[cvr]

I've been working on a website that I think is going to be pretty useful to the gun crowd.

Have you ever wanted to search the classified sections of all the gun forums?

Try this:

http://www.riverofguns.com

I created that site as a search engine for gun forum classifieds. It's currently got about 30,000 entries from 107 topics at 40 forums. That's about a month's worth of collected data. I'm working on getting it up to the 175 topics from the 105 forums I discovered (with the help of some friends over at calguns.net).

Use it to search for the guns and gear you're looking to buy.

There are still some ways to improve it (mainly in search), but it's very usable now.

I need some users to beta test it and provide some feedback. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Feedback to riverofguns@gmail.com would be great - or PM if you're happier with that.

Thanks!

[expvideo]

Hey! That's awesome! I gave it a whirl and it's a great tool. Good job!

[Fri]

This site seems very helpful. I will definitely be checking it out more later. I really like the picture too. Is that by any chance the Snake River in Washington State?

[ACBMWM3]

Love it, thats a great idea! maybe we can trade web banners?
Looks like the Columbia River to me near Chelan kinda :D

[Sergeant Sabre]

Wow, nice!

[Dookie]

Very cool, great job.

[Shytheed Dumas]

GREAT SITE! Thank you! :)

[crebralfix]

Great!!!

Please add vaguntrader.com.

It looks better than elitedealseeker.com.

What regular expressions are allowed? One frequent search that I do is: S&W -"40 S&W" since I don't want ammo or non-S&W guns to appear.

Perhaps you could add more gun manufacturer "quick search" links?

Also, can we limit the search to a certain number of days similar to what elitedealseeker.com does?

Additionally, I'd like the engine to PARSE the posts looking for words that would indicate that the item is sold, but the subject hasn't been updated. It would then mark the post as potentially sold. This would save me a lot of time.

The engine should also filter out "Want to Buy" (WTB) into a different section. Those WTB ads really clutter things up.

[everallm]

Nice site but boolean search filter doesn't seem to be working fully yet

example

Robinson and XCR Works properly, gives all results with both Robinson and XCR in the leader line, next query I checked with lower case for sanity checking, all OK.

AR-15.com WTS:Robinson Arms XCR 5.56 & 6.8 combo 01/22/2009
AR-15.com WTS: Robinson Armament XCR 01/11/2009
AR-15.com Robinson XCR .223 Heavies in stock 1/7/09 01/07/2009
AR-15.com WTT: Robinson Armament XCR for Arsenal SLR107UR or Yugo M92 Krink + cash 12/23/2008
AR-15.com FS: Robinson Arms XCR-L w/scope-PICS 12/19/2008
AR-15.com WTS New Robinson Armament XCR and brand new Beta C-drum 12/19/2008

Next query

robinson +xcr -heavies should give all except the 3rd one, it gives the reverse

AR-15.com Robinson XCR .223 Heavies in stock 1/7/09 01/07/2009

Next query (using AND and AND NOT)

robinson and xcr and not heavies gives the same results

AR-15.com Robinson XCR .223 Heavies in stock 1/7/09 01/07/2009

Might want to add Gunbroker in to the searched forum list

[crebralfix]

The list of forums is very nice.

How are you handling the differences in forum code?

[crebralfix]

TEST:

Search: S&W

Results included a holster link (most items sold):

http://glocktalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=962299

Perhaps the engine should mark the entry with an icon indicating something was sold in the thread. Since these aren't guns, you may want to move it to another bucket. Strings to look at: "sold", "spf", "sold pending funds" and variations.

[drgrenthum]

love it, wish all these other yahoos didnt know about it :)

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

Fantastic idea, actually! Thank you and good luck.

But, this will hack off the guys who painstakingly scour many many sites for the good deals, since their diligence and patience allows them to beat the lazy guys like me who wouldn't do the full search without a website such as yours.

[Zundfolge]

I just wish every site required the location in the thread title like THR does.

[cvr]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Just what I was looking for. To answer some of your questions:

@ACBMWM3: banners and links are things I'm looking at. Eventually Google AdSense is going to figure out there are guns and ammo involved with this site and they'll turn off their ads.

If anyone has pointers to gun friendly ad networks, I'd appreciate them.

@crebralfix: I'll take a look at vaguntrader.com and add it, if possible.
The searching is done via MySQL fulltext boolean queries - BUT the queries are scrubbed a bit on the way in, which is why your "+" and "-" queries are not working (you too @everallm). It's basically always doing an "AND" on keywords.

