Do a vanity search on your Username; what's the oldest thread on your list?

On Page 30 of my lookback, I find:

Best marriage of music and visuals in a film. (spoilers ok)
Started 08-03-2005, 09:50 AM
Alias

#58 08-05-2005, 09:08 AM
Alias

#59 04-19-2011, 01:27 PM
Coach77

#67 04-21-2011, 07:40 AM
Mach Tuck

A revived zombie. Not even a year old yet, and that’s as far back as a plain vanilla search gets me!

What’s your story?

The oldest that shows up is Another God question , from the long lost days of…8/13/11.

Damn! Yours beats mine by four months! Not too long ago my oldest thread was almost exactly one year old. I guess I have picked up my pace. Nothing like yours, though. Wonder whose is closest to today.

Is 750 posts the default lookback for everybody?

ETA: My misleading stats are
Total Posts: 15,081
Posts Per Day: 4.81

If you want to find your oldest posts you have to search ‘X’ years ago and older…

I found this gem, Getting to first base, from August 1999. More than half of the posters in that thread don’t have user names. How does that happen?

ETA: Or did I miss the point of this thread?

Perhaps I wasn’t clear in the OP. I do know how to look at older threads than the ones that show up in an “Advanced Search” on Username with no adjustments to the search criteria.

But if all one does is that minimal amount of criteria setting, it’s my experience that 30 pages (25 posts per page) or 750 threads’ worth is what comes back.

I was wanting to get a gauge, from those willing to share, of how far back your “oldest thread” takes you. Mine is less than a year’s worth.

This any clearer on what I was hoping to learn from other posters?

Thanks for asking, by the way. I see there’s my usual lack of clarity going on. :slight_smile:

Back then the board was run on different message board software; not all data transferred between formats properly, like names.

To address your point of the lack of usernames in that old post, I recall somebody remembering roughly when the appearance of Usernames began. They may have even pointed to the actual thread. That part isn’t as clear in my memory. It does make for some fun digging though, right? Maybe we can locate the very thread!

A thread from the Blizzard of '03 (Feb 16 2003). I remember shoveling snow off of our roof a couple of days later.

I lurked here since 2000 or so, and probably registered just to keep you guys updated on the height of snow drifts in southern coastal NJ.

Beautiful! Now you’ve set the pace for oldest visible thread from a simple vanity search. Who can beat that one?

While we’re at those kinds of stats, who can beat 10 posts per day from their profile? I know that my 4.81 include longish periods on zero posts per day, since I have taken several “breaks” from even visiting SDMB.

Using the Google search feature (instructions in ATMB) takes me back just to 2006, and this thread about music at your funeral.

Ike Witt already did: August '99. I’m second so far, with April 2000. The one thing this shows me is that I was an idiot 12 years ago! God, I won’t be doing this (vanity search) again.

10/06/00. None of the 180 results for my name pertain to me, though.

Mine was from 08/18/2004: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5179524&highlight=nametag#post5179524

I offered advice that, while not wrong in action, was based on an entirely wrong conclusion.

My usual experience with vanity searches is that my user name shows up in a lot of customer service threads. :smiley:

The embarrassing Livin’ on Bananas from September '99.

1/4/2001, and I’m not going to bother with the ones that mention “JRDelerious” and other such misspellings.

Well not the op’s intent, but one in “Ask the Muslim Guy” was my first post in 9/01.

To the op’s stated curiosity, 12/28/08 in a thread about Al Franken’s Senate run. I average 2.47 posts a day. A piker.

I still have no idea what you’re asking for.

If I search on the “find posts by” half of the search page and set it to look way back, I end up with my first post (10-14-1999). I killed an otherwise interesting thread (an unfortunate pattern that would repeat itself over the next thirteen years): Favorite shows, hated episodes

If I put Rhythmdvl in the left half of the search box (is *that *what people mean by ‘vanity search’?) and set no other parameters, the oldest thread isn’t that much later: 11-16-2000.

I’d long forgotten about it, but it’s fascination. In a thread simple titled CIA, now-banned member Peace quoted/asked a GD question about a thread I’d started on 11-14-2000: Legitimate critiques of the CIA. The basic ideas that started the thread(s) was my generalized disdain for the CIA and quest for a credible cites to test the assumptions behind the disdain.

The fascinating bit (to me, at least, now I know why they’re called ‘vanity’ searches), is date on the thread and the following quote from the OP:

What I was trying to find, from those willing to share the info, was when you do an Advanced Search and “Find Posts by User” on your Username, and don’t adjust any of the search criteria, assuming yours read:

============================
Straight Dope Message Board
Search Forums

Search Entire Posts

Search by User Name
User Name: <<< Your Username >>>

Find Posts by User User <<< Your Username >>> Exact name

Search Options

Find Threads with At Least 0 Replies

Find Posts from Any Date

Sort Results by Last Posting Date in Descending Order

Show Results as Threads

Search in Forum(s)
Search All Open Forums

============================

After the search returns its results, go to the last page in the search and locate the oldest thread on that page. That’s the one I wanted to see.

I’m not sure how others use the term “vanity search” and I suppose a case could be made for either your Username as a “keyword” or with your Username to locate all threads you posted to. It’s the second option I meant in the OP, but I think the more “vain” of such searches is where others refer to your name in threads where you didn’t even post. Thus you can see where others are talking about you behind your back!

I have observed deliberate misspellings of names that would prevent this level of “vanity search” from even working.

I really didn’t mean to be vague on the purpose of this thread, but it appears the interpretations have been varied and many.

I average 0.3 posts per day but my username is shared with a popular superhero and university mascot.

Vanity search for “Wolverine” in keyword (how else do find if other people are talking about you?)
Name and Exemplify Superhero Syndromes dated 9-21-2005

Vanity search for “Wolverine” in user posts (barely makes it to page 30)
What do you live by? dated 8-23-2000

Ah. That brings me to 7/11/11: Death by a thousand paper cuts.
Idly playing, another way of looking at it is to change the sort order to ‘ascending’ and then go to page 30. Doing that I end up 2/4/2003: Are more calories burned the faster you walk, when walking the same distance?.

I imagine most posters will see the same pattern-descendingly ordered date will be later than the ascendingly-ordred date. But would anyone with a post-count of less than 750 reverse that? Hey lurkers–care to try it out?