5 ms·

eBay Still (Secretly) Supports Dorking

51 points by Curiositry 3y ago

nfriedly 3y ago
I'm not sure where the word "dorking" came from, but it is good to know the AND/OR/NOT search syntax. I figured out NOT on my own a while back, but not the other two.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Curiositry 3y ago
    I was not aware of that etymological aspect of dorking (I assumed it was an extension of dork, in the sense of nerd; and I did not know the etymology of dork). What alternative alternative term do your recommend?
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      At work we've been calling it "Google Hacking" for the equivalent search-engine activity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_hacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_hacking But I feel that "hacking" is way too broad and non-descriptive of this activity which is more specialized. I mean, I would just call it "using parameters as they were meant to be" but most folks don't have any idea how to formulate search queries in the first place, that these operators and parameters seem like a black art.
    - zefalt 3y ago
      "Search operators" as a term seems well established.
  - zetsurin 3y ago
    I wonder about this -- as I've been gently encouraged to not use "lame" (I was using it to mean poorly made, crappy, shitty). The argument at the time iirc was "it used to mean disabled so we shouldn't use it to mean poor". I said sure, because pushing back would be wasteful of both our times, and it's an easy thing to do. I often feel like these kinds of vocabulary updates don't really bring about "respect and inclusion", though, because everyone knows given context that I wasn't saying or implying that disabled people are lesser: the word has changed meaning. Similarly in this case I'd only ever known dork to mean nerd, and never that it was penis specific, or that it was somehow male exclusive. I guess i think there's a case to be made for not making words "curse words", and instead understanding that usage changes, and it's needless to to encourage people (maybe enlighten people is still cool). I guess i feel like, why cage ourselves in restrictions when intent is what matters. In this case, I do think it's a terrible name for this feature, where "search operators" is much more descriptive.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      On the one hand, you're not trying to make people lesser... On the other hand, it's interesting we do this over and over again (pejoration). Innocent words associated with disadvantaged groups start to become derogatory, are mostly abandoned from polite use to describe people in that group, but then become okay to cast around casually in other contexts.
      - techdragon 3y ago
        The euphemism treadmill strikes again. It’s a linguistic process that has been academically studied and is surprisingly straightforward once you have it laid out in front of you it’s basically “once we acknowledge word as bad, people use new_word so they can be bad without other people knowing it yet” https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
        mlyle 3y ago
- jruohonen 3y ago
  > I'm not sure where the word "dorking" came from Your mileages may vary, but it used to be related to Google.
nothercastle 3y ago
They have probably earned 1000s of dollars in fees from me alone because of the feature.
tlhunter 3y ago
Ken Rockwell has a similar list and other eBay advice: https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/ebay/search.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/ebay/search.htm
epakai 3y ago
They support it, but recently moved to aggressive keyword substitution. It's particularly bad if you search uncommon terms, as they'll immediately modify your search terms so they can provide more (irrelevant) results than the handful you wanted. Modern search makes me want to cry. There's also the "we've streamlined your results" because you're too much of an idiot to actually search for what you want, but just in case click here to see the full results. I can only expect it to get more hostile. Soon I'll be quoting every word in a search. I already had to update most of my saved searches with individually quoted words. I do like some things. You can often write partial model numbers ending in a dash (even if there isn't normally a dash there) like dv-28- to search all variations (dv-28s, dv-28e). The classic booleans along with price filters are amazing for saved searches.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]

51 points by Curiositry 3y ago

I'm not sure where the word "dorking" came from, but it is good to know the AND/OR/NOT search syntax. I figured out NOT on my own a while back, but not the other two.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
[flagged]
- Curiositry 3y ago
  I was not aware of that etymological aspect of dorking (I assumed it was an extension of dork, in the sense of nerd; and I did not know the etymology of dork). What alternative alternative term do your recommend?
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    At work we've been calling it "Google Hacking" for the equivalent search-engine activity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_hacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_hacking But I feel that "hacking" is way too broad and non-descriptive of this activity which is more specialized. I mean, I would just call it "using parameters as they were meant to be" but most folks don't have any idea how to formulate search queries in the first place, that these operators and parameters seem like a black art.
  - zefalt 3y ago
    "Search operators" as a term seems well established.
- zetsurin 3y ago
  I wonder about this -- as I've been gently encouraged to not use "lame" (I was using it to mean poorly made, crappy, shitty). The argument at the time iirc was "it used to mean disabled so we shouldn't use it to mean poor". I said sure, because pushing back would be wasteful of both our times, and it's an easy thing to do. I often feel like these kinds of vocabulary updates don't really bring about "respect and inclusion", though, because everyone knows given context that I wasn't saying or implying that disabled people are lesser: the word has changed meaning. Similarly in this case I'd only ever known dork to mean nerd, and never that it was penis specific, or that it was somehow male exclusive. I guess i think there's a case to be made for not making words "curse words", and instead understanding that usage changes, and it's needless to to encourage people (maybe enlighten people is still cool). I guess i feel like, why cage ourselves in restrictions when intent is what matters. In this case, I do think it's a terrible name for this feature, where "search operators" is much more descriptive.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    On the one hand, you're not trying to make people lesser... On the other hand, it's interesting we do this over and over again (pejoration). Innocent words associated with disadvantaged groups start to become derogatory, are mostly abandoned from polite use to describe people in that group, but then become okay to cast around casually in other contexts.
    - techdragon 3y ago
      The euphemism treadmill strikes again. It’s a linguistic process that has been academically studied and is surprisingly straightforward once you have it laid out in front of you it’s basically “once we acknowledge word as bad, people use new_word so they can be bad without other people knowing it yet” https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
      - mlyle 3y ago
jruohonen 3y ago
> I'm not sure where the word "dorking" came from Your mileages may vary, but it used to be related to Google.

nothercastle 3y ago

They have probably earned 1000s of dollars in fees from me alone because of the feature.

tlhunter 3y ago

Ken Rockwell has a similar list and other eBay advice: https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/ebay/search.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/ebay/search.htm

epakai 3y ago

They support it, but recently moved to aggressive keyword substitution. It's particularly bad if you search uncommon terms, as they'll immediately modify your search terms so they can provide more (irrelevant) results than the handful you wanted. Modern search makes me want to cry. There's also the "we've streamlined your results" because you're too much of an idiot to actually search for what you want, but just in case click here to see the full results. I can only expect it to get more hostile. Soon I'll be quoting every word in a search. I already had to update most of my saved searches with individually quoted words. I do like some things. You can often write partial model numbers ending in a dash (even if there isn't normally a dash there) like dv-28- to search all variations (dv-28s, dv-28e). The classic booleans along with price filters are amazing for saved searches.

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]