What I'll do is add a link for "Advanced Search" where you can construct valid boolean queries. Also, this would be a good place to let you search WTB items and to search for sold items in order to do price checks.

I should also mention that I'm thinking of moving the search over to Sphinx, which will allow you to do more Google-like searches.

@crebralfix: Any suggestions on what other things you'd like to see in the "quick search"?
Limiting results to a certain number of days is not a problem - just have to figure out the UI.
As far as the filtering of sold items - it's tricky. Working on it. As you note, more parsing is needed.
WTB should be currently filtered out. If you see a post with WTB in the title, it's a bug.

@crebralfix: The forum scraper is my Perl code. Each forum type I support has forum specific code.

@Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow: Well, yeah, it was better when I kept this thing to myself :). But I can only buy so many guns....

The two complaints I hear are "Great! Don't tell anyone else!" and "Great! Now I'll blame you for all the money I'm going to spend".

@Zundfolge: Yes, location is a pain, but I'd like to take a crack at it at some point. There are ways.....

@Fri: It very well might be the Snake River (or Columbia River), but to confess, I got the image from a stock image house and it didn't come with much information. :)

[Zundfolge]

Actually if you just put your state in for the search field you get quite a few listings (around 40). Which is not bad since you're missing the Colorado specific forums.

[cvr]

Hey @Zundfolge - what the URL for the CO specific forum?

Also, anyone else who has a favorite forum that I'm missing, let me know. My list is here:

http://www.riverofguns.com/cb/index.pl?f=1

[Zundfolge]

http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=86

and http://www.cologunmarket.com/mkt/

are the two biggest ones.

There's also http://www.coloradocarry.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=24 but it doesn't get as much traffic

[damien]

Might want to add:

www.auctionarms.com
www.gunsamerica.com
www.gunbroker.com

Might even want to add eBay for what little they have left in terms of firearms accessories.

Or are these difficult to index?

[cvr]

@Zundfolge: thanks for the pointers. I'll see about adding them once I see what forum software they use.

@damien: Thanks - will check those out as well. Gunbroker - that one I'm not so sure about. I've never found a good deal there and dealing with that site and the people who sell there can be a major PITA. Maybe it's just because I'm in California and it's easier for them to say "go away" rather than work with the crappy system.

At any rate, these three sites will require some special coding on my side, so I might not get to them for a while. eBay is worth a shot too, but again, I have to use their API and special case it.

[waterhouse]

Nice setup, looks pretty handy.

[damien]

@damien: Thanks - will check those out as well. Gunbroker - that one I'm not so sure about. I've never found a good deal there and dealing with that site and the people who sell there can be a major PITA. Maybe it's just because I'm in California and it's easier for them to say "go away" rather than work with the crappy system.

I believe you are right on guns, but there have been times that that has been the only place I have found certain types of ammo (.45 Winchester Magnum for example) and sometimes mags and holsters are decent. It all depends on the buyer. Also, deals may get better or worse depending on the economy and the level of stability in the future so who knows what tomorrow may bring.

[MikePGS]

VERY nice!

[RonE]

Great site, I have sent the URL to everyone into guns in my address book. Site activity should be up this evening.

Keep up the great work///1

[godsey5]

Very nice. Add http://www.rimfirecentral.com/ to the list.

[cvr]

@damien: Good point - there are always deals if you're willing to keep looking. You've given me an idea on how I might be able to search those sites without having to index them myself. We'll see.

@RonE: Thanks for forwarding the link to your buddies. I would encourage everyone who likes the site to forward it around and link to it from their blogs or other sites.

@godsey5: Yep, that's a good site. I have it in my list.

[jpwilly]

Wow...great tool! Hope you make lots of $$$ while helping us spend ours.

[JackOfAllTradesMasterAtNone]

CVR, did you get permission from all those sites for you to crawl them for sell/trade content. Did you realize that most sites don't allow a user to see that portion of the forum until you join?

I like it, but I would think that the sites that have sponsors and copyrighted data might not want you to crawl their site and republish the material or links to that material.

For those suggesting sites for him to crawl, if you don't own that site, you might want to discuss it with the administrator first.

I couldn't give a rip, but I could see where others would.

Good design. Good functionality.

-Steve

[Wonder9]

Very cool! I suddenly have a pressing need to buy another gun.

[FoMoGo]

GREAT site, 2 thumbs up for you.
This is sure going to cost me...


