Bug: Search for Fewer Than Four Characters

Scoutbook Using Scoutbook & Scoutbook Plus
1

The June 22 Scoutbook update describes a search change that is a showstopper in my view. I’ve been a search engineer for 25+ years, working at Infoseek, Verity, Netflix, Chegg, and Lexis/Nexis.

  • An issue that required Merit Badge Counselor (MBC) search by name to require both an e-mail and Scouting America Member ID (MID) has been fixed. Search requires First Name (min 4 characters), and Last Name (min 4 characters), plus e-mail address or MID.

Limiting search to 4 characters means it is impossible to search for “Ian Ng”. Also: Al, Jo, Tim, Tom, Ken, Joe, Ben, and so on. This is a showstopper bug.

People unfamiliar with search sometimes think that short searches are expensive in compute time, but the the opposite is true. Search engines cache results for queries. There are only 26 possible one-character searches. All will be cached in a few minutes after an index update and will be returned in a few milliseconds from cache. The same is true for any short sequence.

Fix this.

Also, I’m happy to consult (for free) on search challenges on any of Scouting’s sites. My experience is here: Walter Underwood - Palo Alto, California, United States | Professional Profile | LinkedIn

2

@WalterUnderwood

What I have been told is this is not a performance issue. I will ask again to have the minimum number of characters reduced.

3

That is great news. I’ve had to fix this “improvement” three times at two different companies, so it is not unexpected.

Again, glad to talk with folks about search. You can browse this category on my blog to get a sense of my experience.

4

I had a chemistry professor at school that I always said had one of the shortest names possible - Ye Lu.