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compiling the profiles

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 2:58 am
by SPat
So now that we have a large number of profiles, maybe we should think of compiling them. As it stands, it is pretty tedious for someone to sift through three pages of profiles to find relevant ones. Is it possible to have some sort of a search engine, which will search for profiles based on some parameters like PGRE score, GPA, area of interest, schools, etc.?
What I have in mind is, a search like "PGRE: 800-900" + "international" + "astrophysics" + "caltech OR mit OR chicago" should return a set of relevant profiles.

Is this feasible? Unfortunately, I know 0 programming so I can't do this by myself, but I'm willing to help someone with some of the necessary dogwork.

Re: compiling the profiles

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:20 am
by bfollinprm
SPat wrote:So now that we have a large number of profiles, maybe we should think of compiling them. As it stands, it is pretty tedious for someone to sift through three pages of profiles to find relevant ones. Is it possible to have some sort of a search engine, which will search for profiles based on some parameters like PGRE score, GPA, area of interest, schools, etc.?
What I have in mind is, a search like "PGRE: 800-900" + "international" + "astrophysics" + "caltech OR mit OR chicago" should return a set of relevant profiles.

Is this feasible? Unfortunately, I know 0 programming so I can't do this by myself, but I'm willing to help someone with some of the necessary dogwork.
Some combination of ctrl-F, google, and the Results page already accomplishes this. It would be nice if people would update their User Profile under User Control Panel...

Re: compiling the profiles

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 10:06 am
by SPat
bfollinprm wrote:It would be nice if people would update their User Profile under User Control Panel...
Didn't know about this feature. Still it would be better if searching were possible.

Re: compiling the profiles

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 10:53 am
by bfollinprm
SPat wrote:
bfollinprm wrote:It would be nice if people would update their User Profile under User Control Panel...
Didn't know about this feature. Still it would be better if searching were possible.
The originator of this site is not very active anymore. Grae and quizivex are the closest to management we've got, and I don't think either of them want to compile a searchable profile. ~150x3 profiles isn't that hard to go through yourself, but if you wanted to write a trawler, I bet someone could query grant and get it hosted.

EDIT: Just reread the original post and your lack of programming experience (if you have a degree in a STEM field, you have programming skills). In this case, I recommend you offer the project to negru, and inform him that if he finishes it, we'll all like him again and he can come to our parties. I guess.

Re: compiling the profiles

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:27 pm
by quizivex
I agree, ctrl-F can accomplish most of what you want. If you just search through all the Caltech's on the thread, right near the school name it'll say if they're applying to astro. Then check if they're international and look at the PGRE score. That should only take a minute or two (excluding the time it takes to read the ones you want)... The sample size isn't that large.

A database format might be more searchable, but it's not as friendly a format as a current template. In the template, people can list everything relevant that they want to for each entry, and the profile ends up being a nicely presentable list of info. Users can elaborate on things such as research, copy the UgradSchool/major/GPA section if they have two degrees, add a second GRE score if they took it twice, and delete the "special bonus points" entry if they have none. A database may make searching easier, but you end up forcing pieces of info into boxes of a set size, so you'll get a lot of empty and overfilled ones.

Re: compiling the profiles

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:35 pm
by bfollinprm
quizivex wrote:I agree, ctrl-F can accomplish most of what you want. If you just search through all the Caltech's on the thread, right near the school name it'll say if they're applying to astro. Then check if they're international and look at the PGRE score. That should only take a minute or two (excluding the time it takes to read the ones you want)... The sample size isn't that large.

A database format might be more searchable, but it's not as friendly a format as a current template. In the template, people can list everything relevant that they want to for each entry, and the profile ends up being a nicely presentable list of info. Users can elaborate on things such as research, copy the UgradSchool/major/GPA section if they have two degrees, add a second GRE score if they took it twice, and delete the "special bonus points" entry if they have none. A database may make searching easier, but you end up forcing pieces of info into boxes of a set size, so you'll get a lot of empty and overfilled ones.
Yeah. A trawler would be best, or a database with links to the profiles thread. But none of it is necessary, at least not for 5 more years. Another thing that would be helpful is an option to display all posts on a single page, because the slowest part of ctrl-F is switching pages.

Re: compiling the profiles

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 12:54 pm
by axiomofchoice
bfollinprm wrote:Another thing that would be helpful is an option to display all posts on a single page, because the slowest part of ctrl-F is switching pages.
I highly recommended an extension called AutoPager for Firefox, if you are using it (I know all the cool kids around the block are switching to Chrome - a similar extension for Chrome is probably out there - but I'm sticking to the good ol' fox for now). It sticks all pages together into one page, not only for here but all the other annoying new sites that wants you to click next page to see new ads for every other paragraph. Then you can Ctrl-F through the entire year's profiles.