Jim

[yooper_sjd]

great tool!!!!!!!!!! works wonderful!!!!!!! got it saved to favorites already

[cvr]

@JackOfAllTradesMasterAtNone: Yep, I'm aware of the issues - we'll see what happens. Ultimately, I'm delivering more traffic to the various sites - many of which you probably would have never have found on your own, so I think it's an overall net win for the forums.

We're up to 43,000 entries in the DB now. I'll start pruning old data after 30 days, but make it available via an advanced search button. You'll want to search old data to get an idea of price trends.

- chuckr

[drgrenthum]

for ads try integraclick or clickbooth which ever they go by now adays they pay pretty well. See if you can get in touch with lee aho. tell him arob sent you

[Harold Mayo]

I use www.elitedealseeker.com


:D

[cvr]

@everallm: I got the "-" part of boolean search working now. Give it another try with the search terms you posted before.

As another example, searching on: stripped lower -308
will give you all stripped lowers for sale that are NOT 308.
http://www.riverofguns.com/cb/index.pl?s=stripped+lower+-308


@crebralfix: You must work in QA, because your query was actually a really tough case to get right. The combination of quotes, "&", and "-" drove the mysql query parser nuts. In the end I got it to work, so try it out:

search: S&W -"40 S&W"
http://www.riverofguns.com/cb/index.pl?s=S%26W+-%2240+S%26W%22

@drgrenthum: Thanks for the ad network pointers.

@Harold Mayo: Yep, I found out about that site a few days ago. Good! It validates the space! ;)

- cvr

[crebralfix]

I used to do QA and coding. Now I just torture the people who deliver software to the team :)

BTW, perl DBI has a stringy quotification method you can use.

http://oreilly.com/catalog/perldbi/chapter/ch04.html

Database-Specific Quote Handling

By far the most important utility method is quote(), which correctly quotes and escapes SQL statements in a way that is suitable for a given database engine. This feature is important if you have a Perl string that you wish to insert into a database, as the data will be required, in most cases, to have quotation marks around it.

To confuse matters, database engines tend to have a different format for specifying these surrounding quotation marks. DBI circumvents this problem by declaring the quote() method to be executed against a database handle, which ensures that the correct quotation rules are applied.

This method, when executed against a database handle, converts the string given as an argument according to defined rules, and returns the correctly escaped string for use against the database.

For example:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
# ch04/util/quote1: Demonstrates the use of the $dbh->quote() method

use DBI;

### The string to quote
my $string = "Don't view in monochrome (it looks 'fuzzy')!";

### Connect to the database
my $dbh = DBI->connect( "dbi:Oracle:archaeo", "username", "password" , {
RaiseError => 1
} );

### Escape the string quotes ...
my $quotedString = $dbh->quote( $string );

### Use quoted string as a string literal in a SQL statement
my $sth = $dbh->prepare( "
SELECT *
FROM media
WHERE description = $quotedString
" );
$sth->execute();

exit;
For example, if you quoted the Perl string of Do it! via an Oracle database handle, you would be returned the value of 'Do it!'. However, the quote() method also takes care of cases such as Don't do it! which needs to be translated to 'Don''t do it!' for most databases. The simplistic addition of surrounding quotes would have produced 'Don't do it!' which is not a valid SQL string literal.

Some databases require a more complex quote() method, and some drivers (though not all) have a quote() method that can cope with multiline strings and even binary data.

As a special case, if the argument is undef, the quote() method returns the string NULL, without quotes. This corresponds to the DBI's use of undef to represent NULL values, and to how NULL values are used in SQL.

[searcher451]

This is an excellent idea, and an excellent site, and an excellent service to gun owners of all stripes. Many thanks. I've already posted it on another site that I frequent.

[minuteman1970]

Excellent website! Best of luck to you.
You might consider adding a 'gun rights news' section to remind folks what's going on with attacks on 2A.

[rainbowbob]

Great idea and you have obviously put a lot of thought and effort into it...

BUT...

My first query was "Smith & Wesson model 15" - and it came up blank.

My next attempt was the same without the quotes. All it came up with was a manual for same.

