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    Search is a great example of something we've worked on lately. Unfortunately, search isn't anywhere as visible as site designs. I'd hazard to guess it's only noticed when we mess up and create bugs. Only with A/B testing can we hope to see the difference and so far we haven't seen more than incremental changes. Meanwhile, we're looking ahead to more visible changes on the sites we can make once the theme is in done. Commented Oct 2, 2018 at 23:24
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    @JonEricson Thanks for that. I mention it because its not visible, still has the problems its always had and there's been no public mention that it's being worked on. Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 0:28
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    Part of the problem here is that search improvements can be difficult to validate and requires constant iteration. That said, work on our Enterprise product as produced one obvious change. In addition, we're working on custom question lists, which might help one frustration with search. The feedback we got on those features have been substantially less, um, passionate than even minor design changes. Not sure what to make of that. sigh Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 5:02
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    @JonEricson I know for me I'm not sure what the custom question lists do. That is, I understand how they work, but I don't see a use in how I utilize Stack Overflow. As for search, I still can't find this question using the duplicate close dialog easily. what is a null reference exception isn't sufficient. Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 15:03
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    @JonEricson: Folks like myself probably aren't very interested in the custom question lists feature because we already built the ones we need ourselves with bookmarked advanced searches. That's not to say it's a bad feature, or was a bad choice to prioritize, but anyone that needs it will tend to not be among the long-time vocal Meta regulars. Commented Oct 6, 2018 at 17:53
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    @NathanTuggy: This is a perfect example of the often short-sighted nature of regular users. So many concerns reported on meta boil down to scaling problems. Bookmarked searches are the ultimate in "works for me™". Wouldn't it be more efficient to create a feature that thousands of people can use rather than require a small group of (exceptionally active) users to build their own tools? It shows our own failings as the designers of this system too, of course. (See also: Stack Overflow is not yet a vast wasteland. Commented Oct 8, 2018 at 18:42
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    You're not wrong @JonEricson. It just isn't as visible as the lack of other tools is. I think one of the biggest moderation tools ever created (the spam detection and deletion botnet) was created by us, the users, skirting the line on what's allowed by the TOS (albeit sanctioned now). Commented Oct 8, 2018 at 23:22
  • @Draco18s: Certainly those tools are very useful and we are grateful for them. Importantly they have addressed the scaling problem. They probably shave minutes off the half-life of spam on active sites and hours off on low-activity sites. The later is especially valuable. (That said, the system blocks ~half of attempted posts on Stack Overflow. Kinda hard to compete with that.) Commented Oct 8, 2018 at 23:32
  • But Rocks, Socks, Twigs, and Figs ARE all awesome, if you stop and think. Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 16:51
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    @April--Un-SlanderMonica-- I should not have logged back in to reply, but my point regarding that song is that it says everything is awesome: Fascism, censorship, and forced speech. It names some things that are fairly normal and mundane that do have some awesome qualities. But if you listen to what it's actually saying, the meaning is dark and horrifying. Some things should not be awesome. Rape, murder, arson, embezzlement. EVERYTHING is awesome. Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 20:08