How to find things on permies?

One of the problems I have with this website is that I cannot find anything!
If I want to read random interesting things, this is a good place!
If I want to learn a specific thing by looking it up. no such luck!
if I search for how to make hay rakes or hay forks, I know that information is here!... I cannot find it!
be well
stay safe
Karl

Karl, here is a link to the search function:

https://permies.com/forums/search/filters/-1

It is also on the new menu bar at the top of the screen in the middle.

Does this answer your question or is there something else I can help you with?

Karl Newman wrote:One of the problems I have with this website is that I cannot find anything!
If I want to read random interesting things, this is a good place!
If I want to learn a specific thing by looking it up. no such luck!
if I search for how to make hay rakes or hay forks, I know that information is here!... I cannot find it!
be well
stay safe
Karl

Hay forks? wooden pitch forks? https://permies.com/t/34160/making-wooden-pitchforks
Here is the woodworking forum link https://permies.com/f/133/woodworking

If you're using the search function it helps to try another set of words sometimes and use the setting that just searches titles...and for this one  click on the 'woodworking' to narrow the search.  

Many times if you find a thread that is close to what you are looking for the 'similar thread' list at the bottom of the page will have more threads on the subject.

I have this for a google bookmark:

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=site:permies.com

In DuckDuckGo:

pitchfork site:permies.com/forums

The search engine here is quite good though.

I wonder if this to do with the presentation of the organisation of the forum (sorry, horrible sentence!).

This thread is in the [sub] forum "tinkering with this site", which can be found in the "permies.com" forum. Which is perfectly well organised and makes sense. However you can't see all of the directory information in one go. For example within the thread, I can see that I'm in the "tinkering with this site" forum but I can't see that that it part of the "permies.com". Also, you can't see which subforums are in which forum, without going into the forum and seeing the list on the right hand side of the page. This means that you can use the search to find stuff but it's harder to know where to look for similar stuff if you got here by a search.

I think this is do with how people think about organisation. I'm terrible at search functions because I don't think about using similar words but I find a hierachical directory structure easy to navigate. Others who are better with words than me can use the search more effectively but dislike jumping through the multiple hoops to get where they are going.

Maybe use the all forums button so you can see the whole list and how they're organised.