My next query was s&W m 15...it came up with "FS: S&W model 60-15 internal lock"

Next, I tried S&w m 15 and got the following:

WTS/WTT S&W Mod. 15 4” Combat Masterpiece
WTS/WTT S&W Mod. 15 4? Combat Masterpiece W. WA.
WTS: New in box S&W M&P-15 rifle in 5.45x39
WTS: S&W M&P-15
WTS: S&W M&P-15 OR M4 Carbine
A4 STOCK Brand New S&W MP 15
S&W Md 15-4 2"bbl renegade
Taurus 650 & S&W M&P 15 lower with LPK installed
WTT/WTS S&W M&P 15 ORC for handguns
WTT S&W M&P 15 ORC for handguns
S&W M&P 40 15 round mags
S&W M&P 15 ORC for ???? ---Trade only
S&W AR 15 upper for Trade: 5.45 for a 5.56, or sell me one!
S&W model 60-15 internal lock
WTT/ AR-15 S&W M&P15T FTF
WTS parts holsters ar-15 h&k s&w 1911 fal glock etc
WTT S&W M&P 15 ORC for ???? ---Trade only---
The Firing Line NIB S&W MP 15 UPPER AND Carryhandle
WTS S&W M&P 15 stripped lower MarcDW
WTT: Ranger SXT .40 s&w for a complete AR-15 upper
Wts/wtt Ar 15 S & W M&p 15a Nib!

In other words...anything with "S&W" or "15" - only one listing for what I'm looking for. Am I doing something wrong? Keep in mind I am the epitome of the average non-savvy internet user.

[armslist]

I really like it...the only trouble I see is that I'm not a user on a lot of those forums, so I can't readily contact a lot of the people that come up.

Generally speaking though, the site is a great idea and does a very good job of pulling up the relevant posts.

[Red Tornado]

Looks good. The only suggestion I have is the possiblity of filtering out "SPF" and any other commonly used terms to indicate the piece is sold.
RT

[armslist]

Can you link into my site too?

We have an RSS feed enabled.

http://www.armslist.com/viewcategory.rss?&category=fs&country=usa&state=&city=

[jawrat]

If anyone has pointers to gun friendly ad networks, I'd appreciate them.

GunsAmerica has a pay per click thing similar to google's (but obviously gun-friendly). http://www.gunsamerica.com/Advertising

[tbtrout]

Very nice, I will be checking in often.

[MikePGS]

I use this site so much already it's ridiculous. I noticed it doesn't search THR but thats probably because you need to be logged in to see the retail forums here. I wish it had a bit of a margin for error, but I have no idea how hard that would be to implement. For instance I was looking up Night Guard yesterday and had to try a couple of ways to get it right. Probably no way you could change that short of having a standard format that people use to list guns on sites, and thats not going to happen :D

[cvr]

Hey - sorry to have been away, but will answer some of your questions now.


@minuteman1970: Gun rights and other firearms related topics is a great idea, and something I'd like to do. It's critical to have related content rather than just big lists of things. With the extra, relevant content I'll show up better on Google searches.

@rainbowbob: You were not doing anything wrong, but doing one thing right. If your first attempt at a search doesn't give you enough results - try something a little different! Our industry is full of an endless array of model numbers, model names, three letter acronyms, abbreviations, slashes, dashes, and dots. It's given me fits to try and cover them all, believe me, and the search engines out there don't like dealing with little single character searches.

Your specific problem is that people can describe what you're looking for a number of different ways, so you did the right thing by trying a number of them. I've made the search as "raw" as possible, meaning all the little characters count in the search. The one other search that might have made things cleaner for you would be one that strips out stuff you don't want (like the M&P stuff). So:

S&W m 15 -M&P

where the "-M&P" will get rid of all the AR-15 stuff. Unfortunately that search is currently blank. There are not very many S&W Model 15s out there right now, but keep checking.

- chuckr

[cvr]

@armslist: Yes, good point about not being a member of some of the forums. Ultimately it doesn't take much to join a forum when you find something you like, but yeah, it's a pain. I plan on showing the contents of each post in the future. Also, www.armslist.com is in my forum list now, but I'm not yet indexing it. Hope to soon.

@Red Tornado: SPF items should be filtered out now - at least if the TITLE of the post changes to SPF or SOLD. If the issue is that you click a title and then when you're on the other site, you find the item is sold - that's a harder problem. Working on it.

@jawrat: Thanks for the gunsamerica Advertising pointer - I'll check it out.

@MikePGS: Glad you're using the site. Regarding the forums that need logging in - I've coded up a solution for phpBB based forums, but I'm still working on vBulletin based forums. It's very doable and one of my current priorities.

And yeah, as I told @rainbowbob, it's hell trying to index all the different ways people describe things. I think once I'm actually indexing the entire post instead of just the title, it will help a lot. There will be more context to search. The best thing you can do for now is to just try different combinations and see what you get. At least the site is (hopefully) fast.

To everyone else - thanks for all the feedback and good words.

- chuckr