I just added a new feature suggestion and this is a SHAMELESS PLUG for it! It's to get the DISCOVER feature to be more helpful for finding each other, our worlds, and articles!
I assert that the community needs better SEARCH features inside the platform that help us explore the wonderful world that WA is! Please assert with me!
The title of the suggested feature is:
World Anvil Community Search Ability
Here's the link to the feature suggestion page:
VOTE FOR IMPROVED SEARCH HERE
and here's the text of the suggestion:
What functionality is missing? What is unsatisfying with the current situation?
Right now, it is extremely difficult to locate other world authors, worlds, and articles in WA.
There is a DISCOVER button on my profile. :-)
There is an ARTICLE button on the DISCOVER pull down.
It does NOT have a search function! It should! Why can I not search for an article there?
There is a WORLDS button under the DISCOVER button.
It does have a search function! (yea!) But it is only searchable by genre. And my world doesn't show up in any of my world's genres even though I just published articles in it yesterday. Why not? Why can I not search for a world by name there?
There is no AUTHORS Button at all under the DISCOVER button.
There should be! And it should have a search function! It should list the "Premier League" authors. It should be searchable by Guild Status, and it should be searchable by name.
It would be extremely helpful and create a better sense of community for everyone - people who have been around and newcomers to have a better WA level search function.
How does this feature request address the current situation?
It adds the ability to find people in the community through key ways you might remember them!
What are other uses for this feature request?
I think this could be implemented "generically" and reused, but I leave the design and coding to you...
Adding additional thoughts: Wordigirl noted that this has been asked for before and was not implemented because of potential performance issues. I agree that there are lots of users and worlds, but this just demands that the app be optimized for this search. The creation of a metatable servicing this search capability that is maintained by a process that operated on world adds & deletes, account adds & deletes, and queries would be simple to implement and fast to search. Even with millions of authors and millions of worlds, the performance impact for the user would be invisible and the maintenance trivial for a commercial DBMS which HAS to be behind WA. Granted that articles would be a bigger headache and we'd have to think about how to implement it, but IF WE COULD GET TO THE WORLD OR AUTHOR, WE COULD FIND THE ARTICLES IN THE WORLD SEARCH! and I'm not convinced that the articles, if limited to published articles, would be impossible.