Classic search is back!!
 

This is Kevin Hayes, project manager over at Internet Brands. Thanks to everyone for participating in our ibSearch beta program. You're feedback has been very helpful as we work towards creating the best possible forum search. We've gone ahead and turned the old search back on for now as we work to incorporate the features the community has requested.

The beta search is still available at the bottom of the "advanced search" page. Please feel free to continue to use the new search and give us your feedback.

Thanks!

Kevin, I think the primary "features" the community has requested is that Search be reliable and usable! As you've been able to tell, nobody cares about 3-letter search if it comes at the cost of removing other features we've come to rely on over the last few years, as well as lost reliability (since many people reported zero results, irrelevant results, or totally ignored search criteria).

We're all in favor of true enhancements to the Search feature, but not if it means that Search suddenly becomes unusable.

This is a good idea and IMHO is how the beta should have been tested in the first place - by making it available via link, not by replacing the existing, working search.

I strongly recommend that if you wish to make future beta tests, please encourage people to use a linked beta without replacing or disabling the existing search feature. In other words, keep the working version available as people test the beta, and don't replace the working version with the beta until the beta has been completely tested, debugged, and accepted by the community. This is the way beta-testing is done at all other companies where the working version is mission-critical and where rolling out a buggy beta would be disastrous. I think FT should follow that model as well. I think we would all appreciate that.