[jasonlotito]

> That's absurd. Open access to an ocean of articles without the ability to search through them is meaningless.

I'm pretty sure this statement is debunked by the fact that this feature is a new feature and didn't exist before for the site, unless you are suggesting that prior to this, Academia has always been meaningless.

[anigbrowl]

Stop being so literalist. The poster above is making the valid point that now that we're used to being able to do full-text searches nobody in their right mind wants to invest much effort in using a search engine where that facility isn't available, it's the new normal.

It's a solved problem in technical terms so the only question worth asking is what resources are needed to implement it.

[jasonlotito]

> Stop being so literalist.

No. It was a piss-poor statement that deserved to be called out.

> we're used to being able to do full-text searches

Incorrect. This is a new feature on an existing site. The users of that site were not used to doing full-text searches on that site.

> the only question worth asking is what resources are needed to implement it.

Money, because doing this and doing it right costs money. And they need to get money somewhere. So they can do what Google does, and that is sell advertising. Or they can do something else, and charge for the feature.

But not, you say it's a solved problem, and you claim it can be done for free. So put up. Let's see this free PDF search solution that will scale to their needs.

C'mon, I'm waiting.