Unreliable search box when looking for users on meta

Question

This is a minor issue but a bit annoying: The list of users page on meta was recently modified.

Since that change was effectuated, the search option's behavior is somewhat erratic:

While users Rajesh D and Michael Lugo do have meta accounts, the search field here is unable to find them:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

but sometimes it does find something:

Exhibit C

This is probably not intended behavior and it would be nice to fix that.

While I'm at it: would it be possible to allow the display on the users page sorted by total reputation again? — t.b., Apr 18, 2012 at 8:14

Sam Saffron · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-02 01:22:50Z

3

The participation tab only included users that were active in the last 60 days.

Michael stopped participating on meta a while back so is no longer included in the list.

I just amended it so it includes all users, but the participating ones show up first.

answered May 1, 2012 at 23:53

Sam Saffron

1016 bronze badges

3

$\begingroup$ Yes, but this does not address my complaint: If I look for a user name then I want to find that user no matter what the circumstances are and in particular I don't care much whether that user participated in the last 60 days or not. The default search should look for all users, not some group that is automatically selected for me whether I want that or not. There's no way I can convince the search to find Rajesh D for me and this behavior is highly inconvenient. $\endgroup$
– t.b.
May 1, 2012 at 23:59
$\begingroup$ I follow, I will see if I can add all the "non participating" users at the bottom $\endgroup$
– Sam Saffron
May 2, 2012 at 0:07
$\begingroup$ Great, thanks in advance for trying! $\endgroup$
– t.b.
May 2, 2012 at 0:08
$\begingroup$ @Sam I agree with t.b. I too was puzzled why the search seemed to behave so strangely. If it can't be changed, then at least it would be helpful to state prominently on the search page that it only searches users active in the last nn days, so that users are not misled about the scope of the search results. $\endgroup$
– Bill Dubuque
May 2, 2012 at 0:29
$\begingroup$ yes ... just fixed it @BillDubuque $\endgroup$
– Sam Saffron
May 2, 2012 at 1:22

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