RE: *** ADMIN: Search engine adjustments

A bit off topic, but ....

As I look towards retirement, I look back at those that have helped me along the way. One of those tools that I used on a regular basis was this forum.

Though I never posted a lot, I read these on a regular basis. There were so many times I'd go back to coworkers with a 'Did you know??' or 'This could be our problem' based on things I've learned here. I am sure there are many more like me that utilized this system on a regular basis, that have never posted. He may never know the extent to which he has assisted so many of us throughout the years.

We as a community owe so much to David for all the years he's maintained this forum for us.

Just a reminder that David is a part of an affiliation program with Amazon. Use this URL: https://amazon.midrange.com for your Amazon purchases to help offset his costs.

Thank you David!

Ken Meade


-----Original Message-----
From: David Gibbs via MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 3, 2026 11:32 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: *** ADMIN: Search engine adjustments

Folks:

Just a FYI … I’ve made some adjustments to the search engine configuration.

1. I disabled typo tolerance. I found that it was getting hits on words that just don’t make sense. For example: I searched for “sonar” and it was matching on “solar”.
2. I added a lot of terms to the dictionary and synonym list.
2.1 Terms like S/36, System/36, & S36, will all match for the same search term.
2.2 Searching for “7.3” and “V7R3” will match the same.
2.3 Related to 2.2, I added mappings for all releases (1.1 to 7.6).
3. I also added a number of ’stop words’ (words that will be ignored by the search engine) to avoid unnecessary matching on common words.
4. All administrative messages (like this one), and replies, will be excluded.

If you encounter any problems with the search engine, or have suggestions, please contact me PRIVATELY (david@xxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>).

david