Where have all the pre-12/7/01 threads gone?

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1

I realize we’ve lost everything from 12/7/01 to 2/11/02. Such is life.

What I’m wondering is, whether the SD techs have any idea whether threads from before 12/7 have been lost as well. Because my searches are turning up blanks where there ought to be either plentiful threads, or very specific threads.

For instance:

  1. I searched in GD under my username and the word “copyright”, and turned up nothing at all. Since I’ve been a reg in the Napster/intellectual property threads, I had expected to turn up a few things.

  2. Same thing, only with “death”. I’ve been very into the death-penalty threads. I turned up nothing in the past year, though I did get some older threads.

  3. Last fall, John Corrado started a Pit thread about a Diplomacy game that went awry. He started the thread in October or early November, because Jonathan Chance started up two Diplomacy games amongst the Doper community while I was absent in mid-November, partly in response to John’s thread. My Pit search, under John Corrado’s username and “Diplomacy”, turned up zip.

I realize things are in a state of flux right now, and I’m delighted as hell just to have the boards back up, even if everything isn’t fully operational yet. But I’m hoping the SDMB techs get a clearer idea of what’s here and what’s been lost, at some point. And whenever that happens, feedback would be appreciated.

2

RT, I came up with this for you using your name and copyright. I also had two more hits, if you were looking for one of the other ones I’ll post them if you’d like.

3

I had saved a plain text file listing a handful of old threads (some dating back to 1999) having to do with psychiatric forced-treatment issues (one of my Official Soapbox© Issues). I command-clicked the URLs I’d saved and the pages all come up.

There may or may not be a change in how the search engine works, but I’m pretty sure the treads themselves are still in here.

4

I’m wondering what happened to the Thread Archives, too, because I know I had a GQ thread titled something like “Why send anthrax to Tom Daschle–is he that important?” from last October sometime, but a search of General Questions, “titles only”, for “anthrax” for “since 6 months ago” turns up zip.

A search of GQ, “search entire post” for "anthrax for “since 6 months ago” also turns up zip.

A search of GQ, “titles only” for “daschle” for since 6 months ago, turns up zip, and yes, I tried it as “Daschle”, too.

So? Are the archives maybe not plugged in? Wiggle it, see if the plug is loose…Try another outlet…

:smiley:

…which reminds me–Tuba, did we get a server upgrade so it’s okay to Search All Open Forums without worrying that we’re giving the hamster a coronary, or shall we hold off on that?

5

Ok…so that link didn’t work…

Let us try again…

…I tried, and I couldn’t get the link to work for some reason. But I **did see 3 threads that came up in search.

6

Are you changing the date in the ‘Search For Posts From…’ menu, and also ticking the ‘and older’ box?

That should change how far back you can go.

When I did that for your first search, I came back with five hits, all of which seemed to deal with Napster.

7

Ok DDG, I’m just gonna put that address for your Daschle thread here in plain text. “Search” said it doesn’t exist, but I sorted GQ by usernames and just looked “by hand” sorta to find it.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=93597

8

The search index for all 1.7 million posts is currently being created. It’s been running since Saturday evening and as of Monday evening it’s about 50% complete. More than likely once the search index creation is complete (oh, let’s say sometime around Saturday morning…) you’ll find you’re getting more complete results. If not then there is some larger issue going on that I’ll eventually look into.

Jerry

9

Thanks for the info, Jerry! I’ll just sit tight until then, then…:slight_smile:

10

Holy shit! A week just to create an index!

Sometimes the sheer scale of the Dope somewhat overwhelms me.

pan

11

Thank you O Mighty Tech God, Jerry of Davis! We grovel before your wisdom, and we offer up to thee many large containers of chocolates… oh, wait, that’s Tuba…

Well, dang, what was it? Virgins? Whiskey? Ferraris? I can’t remember…

[goes to consult “God Manual”]
Oh, and somebody found my Daschle thread for me. Thank you, too, Who.

“you too who”?

[goes to consult Dr. Seuss]