False information on the internet is hiding the truth about onions

Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by Declanomous on Thursday March 16, 2017 @05:22PM (#13889321)

I really hate how google will show every possible copy of a newswire article before it shows local sources, etc. I've had slightly better luck with DuckDuckGo on that front, but I always feel like there is a happy medium between Google's ridiculously "context-aware"* algorithm, and DuckDuckGo's "context-agnostic"* algorithm.

What's really annoying is that if you use Google trends, it will let you know the context of what you are looking for, and you can clarify. I really hate it when I'm trying to look for something on Google, and I know it's just using the wrong interpretation of a word.

Easy example: I do a fair amount of scripting in VBA. I often want to look up documentation for things in VBA. If I use VBA in my search term, I will get a bunch of 15 year old pages on Excel tips and tricks. If I search VBA MSDN, I will get a bunch of pages on VB.net or VB6. I specifically have to use VBA MSDN OFFICE ACCESS in order to get the correct results. DuckDuckGo does not have this problem, but I use date filtering a lot, where DDG falls apart.

Search engines aside, it's ridiculous that Microsoft allowed this situation to happen in the first place.

*I'm not sure if either of those terms is remotely accurate, but they seem to articulate what I'm trying to say.

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by keltor on Thursday March 16, 2017 @06:55PM (#13889906)

Every couple of years they seem to wipe out all these kinds of things, so you don't get them, then companies come up with new ways of writing their pages so that they all show up again.

Remember when we had all those spammy answer sites that dominated Google searches for almost any technical question?

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by MereInterest on Thursday March 16, 2017 @10:16PM (#13890835)

There's still a few of those that pop up. If I am looking for an obscure error message, it might be listed in a single stackoverflow post, but then that question and answer will be repeated in 3-5 copy-cat sites, each having copied the question and answer.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by wmil on Thursday March 16, 2017 @08:24PM (#13890354)

I'll never forget www.expertsexchange.com. Because that isn't a job for an amature.

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by paulddraper on Thursday March 16, 2017 @09:09PM (#13890534)

Um, NSFW?

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by wmil on Thursday March 16, 2017 @09:37PM (#13890664)

It was the original domain for experts-exchange.com. Changed for obvious reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experts-Exchange

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by tomcam on Sunday March 19, 2017 @10:30PM (#13911276)

A possible solution for your particular problem is to use the site operator, e.g.

    vba sort array site:msdn.com

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by kevin_thibedeau on Thursday March 16, 2017 @11:18PM (#13891137)

99% of VBA is used in Excel. The others are just an aberration as far as the indexers are concerned.

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by Declanomous on Thursday March 16, 2017 @11:47PM (#13891297)

I understand, and to be fair, half the reason this frustrates me is because I wish I could be using literally any other language. Regardless, I'm often looking up classes that a) don't exist in Excel, and b) don't exist in the version of VBA used in the linked page. It's extremely confusing to click on a link and not having a single reference to the class you are trying to look up.

Furthermore, VBA <> VB. I wish I could just tell Google to stop showing me answers for VB6. It would be fantastic if I could use VB. My problems would basically solve themselves, but I'm not using VB, I'm using VBA.

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by aspenmayer on Friday March 17, 2017 @02:54AM (#13892086)

Have you tried adding '-VB6' to your search queries? It will filter out those results.

https://bynd.com/news-ideas/google-advanced-search-comprehen...

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by DanBC on Friday March 17, 2017 @06:57AM (#13892994)

That'll also filter out eg "This is only used in VBA, it's not used in VB6".

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Re:False information on the internet is hiding the truth abo... by JimmyM on Friday March 17, 2017 @08:42AM (#13893488)

Maybe:

> VBA AROUND(20) VB6 | vba -vb6

would work?

[ Parent | on HN ]