Site search now includes WikiThing wiki

LibraryThing's site-search feature now includes WikiThing, the LibraryThing wiki.

Here's an example, searching for "importing books."
https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=importing+books&searchtype=ne...

The wiki has many different "namespaces," including regular pages, HelpThing pages, user pages, talk pages and so forth. I have opted to exclude user pages, talk pages, user talk, MediaWiki help and etc. Some users will want me to open up the user-page space, because there's sometimes things of general interest there, but there's also personal or idiosyncratic things. So if users want their material to be searchable, I recommend moving it out of the user namespace.

The results are sorted by relevance, but with WikiThing (LT help) boosted very hard.

The site-search results will update multiple times a day, but they will update instantly.

We have attempted to find and remove all spam pages. If you find any, you can replace their text with "SPAM content deleted," and they will be de-indexed. We will delete them from time to time--deletes an administrator prerogative.

Thanks!

Cool! You mentioned that LT Help is boosted, but how about having a completly separate item on the left menu for "LibraryThing Help" that only returned LT Help pages. It could be indented under Wiki like "Book" is under "Works". People looking for help shouldn't need to know that it's in the Wiki.

I've often thought a link to the Wikithing anywhere on my home page might actually help me find it.

>2 r.orrison:

Yes, I was thinking I could facet it. I'll consider it. I'm worried, because I think a lot of help pages are not formally under the help namespace.

>3 DuncanHill:

The top right of every screen has a link to "help" that takes you there.

>4 timspalding: Ah of course, how stupid of me not to know that "Help" and "WikiThing" are synonyms.

>5 DuncanHill: It's a little strange that you haven't discovered it in eleven years, but I wouldn't say stupid. But as there is no other help system in place, it's quite natural that the WikiThing link is labelled Help. I think most newbies who need help are more likely to click a link labelled Help than one labelled WikiThing.

>3 DuncanHill: I've often thought a link to the Wikithing anywhere on my home page might actually help me find it
It looks like LT2 is solving that for you! The footer of talk pages includes a WikiThing link. Presumably when the home page is switched over to LT2 it will pick up the new footer with the WikiThing link.

>7 r.orrison:

So, LT2 SHOULD have a much more prominent Help link on every page. But the way it's planned out, we need to move all, or at least many, pages to LT2 first. Argh.

>6 anglemark: But people reading about a WikiThing are likely to look for a link that says WikiThing. Or is that just me?