Recently active ideas in Get Satisfaction tagged with search

I'd like to be able to search through all posts, unrelated to thread topics.

As far as I can tell, the search feature only searches through the text and tags in a thread topic. Is there more search options that I'm not aware of? I'd like to be able to search through all replies and comments for a particular product.

Can you add more search options?
--------
* search through all posts authored by a particular person
(Example: It would be wonderful to be able to search for a reply that I made months ago.)
* search through all posts in a set of threads
(This might be easier to implement than full search through all posts, below.)
(i.e. search through all threads that a particular person has participated in , or is following)
(Example: search for a post in some thread that I know I've participated in.)
* search through all posts (well, all posts for that company or product)

I'd like to find replies that I've read once, but forgot where they are. It's so frustrating to not be able to find it again because I've forgotten which topic it was in reply to. The reply might only be marginally related to the topic of the thread the reply is in. It might be the best response in the world, but if it was at all off-topic then I'll never be able to find it again. Quite often, interesting posts address a broader idea than the topic does, an idea the thread creator didn't consider. So the topic might not have many keywords in common with what the reply addressed. And what keyword it does have is shared among 30 other threads.

I'd like to refer back to these replies, and point others to them, but I have a real hard time finding them again. Even if I remember the topic of the thread the reply is in, I still have to manually search through several threads with similar topics to find the particular reply I'm looking for.

Some people are known for giving good advise, I'd like to be able to search for anything they said about a particular idea. Right now, I'm forced to go to their profile page and manually search through every "page" of replies that they've posted. (maybe 12 or 20 or 40 pages) Isn't there an easier way to do this? (I also have to do this for replies that "I've* written previously. I don't remember what thread they were in.)

Another option is to "tag" these replies, mark them as useful. I know that this option already exists, but there seems to be a problem. It's unclear what to do when the reply doesn't fit with the type of "tag" that's available. The useful reply may be very interesting, but it doesn't necessarily "answer the question", or "solve the problem". Instead it might tell you who to ask or where to look or other options for getting more information on the question, or a workaround to the problem.

Can you add more search options to the drop down box? (Along with "recent activity", "most popular", "latest activity", and "unanswered".) Also, how am I supposed to reverse the sort order of the current search options? (How can I have the search for "most popular" be in reverse order, so it would really be "least popular"?)

More search options
----
2.1. "unpopular" (i.e. "not popular", "0 popularity") - topic and all replies are authored by a single person. (1 person participating) This is the kind of the reverse sort order from "most popular", except that this search limits the results to threads with 1 person participating.
2.2. "no company involvement" (all additions / questions / comments are from non-company users) (i.e. "0 employees helping")
2.3. "unsolved" (could also be called "unanswered") A thread with 0 "solutions" or "good points" (i.e. a Problem with "0 replies marked as a solution", a Question with "0 replies marked as an answer", an Idea with "0 point marked best", a Discussion with 0 points marked ...)
2.4. "solved" (Reverse of above. Something was flagged "solved" recently, which you want to review again. :))
2.5 "in progress" or "working on it" -- topics that are currently being implemented or changed by the company (i.e. Problems marked as "The company is working on this problem", Ideas marked as "The company is working on this idea", Questions marked as "The company is working on this question", )
2.6 "most replies" (This is kind of the reverse from "0 replies" see below, except that "0 replies" limits the results to threads with a particular number of replies.) Note that "most replies" is not the same as "popular". "Popular" refers to how many people are participating, not the number of replies.
2.7 Also, you might want to rename "unanswered" to "0 replies". (The word "unanswered" can have multiple meanings and is confusing. It may mean that it is an "unanswered question" (unsolved, does not include an "answer" although it may have a reply) or that it is "unanswered by a company employee")

Could include image because currently my eyes are drawn down past the results. Also could make results bigger.

It would be great if the search function were looser with search tems. Searching for "getsatisfaction" yields zero results. This should really be handled by a search indexer, which could smash titles and such.

When searching for a company like 'BART' nothing is found, however 'Bay Area Rapid Transit' already exists in the system.

It'd be nice if the search found this, perhaps by matching up the BART search string with the URL http://getsatisfaction.com/bart/ ?

I have had great success so far with going through the questions we receive at PBwiki and tagging them with relevant words and phrases, and am reasonably sure that helps our searches. I was looking for help logging in on here, and noticed a lack of taggingness. Just a suggestion!

you have two boxes: one for searching topics and one for asking a question. but the topics search only searches for topics on the company you are already on. would be better if this topic search was below the company and the search at the top was for searching different companies

Some companies have product, service or domain names that are more brand-known. Maybe adding those into the search index for Company Name and have those alternates show up?

When we launch RescueTime.com, we hope to add a link to our GetSatisfaction site to our support page. Love it. I can imagine, however, that people might get confused by a lack of search feature. In a way, the "Hey CompanyName" form does the trick, though I'd argue that people think about search forms differently. When searching, people think about the "right" keywords (the keywords that the rest of the world would use). When typing a question, concern, feature idea into the "Hey CompanyName" field, I'd wager they'd be less overt about what words they select.

I also wonder whether people would be just plain LOOKING for a search box. i.e. "I'm on a support site, I want to find information about a particular topic, how do I find it?!". The search box at the top right searches the whole getsatisfaction.com site, no? One cheap and easy idea around this might be a drop down menu with the upper-righthand search with a "search this company" and "search all of getsatisfaction" options (company as default).

Having recently done a lot of usability testing over the last year, it would be interesting to watch user behavior around the search/find action.

Just some thoughts. Love the hell out of what you guys are doing.

Perhaps a 3rd tab page in search (recently active, latest topics, TAGS) that list some popular tags to search on?

I'm sure you must be planning something like that! Also, it'd be great if the company could define some popular tags/searches, e.g., for a product name