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OT: How do you search newsgroups? I'm finding that the dejanews archive is
not available anymore from google groups. If I'm wrong about this I'd be
really happy to be corrected, and a recent sample of a working google
search expression for usenet would be very useful.
"Paul" ...[color=blue]
> OT: How do you search newsgroups? I'm finding that the dejanews archive is
> not available anymore from google groups. If I'm wrong about this I'd be
> really happy to be corrected, and a recent sample of a working google
> search expression for usenet would be very useful.[/color]
I've never heard of anything to age out old threads, so I think you should
be able to find them.
The articles should be around but they are indexed differently. If you have
the message-id from DejaNews you have a pretty good chance of getting the
article. Originally dejanews had intended to index every single text newsgroup
even going back in time from before Deja started. A lot less coverage for alt
which they covered quite a few of. They ran into major problems and messed
things up for a couple of years, Google took over the database and probably
things still messed up for another year after that. But if you have exact
content from a post, exact subject, date, newsgroup , author you would have
a very good chance of finding the thread easily.
More information:
[url]http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xlnews.htm[/url]
--
HTH,
David McRitchie, extensions I use are briefly documented on my site
Firefox Custom: [url]http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/firefox.htm[/url]
On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:12:48 -0700
Paul <user@domain.invalid> wrote:
[color=blue]
> OT: How do you search newsgroups? I'm finding that the dejanews
> archive is not available anymore from google groups. If I'm wrong
> about this I'd be really happy to be corrected, and a recent sample
> of a working google search expression for usenet would be very useful.[/color]
The Google Groups archive is still there, and some searching is still
possible. They've broken a lot of it, such as searching by
Message-ID, sorting by date after submitting the search, &c. Sometimes
searches work ok, sometimes not.
<http://groups.google.com/advanced_search>
If you get no search results, look for the radio buttons at the top of
the search results page. There's one for "all groups" and one for
"Google Groups" -- select the one for "all groups" and resubmit the
search. Even if it was already selected, hitting the search button
again sometimes works.
Since this isn't a Firefox issue, I've set follow-ups to the
mozilla.general group.
On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:12:48 -0700
Paul <user@domain.invalid> wrote:
[color=blue]
> OT: How do you search newsgroups? I'm finding that the dejanews
> archive is not available anymore from google groups. If I'm wrong
> about this I'd be really happy to be corrected, and a recent sample
> of a working google search expression for usenet would be very useful.[/color]
The Google Groups archive is still there, and some searching is still
possible. They've broken a lot of it, such as searching by
Message-ID, sorting by date after submitting the search, &c. Sometimes
searches work ok, sometimes not.
<http://groups.google.com/advanced_search>
If you get no search results, look for the radio buttons at the top of
the search results page. There's one for "all groups" and one for
"Google Groups" -- select the one for "all groups" and resubmit the
search. Even if it was already selected, hitting the search button
again sometimes works.
Since this isn't a Firefox issue, I've set follow-ups to the
mozilla.general group.
"Paul" <user@domain.invalid> wrote in message
news:zeydneO5OtSftovUnZ2dnUVZ_tfinZ2d@mozilla.org...[color=blue]
> OT: How do you search newsgroups? I'm finding that the dejanews archive is
> not available anymore from google groups. If I'm wrong about this I'd be
> really happy to be corrected, and a recent sample of a working google
> search expression for usenet would be very useful.[/color]
Yoiks! It must be a conspiracy since Comcast eliminated their Giganews
access a couple of weeks ago.
I just tried the advanced search (same link provided by >Q< ) and couldn't
get **any** responses. I started out restricting to old posts on specific
newsgroups, but eventually just searched for "firefox" in any group at any
time. Nada.
I do notice the form on the advanced search page has changed. It now seems
to be intended to include both groups and general web pages.
AHA! The following is clunky, but seems to regain the old functionality:
To find, say, references to 'rustywire' within the group 'alt.native',
1) Go to the advanced search page
[url]http://groups.google.com/advanced_search[/url]
2) fill in the usual search conditions, in this case "all these words" and
"groups" lower down, as you would have previously. I also decided to
restrict to 1 Jan 2005 to 1 Jan 2008.
Now here's the tricky part:
3) under "Need more tools?" the line that has two options, "Search within
a site or domain" and "Google Groups", select "Google Groups". It seems
that if you don't select one or the other, it doesn't actually search.
4) execute the search with CR or the "Advanced Search" button
5) this results in no matches. But look up at the top, and you'll notice
that there is a choice to search "all groups" or "Google Groups", and Google
Groups has been pre-selected for you.
6) Select "all groups" instead, and click the search button. NOW you get
your results.
