Template talk:Search for

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Search for template.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Missing search engines

Several search engines and publications cannot or need not be added here, for various reasons. This is a list of the ones found so far.

For the following, searches are POST requests and are encoded into form data, not into the request URLs:
- Nexis
- The Hindu (search form)
- The Times of India (search form)
For the following, how to search is hidden behind a membership wall:
- Literature Online (database of the MLA) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle G (talk • contribs), 17:11, 14 December 2010‎ (UTC)[reply]

Empty argument bug

@Uncle G, Northamerica1000, Elegie, Billinghurst, Primefac, WOSlinker, and SMcCandlish:

User:Władysław Komorek/Link includes the markup {{Search for|}}, which expands to

[[Wikipedia:Advanced source searching|Advanced search]] for: <br>"''''"

causing a missing end tag for bold. Will someone please handle this empty argument error case better?

Similar problem exists at {{Search for expanded}}. —Anomalocaris (talk) 18:40, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Template talk:PD-old-text#Empty title bug. This template is simply broken if this parameter is empty, so it should throw a visible error in such a case. Barring objections, I'll implement the same fix here that I have sandboxed over there (demo). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Happy for you to just fix it. If we need to improve it, then suggestions are always welcome. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:13, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish: Thank you for your work here and at Template:PD-old-text!

SMcCandlish: It's been 25 days and nobody has objected, so I think it's safe for you to implement the fix you demonstrated here and at Template:PD-old-text. —Anomalocaris (talk) 23:24, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Done. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:35, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me after the fact that using the BASEPAGENAME might be reasonable as a default, though something would need to be done in Lua to remove parenthetical disambiguators, I guess. Even without that, it might be reasonable as a default, instead of the current "search term missing" error message. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:37, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Set up in Template:Search for/sandbox, tested at Template:Search for/testcases. PS: There may already be a Lua module that strips out parenthetic disambiguators; I have not looked around for one. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:52, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You're looking for {{PAGENAMEBASE}} * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:46, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes! Implemented in the sandbox. I think this would be useful enough, with a /doc instruction to use |1= any time you need to retain a parenthetical in a title (like lots of song titles have). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 14:50, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Add scholar.archive.org

archive.org recently announced a search engine for scholarly content. Do folks think it is worth adding? RayScript (talk) 04:53, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Orthogonal to VP RfC; Searx

Since this template is a long-form one that allows more space than the compact one at {{find sources}}, I'm assuming that we can edit here orthogonally to the ongoing RfC about Find general sources.

I added four Searx instances to the generic section, using numbers to avoid advocating any particular one. One general list of Searx instances is at https://searx.space. Boud (talk) 20:34, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And I added Startpage.com alongside Bing and DuckDuckGo. Boud (talk) 20:41, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Symbol to indicate respect (or disrespect) for privacy

In the spirit of this suggestion by Stuartyeates, we could do something that is done on some navboxes, which is to put a symbol such as * or dagger†, against some links to give the user extra information. In this case, we would put the symbol either next to all those search links that violate privacy, or next to all those that respect privacy. Obviously, some may be in between, which would have to be debated. The engines' and metasearch engines' Wikipedia entries give us some RSed information about respect or disrespect for privacy by the various engines and metasearch engines. In the case of Searx, we have a lot more fine-grained information at https://searx.space about the privacy/software parameters of those particular instances.

Then the question would be how to write the footnote explaining what the symbol means in a compact way to avoid making the whole box too big. Boud (talk) 20:52, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How widely used is this template?

Here's a breakdown of the 'what links here' list:

Wikipedia:Overreliance upon Google ‎ (links | edit)
Wikipedia:Advanced source searching (transclusion) ‎ (links | edit)
Wikipedia:Link rot/Templates
Template:Google templates ‎ (links | edit)
not to be used in articles - how widely used is it?

There are no permanent links to 'Search for horizontal' and 'Search for expanded': Superb Owl (talk) 22:57, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed resources to remove

There are a number of defunct resources (Questia, News Limited, Fairfax Media, Highbeam, Microsoft Academic, Gigablast) and Yandex seems unlikely to be reliable along with most if not all Russian media. UPDATE: I removed these here and at Template:Search for expanded and Template:Search for horizontal Superb Owl (talk) 21:59, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]