The obvious answer is that I do not know how to search, which will be pointed out to me when someone links to a thread that answers this exact question.
Lately it seems that some older threads I have been searching for just do not turn up. I know it’s not on a per date basis, as I have found threads that predate my existence on this board. But, for instance, I remember posting in GD shortly after I signed on to the SDMB. However, when I search on my username with a GD argument, nothing turns up before May of 2000.
I vaguely remember at one point someone talking about deleting some of the really unimportant threads. Is this happening / Has this happened?
Just to remind you, the “last post” column is that date for the thread, not for when you last posted to it. You may have posted to a GD thread earlier. However, I think GD threads tend to go on for a long time, and the GD thread you posted to may have a much later last post date.
I got curious about this, so I searched for posts with your exact user name in all forums. The thread that has the oldest last post date that showed up (10/27/99) is http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=7551 .
Hope this helps.
Thanks, zgy. I do know that about last post / my post time difference. (although I had forgotten that I talked about my explosive bowels in my very first GQ thread :rolleyes: :))
I just remember an exchange I had in GD where I took some lumps from PLD and Rousseau, and I couldn’t have been here more than a month. Besides, if I search on all of my posts in GD, (there’s only about 10 or 15) that one doesn’t appear.
I do find most of the things I search for, but maybe 10-20% of the things turn up empty. I still wonder if any threads have been deleted in the name of housecleaning.
I do delete old threads, but they’re mostly stuff like test threads. I read over the threads to make sure that there’s nothing worth saving before I delete.
I don’t know what’s happening. I know that Euty’s done some deleting in MPSIMS (as have I) but I don’t think that anyone’s deleted anything in GD.
Speaking of old threads, occasionally I’ll happen across an old reference to a previous thread, but the link style will be “oldstyle”. Is there a conversion table somewhere, or something?
Sorry, RM, but the conversion program which translated the old UBB database into a vB one did so in a pretty haphazard manner. Older threads generally got lower numbers, but not always, and not in any pattern anyone’s been able to detect thus far. I think that the problem arises from the fact that under UBB, threads were indexed on a forum-by-forum basis, wheras here, the whole board uses the same numbering scheme.