What's with ebay?

[timzcardz]

Originally Posted by t206wagner

Hi Fred,

You don't have to use the parenthesis if you put the minus sign in front of each word you want to exclude. It is similar to an algebra equation where you just list each thing indivually rather than grouping them together.

Originally Posted by williamcohon

Thank you, guys, for the suggestion regarding excluding words by using a minus sign.

I tried it, and it turns out that it is necessary to leave a space before the minus sign. Also, the parentheses method works better. I don't know why, but if you just list "t206 -rp-reprint-topps" the search engine still provides plenty of the offending reprints. But, if you use t206 -(rp,reprint,topps,2009), you're going to have the same good time you had five years ago.

I thought David made a good point about how this procedure will also exclude items whose descriptions contain the words "not a reprint." But maybe it's a fair price to pay for a reprint-free and topps-free experience. The happy hunting might just be worth it!!!

Not quite the same as an algebraic equation. (Actually, it works on Boolean algebra)



When you do a search and list the criteria, without parentheses, such as

SEARCH: 1 2 -3 -4 (where 1, 2, 3, and 4 are search criteria)

it reads each space as an "AND" thereby looking for search criterion 1 AND search criterion 2 AND not (if a minus sign is used) search criterion 3 AND not seach criterion 4



When items are placed in parentheses it is the equivalent of saying OR.

SEARCH: 1 2 -(3,4)

is read as search criterion 1 AND search criterion 2 AND not (if a minus sign is used) search criteria 3 OR 4.

Only one of the "OR" criteria need be present to exclude the listing from the search. This is an important differentiation you are trying misspelling variations like (topp,topps,top) for a positive search and not elimination.

[DaveW]

Also, if you click on US Only or North America (under Location in the preferences
on the left side of the screen) you will eliminate all the crap from China.

[Anthony S.]

My standard search for T212's bridging all categories lists over 30 words in the negative parentheses including such seemingly unrelated items as "barbie", "Dickens" (there isn't a Charles Dicken's Barbie is there? I can't imagine that'd be a big seller), "tiara", "woofers", and "Tibetan." Truly amazing how much stuff (read: crap) has been has been dubbed T212 over the years.

[erstevens]

There is a character limit on the searches. The limit is "around 100 characters" according to eBay. I believe the searches used to be less restrictive. Some of my older searches include many terms and always worked fine. Recently, those same searches give me the 100 character warning.

[Anthony S.]

There is a character limit on searches, but it's more than 100 characters, as my T212 search has 33 words in the negative parentheses separated by commas (but no spaces), as well as 4 words in the positive parentheses. I saved that search over a year ago, though, so it could be that they've shortened the character limit for new searches since then.