Search Errors

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ribrdb-p40
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Search Errors

#1

Post by ribrdb-p40 »

Where is the correct place to report errors in the online scriptures? I once found a broken link in one of the footnotes (I can't remember the details but I think it was supposed to point to somewhere in JSH). Today I noticed an error on http://scriptures.lds.org/en/harmony/harmony5
On the line "Jesus returns to Galilee and preaches" it links to Luke 4:14-14. This should be 14-15.
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WelchTC
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#2

Post by WelchTC »

This forum will do fine. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll forward over to the team responsible for the online scriptures.

Tom
dmaynes
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Searching error?

#3

Post by dmaynes »

tomw wrote:This forum will do fine. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll forward over to the team responsible for the online scriptures.

Tom
English scriptures: I searched for the word "carnal" and 27 references were returned, but 2 Ne. 9:39 was not in the list. This scripture refers to "carnally-minded". AFAIK the same 27 references are returned when you search for "carnally." If you search for "carnally minded" 2 Ne. 9:39 will be returned. I'm not sure if this is an error. It may be that the word is not a form of carnal because it is hyphenated. I had not even noticed that the word was hyphenated in the text.

Thanks,
Dennis
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mkmurray
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#4

Post by mkmurray »

dmaynes wrote:English scriptures: I searched for the word "carnal" and 27 references were returned, but 2 Ne. 9:39 was not in the list. This scripture refers to "carnally-minded". AFAIK the same 27 references are returned when you search for "carnally." If you search for "carnally minded" 2 Ne. 9:39 will be returned. I'm not sure if this is an error. It may be that the word is not a form of carnal because it is hyphenated. I had not even noticed that the word was hyphenated in the text.

Thanks,
Dennis
Have you tried using any wildcard characters, such as the asterisk ('*')? It would be interesting to know how that affects your search results (i.e., "carnal*" or "carnally*").

It would be nice though if the scripture search feature had Stemming (if it doesn't already).
dmaynes
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More about searches for hyphenated terms.

#5

Post by dmaynes »

mkmurray wrote:Have you tried using any wildcard characters, such as the asterisk ('*')? It would be interesting to know how that affects your search results (i.e., "carnal*" or "carnally*").
"carnal*" returns 28 references including 2 Ne 9:39.
"carnally-" returns no references.

"carnally-*" returns 5 references including 2 Ne. 9:39. "carnally" returns 4 references (when Search all word forms is not checked). It seems strange that "carnally-" returns no references, but "carnally-*" returns all four references that have the word "carnally" by itself.

"*minded" returns 21 references including 2 Ne. 9:39.
"minded' returns 12 references (when Search all word forms is not checked). 2 Ne. 9:39 is not listed.
"minded" returns 189 references (when Search all word forms is checked). 2 Ne. 9:39 is not listed.

Off-topic: Is there a way to see just the references without the text context in the returned search results?
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Exact phrase search results differ from documentation

#6

Post by dmaynes »

tomw wrote:This forum will do fine. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll forward over to the team responsible for the online scriptures.

Tom

The help under search states:
'Use quotation marks ( " ) around a series of words to limit the search to an exact phrase. Try entering “let there be light”.'

The search doesn't always appear to return only scriptures that have the exact phrase. For example, if you enter "be one" some of the scriptures that are returned do not contain the exact phrase "be one." http://scriptures.lds.org/en/search?search=%22be+one%22&do=Search

2 Ne. 9:12 is an example of a scripture that is returned with this search but does not contain the exact phrase, "be one." http://scriptures.lds.org/en/2_ne/9/12#12

Is this working the way that it is intended to work? The scriptures that are returned will have the words "be" and "one" but sometimes there are intervening words.

Thanks,
Dennis
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WelchTC
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#7

Post by WelchTC »

dmaynes wrote: Is this working the way that it is intended to work? The scriptures that are returned will have the words "be" and "one" but sometimes there are intervening words.

Thanks,
Dennis
Yes, that is how it is designed.

Tom
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#8

Post by dmaynes »

tomw wrote:Yes, that is how it is designed.
There appear to be inconsistencies with the design implementation. In all of the tests below, the "Search all word forms" is turned off.

I did the following searches:

"be" -- (quotes) 1454 entries returned
"one" -- (quotes) 946 entries returned

be one -- (No quotes) 946 entries returned
--> This is the same as "one" (the word 'be' must have been discarded)
--> There was no message indicating that the word "be" was discarded.
--> There is a message that the word "be" is discarded when it is used stand alone without quotes.

be & one -- (no quotes) 383 entries returned
"be" "one" -- (quotes used, ampersand was not used) 383 entries returned
--> If this is correct, the number of scriptures with "be" but not having "one" is 1071
--> Similarly, the number of scriptures with "one" but not having ""be" is 563.
--> The total number of scriptures with "be" or "one" (inclusive or) is 2017.

be | one -- (No quotes) 1503 entries returned
"be" | "one" -- (quotes) 1503 entries returned
--> This is a contradiction. It should have been 2017.

"one be" -- (quotes) returned 24 scriptures.
"be one" -- (quotes) returned 65 scriptures.
--> The total of these two searches should have been at least 383, and maybe larger because if both words are together then one must appear before the other.

"one be" & "be one" -- (quotes) returned 1 scripture.

Following the inclusion/exclusion computations, the number of scriptures where "be" precedes "one," but "one" does not follow "be" is 64. With the same computation, the number of scriptures where "one" precedes "be," but "be" does not follow "one" is 23.

"one be" | "be one" -- (quotes) returned 86 scriptures. This value should have been 88.

--> According to the the "be" & "one" search, the value of "one be" | "be one" should have been 383, because if both words are in the same scripture either "be' follows "one" or vice-versa.

Please e-mail me if you want to talk.

Thanks,
Dennis
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Counting is not consistent

#9

Post by dmaynes »

dmaynes wrote:There appear to be inconsistencies with the design implementation. In all of the tests below, the "Search all word forms" is turned off.
...
be & one -- (no quotes) 383 entries returned
"be" "one" -- (quotes used, ampersand was not used) 383 entries returned
--> If this is correct, the number of scriptures with "be" but not having "one" is 1071
--> Similarly, the number of scriptures with "one" but not having ""be" is 563.
--> The total number of scriptures with "be" or "one" (inclusive or) is 2017.
The issues above may be partially due to counting variations. It is possible for a scripture or reference to be double counted because of the way the search results are grouped.

For example, if you search for "horse", "rider" and "horse rider;" you will have 31, 5 and 28 results returned. The five scriptures with rider all have horse preceding. So, you might expect to have 26 scriptures (not 28) with just horse, but not rider. Two additional scriptures are counted because the reference groups Ex. 15:1, 19, 21 and Job:38:18-19 are split and reported in each query.

This could very well be happening with the "be" and "one" examples in the preceding post. The grouping/splitting of the references means that the counts cannot be trusted.

Thanks,
Dennis
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Inconsistencies are not all due to counting.

#10

Post by dmaynes »

dmaynes wrote:This could very well be happening with the "be" and "one" examples in the preceding post. The grouping/splitting of the references means that the counts cannot be trusted.
I wanted to verify if I was "crying wolf" so I found an easier example.

Turn off word variations.
Search for ("chain") You will have 13 returned results.
Search for ("chain" & "neck"). You will have 4 returned results. You can verify that these are correct.
Search for ("chain neck"). You will have no (0) returned results. I expected four results returned because neck always follows chain in this example.
Search for ("chain" & !"neck"). You will have no (0) returned results. I expected to see nine or more (because of the counting variations).

Thanks,
Dennis
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