Editing bocpages:Searching - bocpages

==Searching bocwiki==
*A basic search is performed by entering the relevant term(s) in the search box.
**This is at the left of the screen when using the [[Help:User preferences#Skin|default skin]].
**Clicking '''Go''' (or '''Enter''' on the keyboard) will automatically take you to the article, if it exists.
**Clicking '''Search''' will return a list of articles that match the terms you enter.

==Effective searching==
Some hints that will help you use the bocwiki search feature effectively:

===Limiting results===
bocwiki's default search will return articles with any of the words in your query. 
*For example, '''mike cs80''' returns results containing '''mike''' but not '''cs80''', and also '''cs80''' but not '''mike''' - in addition to the results that you probably wanted; those which contained both words.
*To only return results including both words, add a '''+''' to the start of each word: '''+mike +cs80''' returns only pages containing both terms.
*To be even more specific, you can enclose the terms within quotes: "'''mike cs80'''" turns up a smaller set of results, which not only have both words but have them in order (mike has probably used a yamaha cs80).
*To exclude terms, add a '''-''' before them; '''-cs80 mike''' returns results containing '''mike''', but ''not'' '''cs80'''.
* Performing a boolean search, google-style, is also possible; "AND", "OR", and "NOT" are the permitted Boolean terms. 

===Avoid short or common words===
*Obviously, searching solely for '''the''' or '''and''' is going to return a ''lot'' of results. 
*'''Avoiding connectives''' is a good rule of thumb; '''mike and the cs80''' is far more confusing to the search engine than '''mike cs80'''.

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