If you do, why and how often? If you don’t, why not?
I never used to. It seemed, well, vain. But after hearing multiple complaints in RL about how I didn’t answer a post someone wrote to me I started doing it. I do them about once a week now.
Oh, if you don’t know a vanity search is putting your username in the search box to see if your name shows up in threads.
I confess, I have checked it out. But I realize that I have kept a fairly low enough presents on the boards that I don’t make blips on other member’s posts. In a step towards becoming more of this online community I’ve resolved to post ATLEAST once a day.
~t
Of course. I don’t consider it vanity so much, though. One time there was this great horse racing thread in GQ that I missed until a “vanity search” revealed it to me–someone said “Ruffian will be along any minute to answer this, I’m sure…” Well, a few WEEKS later…but I still got there.
Basically, if people are talking about me (or my equine namessake), I wanna be there. 
All the time. Not so much vanity, but because I’m an airhead, and I cant remember what threads I have posted to. So I do search on my name to see if anyone has responded to one of my posts.
No. But that’s mostly because I don’t like waiting for it to search. Besides, it clogs up the servers. Anyone who wants to say anything about me–good or bad–may say it to my virtual face.
I never have before now…
Humm - a bunch of threads that I posted to myself.
I guess I don’t need to do THAT again any time soon.
Although I did notice just today that I’m quoted in somebody’s sig. That was kinda cool.
I don’t. Just never felt the urge. And now, I’m given to understand that the search function won’t search for a word shorter than 4 letters, so I’m SOL if I wanted to, anyway.
Yes, I do. I’m not sure if it’s so much vanity as wanting to see who has quoted me, though. That way, I can see what they said. Hehehe. 
I don’t either. I guess I’m too afraid to try, in case I find Kayeby: the pit thread. I’d rather live in blissful ignorance, thankyouverymuch.
Nah. I’m just passing through.
I started this recently, to keep track of the threads I’ve posted to. I’m pretty bad at remembering where I posted and following up any replies. I search by my user name (because “Jet” is under the minimum keyword search length), so I’m still missing any threads where I may have been mentioned. But that’s no big loss since I’m never referenced outside of threads I’ve contributed to.
I do it to find out how many threads I’ve managed to kill today.
When your name’s an adjective, it gets a little difficult.
At some point, I might change my name to something else, to get around that difficulty. Maybe to “the”.
I should do it, because I’m awful at keeping up with threads. I’ll be away for a week and if it’s not on the first page, I figure it’s dead. I’m sure I’ve left a few discussions that I shouldn’t have, or unanswered questions. Either way, I wouldn’t call it a vanity search as most times when my name is spoken, it is done so in vain or to question my morals or something.
Apologies to anyone that I’ve left hanging. Will return to anything if anyone wants me to.
Here on the SDMB, you mean? No. I usually know where I posted.
On Google, all the time. In fact, that’s how I test out search engines: if they find mentions of me that I couldn’t find anywhere else, then they do a good job.
Yeah, because I can’t always remember where I posted to. And I haven’t gotten stoned for more than 8 years, and I never visit the boards while I’m drunk, so I guess it must be the early onset of Alzheimers. WOOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!
Nope. Too much stress on the server and if I can’t remember where I posted, that’s my problem. I also figure that if someone is desperately waiting on my deep wisdom 
they can email me directly.
I wonder if vanity searching was disallowed (if that’s even possible) whether the hamsters would run faster.
Nope, never occurred to me. I’m going on 1000 posts but doubt I’m ever the topic of conversation and don’t doubt I could go MIA for months without arousing any suspicion or concern.*
Which is actually the way my social life in general works, so that’s A-OK.
[sub]Not a complaint or cry for help, just a fact. [/sub]
Before seeing this thread, I hadn’t really thought to do so. It was kinda fun.
I did find a few cases where someone had replied to one of my posts after I’d stopped reading the thread. If anyone’s faith in humanity was shattered by my negligence, I sincerely apologize.
I just did one, and found my name in a crush thread, of all things. Bizarre.