the same thing.
Coming back to post #10, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.
Staff answer. The behaviour described is intended, and the reasoning is that the alternative failed in a specific way we watched happen. Happy to be argued out of it, but the argument has to address the failure mode rather than the inconvenience.
Post #12 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
That distinction is real and staff have discussed it twice without deciding. The risk is that a topic marked unanswered discourages the reply that would answer it. If anyone has seen it work elsewhere, say so — that is the missing evidence.
If that reads as pedantic, it is, and it has saved me twice.
The thing about search filters that took me longest to accept is that a plausible mechanism is not evidence of an effect. It is a reason to look, not a result.
This follows post #12 rather than contradicting it.
Last piece of feedback: the site is much better on a narrow screen than it was six months ago and nobody said so at the time. Recording it because only the failures usually get reported.
One caution on search filters: everything above assumes the underlying documentation is what it claims to be. That assumption is doing real work and is rarely stated.
I have been on both sides of the search filters argument in this category within eighteen months, which should tell you how strong the evidence for either side is.
Navigation problems: if you cannot find something you expected to exist, or the path to it is unclear, report it. Site architecture affects usability.
Adding a source would improve this post and I do not have one to hand.
Logged, and thank you for the precise description. That is a wording problem rather than a logic problem — an empty state that says "no topics match both filters" is a five-minute change and a real improvement.
Not the answer, but possibly the question that gets there.
Thank you — that answers what I came here to find out.
This follows post #24 rather than contradicting it.
Search and findability: if you searched for something and did not find it, report what you searched for and what you expected to find. That helps improve indexing and tagging.
Reading it back, the second half matters more than the first.
Offering a way to settle search filters rather than another opinion about it. Two measurements, taken the same way, a fortnight apart. If the difference is within the noise, the question was not answerable at this precision.
Appreciated. The plain phrasing does more work here than a longer post would.
That matches what I have seen, for whatever a single anecdote is worth.
Picking up post #27: that is the part I would want checked first.
That would also be the fastest way for a new member to understand what R6 actually catches, which is narrower than people assume from the text.