John Paul Jones name search does not work

Question

I changed the LNAB for Captain John Paul Jones (1747 - 1792) (father of the US Navy)  to his actual LNAB (Paul), leaving the current last name as 'Jones'. Prior to the change I could search for 'John Paul Jones' and get the correct result. After the change, no results, searching for either 'John Paul' or 'John Paul Jones'.

Comments

Has anyone looked into this search problem?  I have been waiting to hear something hoping that this would get a look from tech.

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Found another one that doesn't work. King James I of Scotland. Search for James Stewart 1394-1437 and Stewart-419 is not returned. I had to locate him through his father.

This question is NOT ANSWERED (why the name search does not work), but I can't figure out how to mark the 'answers' as non-answers.

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The only thing I can think of is to re-ask the question with a link to this line of discussion. Maybe that will get someone to look at this.

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Found another one that doesn't work. Robert Baden-Powell 1857-1941. He had a hyphenated last name. Searching for Robert Baden and Robert Powell works, however searching on Robert Baden-Powell does not.

Answer 1

I got 96 results for "John Paul" including one "John (Paul) Jones" and "Captain John Paul".  What is the Wiki ID of yours?

Comments

Included in the question above ('WikiTree profile: '): http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Paul-2245.

I tried first 'John Paul' last 'Jones', no dates, skip matches without dates: no results.

first 'John Paul' last 'Jones', 1747 - 1792 +- 30 years, skip matches without dates: 3 results but none are Paul-2245. This is clearly wrong.

first 'John' last 'Jones', 1747 - 1792 +- 30 years, skip matches without dates: 3 results but none are Paul-2245. This is clearly wrong.

first 'John' last 'Paul', no dates, skip matches without dates: no results.

first 'John' last 'Paul', 1747 - 1792 +- 30 years, skip matches without dates: 2 results, with Paul-2245.

first 'Paul' last 'Jones', 1747 - 1792 +- 30 years, skip matches without dates: 1 result, with Paul-2245.

His current last name is 'Jones', middle name 'Paul', preferred name 'John Paul'. Also seems like it should search for names with dates even when none are given, but that's a separate issue than the incorrect searrch results.

Answer 2

First of all, I'm sure you are aware, but I have to say it anyway, this profile is Project Protected and all changes are supposed to be discussed with the project members before being made. These changes have been collaborated and approved right?
Next, you say you changed the LNAB to Paul which is apparent by the Wiki ID...but you were searching, you said, "I tried first 'John Paul' last 'Jones',"which it is not. If you look at the search filters the last name field is labeled "last name at birth", so the the only last name that should reliably give you results is Paul.
Now you also set the middle name as Paul. This field can be searched as a secondary option as "First Name"...I haven't tried it...but you should get reliable results on first name 'Paul' LNAB 'Paul'. The other 2 possibilities for first name are 'John' or 'John Paul'....but only with last name Paul.

Finally you could search and get results by using 'Jones' if and only if the first name is Paul. This is throwing out the first, middle, and last name fields from the search and using the "preferred name" instead. In this case first name 'Paul' and last name 'Jones'.

It's a known weak search engine...so you just have to remember it's processing basic algorithms and nothing more. You have to tell it what it's looking for in the language it understands. It won't interpret. In other words, to quote one of the best IT techs I know, "It's a computer...it has nothing to do with logic."
If you want better results with more intuition, I'd recomend Google...it has indexed WikiTree pretty well.
-P Rich

Comments

Yes it was collaborated. No one can dispute his LNAB was 'Paul', there are many historical sources which document that, it was simply entered incorrectly (by his common name) by the original creator, and my help was requested by the owners because it was project protected.

Despite being a weak search engine, I still expect searches on current last name ('Jones') and first name 'John' to work correctly. They work in every other search I use, it's just something funny about this specific profile.

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I am one of the profile managers and yes this has been a collaboration with other managers.  This has been a problem from early on.  Like Bob said it was created incorrectly from the beginning and Gene Adkins adopted the profile and did a great job by adding a biography and sources. I origionally created a profile under Paull for John Paul Jones, as he is in my family tree, and I found no other profiles. Later I discovered that his LNAB was Paul vise Paull so I did a search for Paul and found the profile listed under Jones.  I then had a discussion with Gene and at first he didn't think it could be changed because it was ppp.  I noticed that there were other messages on the profile that suggested it should be changed from Jones to Paul.  I agreed and I explained to Gene that by wikitree standards that the profile should be Paul and that we would have to get the ppp removed temporarly, change the profile to reflect the LNAB and then return it to ppp status. He agreed so I contacted Bob Fields who assited by making the appropriate corrections.  Now, like Bob explains, when a search is done under Jones or Paul this profile does't come up in the initial search, however if you do a search using dates it does.  I am wondering if maybe it s because there are so many John Jones and John Pauls.  What I was wondering is if there is a way to add a priority tag to notable profiles so that they appear first when doing a search?  I think this would eliminate problems in the future and help reduce the amount of duplicate profiles created for notables.

Answer 3

To help improve search features, would it be feasible to add a google search box tagged to "site: WikiTree.com" so that a name can be searched via Google 's search engine easily? This same Box would be very handy for searching profiles containing a specific phrase or place...
Just an FYI, if you search "site: WikiTree.com John Paul Jones", Paul-2245 is the first hit on the list.
-P Rich

Answer 4

https://www.geni.com/people/Capt-John-Paul-Jones/6000000012773558024  I am not sure what you are looking for, but I find this site helpful and it does have information on Captain John Paul Jones.  Hope this helps.