# Have some threads disappeared, or can you just not search for them?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-some-threads-disappeared-or-can-you-just-not-search-for-them/302941>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [May 8, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-some-threads-disappeared-or-can-you-just-not-search-for-them/302941 "2005-05-08T19:13:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-some-threads-disappeared-or-can-you-just-not-search-for-them/302941/1 "2005-05-08T19:13:16Z")

</div>

I was looking for a good laugh last night, and I decided to hunt up a few vintage threads. I couldn’t find them, even with obvious clues and a search along with my username.

So, would it be so that some threads cannot be dredged up?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2005, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-some-threads-disappeared-or-can-you-just-not-search-for-them/302941/2 "2005-05-08T19:29:11Z")

</div>

Oh, and this may well have been covered, I’m sorry, but is there a way to search beyond 30 pages when going over a posting history?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2005, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-some-threads-disappeared-or-can-you-just-not-search-for-them/302941/3 "2005-05-08T21:17:23Z")

</div>

Some threads are lost forever due to the _Winter of our Missed Content_.

Some threads that were not from that era have simply vaporized for no known reason (e.g., the “Naughty Love Letters from Mully” thread simply doesn’t seem to exist anywhere). I have no clue as to whether these were disappeared deliberately for some reason or if software glitches did it.

Some threads were deleted by moderators, but usually that would have happened back when they were live and new. Moderators don’t normally run around looking for threads from times past to delete.

Aside from that, they ought to be there. Searching requires some inventiveness sometimes. Use the [x months ago / and older / and newer] options to try to keep the page limitations from preventing you from finding what you’re looking for.

There once was a proposal on the table to purge some of the oldest threads but it was never acted upon, and threads should not have disappeared simply as a consequence of being old.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-some-threads-disappeared-or-can-you-just-not-search-for-them/302941/4 "2005-05-09T04:42:21Z")

</div>

Thanks for the detailed reply.

And, I’ve found what I needed. I really had to play with the “Search Threads Above _x_ Posts” function to defeat the gap of No-Man’s-Land that lies between posts viewable with the “Ascending” and “Descending” options when not using a limit.