Search Requests

Doug Noernberg

Mark, I now you will be developing the search features more soon. I would like to ensure the following are on the list of search developments:

1) Search including Titles & Descriptions
2) Search by Year of Issue (or other fields you now allow us to populate)
3) Custom search categories
4) How about a "tag cloud" for within a given store
5) In the Catalogue, you can bring up a single country and single stamp by catalogue number, but not a range of stamp catalogue numbers. Any thoughts to including a range? Either that, or when you search by catalogue number, it takes you to that "page" and you see the others around it that you can continue to navigate from (not just the one you searched for). It's difficult to "jump around" catalogue as it is today.

Mark Rosenberg

1) I'm curious to know how many people want this feature / what the intention is. Primarily because it takes more resources (hence money) to do this. I'm not opposed to it - just want to understand the demand better.

2) I believe you can already do this - we're just not auto-populating this information yet - but we're working on it.

3) Planning on getting to this in the future, but haven't made it a priority yet because of the more extensive categories / sub-categories and filters we have.

4) Will look into this further.

5) Definitely looking to include ranges in the future.

Doug Noernberg

I thought number 1 was used when the description listed more info than could be fit in the title. Such as stamps engraved by Slania... or if someone uses keywords in their listings, as I do. For instance, if a stamp has elephants depicted, but is not the central topic of the stamp (so it may not be noted in the description), then I would note "elephant" in my description keywords. I would also use the topicals, but that only goes to animals::mammals, so cats, dogs, whales, chinchillas, ferrets, etc. would all have to be sorted through to find the elephants. I guess another way around this would be to create another field for each listing called "tags" or "keywords", then you can search just those and not the whole listing description. You might also be able to use it for that tag cloud I mentioned above.

Mark Rosenberg

Tags, particularly for search, is currently on the list - but it's not a top priority at the moment. However, it would provide many different applications (including search, consignors, etc.)

Thomas Keesling

With very few exceptions, I listed stamps at BS with two categories in an effort to address what Doug is presenting as a search limitation. I've had no feedback and have no idea if that procedure was helpful or not. I have also mentioned specific topics such as elephants in my descriptions, hoping that it helps collectors more easily find the stamps they're looking for. Again, no feedback. So I don't know how useful that extra effort has been.

If nothing else, being able to search descriptions would help overcome some of the shortcomings of the topics list. E.g., explorers generally and names such as Columbus, Cook, Prince Henry, da Gama, Caillie and others that show up frequently on the stamps I collected.

A related question: Given the longer titles we have available at HS, and the ability to separate out the country, cat #, year, etc., what information is appropriate for the title? If I'm taking full advantage in new listings of those separate pieces of data, what is the best way to use the title? at present, in new listings, I'm duplicating all of the info in those now separate pieces of data. What's the value in doing that? Since I'm not a buyer and not using the search tool, I'm in the dark here. What's the best way to maximize the value of the title given the new environment we've got? Does a change in the way we use the title begin to address some of the issues Doug raises?

Doug Noernberg

Bump - requesting those who want to see #1 implemented to "vote" for it by hitting the thumbs-up button (having option to search Titles & Descriptions).

Robert Parkin

I also used keywords on bidStart to create seller defined categories which is another feature we seem to have lost from bidStart.

Phil Atarium

Indeed, Bob. I used those quite a bit to create specialized searches for sub-categories of Japanese items.

James Tinkoff

I have a problem with using the search feature as:
1. Select Category, - US
2. select Sub cat - US
3. Select type - General Issue
4. Select - Mint Never Hinghed
5. Select format - single
6. Then select - sort by country / cat
results include all sorts of "junk" that I would not expect - and the outpput is not ordered

Robert Parkin

I'm sure this has been mentioned before but it looks like keywords in the Titles are not even searchable. I have a few items with the term Hawaii in the title (US 647-648 and US 4287 & US 2080). None of these come up when I search by Hawaii, only the 4 stamps that I have categorized as Hawaii come up.

I guess I have to take that back... Although for some reason Hawaii does not return what I'm looking for, I tried to find all the Doris Gold Cachets and that search seemed to work.

Paul Molloy

I've had mixed results trying to search China 1880-1944, sorted by catalog #.

https://www.hipstamp.com/category/china/85/?item_specifics_07_year_of_issue[from]=1880&item_specifics_07_year_of_issue[to]=1944&category_slug=china&country=2084&sort=catalog

The wrong year date has populated a detail page field. Not an uncommon occurrence.
https://www.hipstamp.com/listing/china-prc-78-mng-cv-030/606922
GIGO

Paul Molloy

I am seeing 1897 as a year in many of the above search results when they are PRC. Coincidence.... or bug ...or?

Samuel Kelly

Search Year and Country.
example: 1997 Papua New Guinea
If a seller does not have this info in the heading for a particular issue for 1997, madness.
Sam

Paul Molloy

Philatelic madness? We can't have that! Perhaps if a null was in that field if their was no entry, and then all items with no year of issue entry could be filtered out of searches that have date ranges....

Samuel Kelly

Use the Title, it's the URL of your listing.
Sam