[In this case, exactly one. I could swear I did this a little while ago and
got more.]
There really should be a third option, "all groups," on the Advanced Search
page.
Or there should just be a groups vs. webpage choice, with 'groups' including
both Google and old-style groups.
OTOH, all is not rosy at Dejanews. I've noticed increasing flakiness, not
getting what I'm looking for and getting lots of results that don't seem to
fit the search criteria (e.g. in groups not specified). E.g., I just did a
search in alt.native with "Return only messages where the subject contains"
"Shiprock", and got a whole mess of posts, all but one of which had
"Shiprock" in the body of the post, not the subject line. Here is the
search string Google generated:
group:alt.native insubject:Shiprock
"Paul"[color=blue][color=green]
>> not available anymore from google groups. If I'm wrong about this I'd be
>> really happy to be corrected, and a recent sample of a working google
>> search expression for usenet would be very useful.[/color][/color]
I guess I misread this, as it actually appears to have nothing to do with
DejaNews but how to use the search engines. DejaNews is no more
gone for several years you should be calling it Google Groups search
especially since the other newsgroup search engines are gone.
The last reply pointed you to the Groups Advanced Search
which is what you should be using. If you know the group(s) you want
you should limit with the site. Get very familiar with the Advanced
Search, then you can use the simple search bar easier in Firefox by
including search keywords, or even better create your own Firefox
keyword shortcuts with the search arguments you would be using
then you simply add in specific search arguments to search within
say this newsgroup.
More information
[url]http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/search.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/kws.htm[/url]
you can use the following in a sidebar to remind you of options
[url]http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/google_cheatsheet.htm[/url]
--
HTH,
David McRitchie, extensions I use are briefly documented on my site
Firefox Custom: [url]http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/firefox.htm[/url]
ggull wrote:[color=blue]
> OTOH, all is not rosy at Dejanews. I've noticed increasing flakiness, not[/color]
How can things be rosy *or* not-rosy in a place that no longer exists?
Yes, I was around when it did.
--
Blinky
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: [url]http://improve-usenet.org[/url]
Need a new news feed? [url]http://blinkynet.net/comp/newfeed.html[/url]
"Blinky the Shark" wrote ..[color=blue]
> ggull wrote:[color=green]
>> OTOH, all is not rosy at Dejanews. I've noticed increasing flakiness,
>> not[/color]
>
> How can things be rosy *or* not-rosy in a place that no longer exists?
>
> Yes, I was around when it did.[/color]
Well, you can still put dejanews.com in your browser addie bar :-).
Unfortunately it now takes you to the main Google Groups page.
I seem to recall at some point it took you to the advanced search page.
"David McRitchie" wrote ...[color=blue]
> "Paul"[color=green][color=darkred]
>>> not available anymore from google groups. If I'm wrong about this I'd be
>>> really happy to be corrected, and a recent sample of a working google
>>> search expression for usenet would be very useful.[/color][/color]
>
> I guess I misread this, as it actually appears to have nothing to do with
> DejaNews but how to use the search engines. DejaNews is no more
> gone for several years you should be calling it Google Groups search
> especially since the other newsgroup search engines are gone.[/color]
Yes, we realize Dejanews per se is long gone. Since he did refer to "from
google groups," I understood the OP to be referring to the way that the
newly revised and "improved" advanced search makes it hard, and definitely
non-obvious, to search in the non-Google-Groups groups. At first glance it
looks like those groups just aren't there, since what worked before now
comes back with "no matches". Even though it looks a lot like the old
version of a week or two ago (I don't use it often enough to know just when
it changed), it functions very differently, as I pointed out in my post.
Maybe it isn't the exact precise terminology, but by the "dejanews archive"
I take it he was referring to posts on groups other than those officially
designated "Google" groups. Groups like mozilla.support.firefox, for
instance.
FLASH -- this does seem to have been fixed. The very searches I did
yesterday now result in finding results from all groups without the need
for the klugey procedure I had to use then. The "Google Groups" option now
seems to include all newsgroups. Indeed, on the search results page, the
choices "all groups" and "Google Groups" right below the search expression
seem to have the same effect. This is definitely different from just a day
ago, when if you toggled back and forth, your results would appear and
vanish.
Trying to use the Google Groups search, it gives me groups called
"Xhfowmj" or some other gibberish.
On Nov 15, 11:09*am, pnumminen <p.nummi...@suomi24.fi> wrote:[color=blue]
> Trying to use the Google Groups search, it gives me groups called
> "Xhfowmj" or some other gibberish.[/color]
I wish Google Groups would die die die. Someone else needs to come up
with a search engine that excludes Google Groups. They could be
eating Google's lunch.