"find all posts by..."

[write2caro]

Are the "find all posts by..." and "find all threads started by..." features supposed to work? I've never been able to get them to, and this might help eliminate duplicating information out there. That, and a GREAT BIG sticky thread about the search feature alone. I've seen too many newbies get their heads bitten off for not using it! I'm paranoid so I always search first and ask questions later!

 

[Dan Murphy]

Search has been non functional since last summer. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1200933 You might dig through that thread for some work-arounds, maybe Google domain search will help a bit.

If posters are screaming at new folks to use search, maybe refer the 'screamer' to that linked thread, and if the sticky is 'repliable' (sometimes they lock them), maybe add that link there also, might help if more folks are aware that it does not work and reduce the head biting.

 

[write2caro]

Gotcha'! Sounds good - thanks for the quick reply! Are there plans to fix it at some point, or do we just work around it permanently?

 

[Dan Murphy]

There was some discussion I saw, about a month ago, regarding fixing it, but so far nothing that I can see.

 

[Caskbill]

The problem with searches is they are a tremendous load on the servers.

Unfortunately many users who do a search don't take the time to limit the search in any way, just allowing it to search every single thread on every single board.

You can get some basic statistics at the Home Page.

We'll typically have thousands of users on line at the same time, during the evening hours. With millions of threads and tens of millions of posts, if only a few of those thousands of users are each doing searches, it's easy to imagine the load on the servers.

In the past we've had numerous complaints about the boards being slow. Searches is the major problem.

Webmaster Alex is working on having a totally new, dedicated server, strictly for searches. Hopefully that will help.

Caskbill

 

[write2caro]

I understand about sacrificing searches for speed and ease of use of the site. Makes sense! It would be great if that dedicated server does get up and running at some point.

Thanks for the response!