Restricted search words... wth

[obmike]

I tried using the word "color" as a search term and I received an error message saying that term was restricted or something like that, my question is why would the word "color" be a restricted search term. I mean some of the topics here can be over 30 pages long and to look for 1 or 2 post in those 30+ pages would take forever so why is such a common word restricted from being searched.

 

At first I thought it was restricted because it was such a common word and thus would have a performance hit on the server when searching for it due to how many results it found, however I did a search for the word "map" which should be just as popular of a term, and it was not a restricted word, so once again why are words like "color" restricted from being searched and is there a list of other "prohibited" words that we should know about ?

 

TIA,

Mike.

[phoneyLogic]

Those words work for me, I have no problem searching them.

But I can't seach for urls, which was possible some time ago.

 

Edit

Guess it's because of the "/" which seems to be refused

 

 

Edit2

The slash is being removed from the term. If you search for "Fallout 3/Data" the seach engine searches "Fallout 3Data" without /.

 

This makes certain urls impossible to find.

Edited July 14, 2011 by tortured Tomato

[obmike]

That's odd because I just tried again and cannot search for the term "color" without getting that error message. Only thing I can think of is since I am a new member (i.e. low post count) some terms are not allowed to be searched for (if this is a feature then it's a very odd one and not sure what benefit it would serve) but I would need an admin to confirm this or not.

 

.....

 

Ok this is getting more confusing by the moment. The term "colors" is ok but "color" is not ?

 

Mike.

Edited July 14, 2011 by obmike

[BlackRampage]

That's odd because I just tried again and cannot search for the term "color" without getting that error message. Only thing I can think of is since I am a new member (i.e. low post count) some terms are not allowed to be searched for (if this is a feature then it's a very odd one and not sure what benefit it would serve) but I would need an admin to confirm this or not.

 

.....

 

Ok this is getting more confusing by the moment. The term "colors" is ok but "color" is not ?

 

Mike.

No. Your post count doesn't matter. Should be a bit strange if they were to apply such kinds of filters.

I do know that the search function has something called "flood control", which essentially means you aren't allowed to perform multiple searches in a matter of seconds, since that probably would have a performance hit on the servers. You sure it doesn't just displayed an error message because of that?

 

Curiously the word "colour" is allowed, but it's American variant "color" is not :blink:

 

Is the word color somehow associated with inappropriate content?

[phoneyLogic]

 

Curiously the word "colour" is allowed, but it's American variant "color" is not :blink:

 

Is the word color somehow associated with inappropriate content?

 

"Color" works for me. Here a result

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/407121-restricted-search-words-wth/page__p__3363476__hl__%22color%22__fromsearch__1#entry3363476

[obmike]

@BlackRampage

 

I am aware of the flood protect feature however this is not the issue as it was the first term I searched for after logging in.

 

@tortured Tomato

 

The link you posted does show up with the highlighting which makes me even more confused. It appears that some people can search for the term but others cannot and linking to the search term as you did above seems to work so I am not sure if this is a bug in the InvisionBoard software itself (maybe a conflict with a forum mod or something) or if the admins have indeed restricted certain words from being searched by some members, but not others (seems odd but who knows) Any admins out there want to confirm ?

 

I added a screenshot to show that I am not going crazy.

 

Mike.

Edited July 14, 2011 by obmike

[phoneyLogic]

Yeah, seems to be either a bug with the forums software or there are certain regions or whatever restricted. I don't think it has sth to do with your post count. Strange though.

[obmike]

Ok. I found a workaround that will allow me to search for the words that were otherwise restricted to me, but I first want to make sure this is not a feature the admins put into place for a reason or if it's a bug. If it is a feature then I will not divulge the workaround, if it's a bug I will in case others have the same problem I did. Will wait for a admin to respond to see if it's ok to post or not.

 

Mike.

[LHammonds]

"color" is not on our "bad list" of words so I am guessing this is a bug in the forums software.

 

I confirmed that I get the same message when I type "color" in the search box and press ENTER which the dropdown selection shows "this topic" as the location to search in.

 

EDIT: With a little more testing, it seems that it does not allow searches with specific BBCode words like COLOR, CODE, IMG or QUOTE. However URL does not spit that error out and actually highlights this post.

 

LHammonds

[obmike]

After getting the ok from LHammonds I guess I can share the method I used to bypass the word restrictions on the forum so others can benefit form it as well. If you encounter a word that is restricted to you simply add a + sign in front of the word and the forum will no longer restrict it. Example: color (restricted) +color (not restricted) it's that easy and hope it helps others who might have the same issue I was having.

 

Mike

Edited July 18, 2011 by obmike