Last modified: 2005-07-19 17:41:50 UTC
I use Firefox, which you may know has a search engine field that can be tuned to en.wikipedia.org. Often, it fails to find very simple searches with results that should have been obvious. Here's an example. Try the word "assisi", without the quotes. You get a search results page with the message "Sorry, there were no exact matches to your query." The word "assisi" is now in a field in the middle of that page with a 'search' button at the end of it. Hit it once. Usually you will still get "Sorry, there were no exact matches to your query." Now doubleclick the 'search' button. Depending on the frequency or whatever, you may either at this point get a list of topics, or a new search page with two search fields, one for Google and one for Yahoo, with radio buttons that allow you to search just wikipedia or the whole web. Of course, both results put an article titled "Assisi" at the top of the list. What I'de like to know is why all the runaround? If I end up having to use Google to search wiki pages anyway, why do you even bother with your own search engine which doesn't seem to work? Sorry if this has been posted to the wrong place, but this is what you put under 'Contact Us'. KWG
When there's a failure connecting to the search server, the alternate form with external search engines gets shown. We had a problem in recent days with the search server hitting an open files limit due to improperly closed connections; when this happened, that server would start failing connections -- but another search server might be working still so a reload might hit the working one. I've got this connections issue resolved now, so it shouldn't be happening anymore.
