Help:Searching
Two search boxesTwo search boxes
On the left toolbar present when viewing any page in Proteopedia are two search boxes. The first is the standard wiki search box, similar to what you find in Wikipedia. The second is a Google search box that uses Google to search Proteopedia. Why have two? Performing good searches is a hard task, and the standard wiki search feature often comes up short, so we wanted to provide another option.
Disadvantages of the wiki search boxDisadvantages of the wiki search box
Common failings of the wiki search box are trouble handling plural queries (searching for "dogs" might not return matches for "dog") as well as trouble with captialization queries (searching for "Dog" might not return matches for "dog").
Advantages of the wiki search boxAdvantages of the wiki search box
You can restrict your search to specified namespaces. For example, the automatically-generated Category: pages may flood your search results, but you can exclude those. See the namespace checkboxes at the bottom of the results from any search. Also, when logged in, you can set your default namespaces for wiki searches in your preferences (see link at the top of every page to my preferences).
You can put double quotes around a phrase to restrict hits to the phrase, rather than getting hits to all pages that include any word in the phrase.
Disadvantages of the Google search boxDisadvantages of the Google search box
Recently created pages will not appear when searching using the Google search box because Google needs time to find and index new pages. Additionally, it is impossible to restrict your search to particular namespaces like you can with the wiki search.
"Go" versus "Search""Go" versus "Search"
In the wiki search box, using the button "Go" will take you directly to a page whose title exactly matches your search query, if it exists. Using the button "Search" will instead perform a search using your search query and take you to a page displaying the results.
More powerful searchingMore powerful searching
Searching in Proteopedia works in the same way as does searching in Wikipedia, with the addition of some special operators to enhance "full text search".
| * | The asterisk serves as the truncation (or wildcard) operator. |
| + | A leading plus sign indicates that this word must be present in every page returned. |
| - | A leading minus sign indicates that this word must not be present in any page returned. |
| " | Double quotes at the beginning and end of a phrase, matches only pages that contain the complete phrase, as it was typed. |
| By default (when neither + nor - is specified) the word is optional, but the pages that contain it are rated higher. |
NamespacesNamespaces
Namespaces include pages in subcategories labeled Proteopedia:, Help:, User:, and so forth. To see all the pages within a namespace, go to Proteopedia:Namespaces.
Additional informationAdditional information
For additional information, please see:
- Wikipedia: Look It Up. A quick overview.
- Wikipedia: Searching. A detailed explanation.