Looking for an old thread. Sometime between (I think) one and three years ago there was a very sophisticated “Internet scavenger hunt” thing started here. Not your typical “find these answers at Google” scavenger hunt, but one that required puzzle-solving and deductive reasoning as well.
The OP which started it (duh), if I remember correctly, part of the puzzle had to be deduced by realizing you needed information from the poster’s user profile. The question was something like “I can see this looking from my bedroom window”.
The answer was not just “this item” or “this building” but the URL that hosted this particular image or item or whatever.
I’ve tried to do a few Bricker-esque challenges in other places online and it is HARD work! He did really well making questions that couldn’t easily be Googled. I’d love to see another Bricker Challenge. Is he still around?
Boy that’s weird. It sounds so much like a post I made. I know I asked a question which was “What world’s first can I see from my bedroom window.” But the 2 hunts I started don’t have that Q in it. And they weren’t as complicated as you make the one you remember sound. Maybe I posted that question in somebody else’s thread? Or maybe somebody else asked a similar question. My name might have been brother rat at the time. Or Jinxie. Maybe even Osiris.
Looks like things are only indexed back to Sept. 11, 2001 so searching wont work. And yeah. Those challenges were very difficult. I don’t think I ever had more then 1 or 2 answers.
I remember this thread fairly clearly, and it was definintely after I joined, in January, 2003. It was not a Bricker challenge, and I’m pretty sure the poster who started it was either in the UK or Australia, because IIRC they called their college (where they could see something from their window–a building or tower, I believe) their “Uni”. I also remember the discussion about an important clue to be found on their homepage which was listed in their member profile. I’m still looking for it. I wish I could remember who started it.
Yes, it was this one, I’m almost positive. I did a search on these boards for “scavenger” and “detective” but didn’t get anywhere. That’s why I was asking for expert searchers, maybe we can come up with an uncommon word that was used in it (“Uni” is too short a term).
I’ve searched every combination of words I can recall from that thread, and nothing. I’m wondering if it didn’t get deleted, perhaps. I’ve got one of the mods on my MSN messenger list, and if I see him on, I’ll ask if he can briefly search the hidden forum where threads are moved to when the staff wished them to be invisible. They probably won’t restore it, if they had a good reason to kill it, but I might be able to learn its fate, at least. That’s the only thing I can think of, 'cause I sure can’t find it.
Either that, or the search engine is all screwed up again.
Rex, you can also e-mail the mods of the likely forum (MPSIMS?) yourself. Contact info isn’t a secret.
I didn’t try looking up the thread you referenced myself, but Search has been very wonky for me on other subjects. As it apparantly has for a lot of us.
So, e-mail a mod or two, put SDMB in the subject line, and be prepared to wait a while.
No need. I spoke with xash and he tried to find it, too. No love there, either. He did tell me the DB was never really re-indexed after the migration to the current vB version, so that might be why it can’t be found right now. The Search function is very erratic, and will probably be so until they can do that re-indexing. But that will mean taking the board down for some time, according to him.
btw, to any passing mod or admin who might happen to stumble on this thread:
I would gladly forego several days of Doping if we could have a workable Search again. Just one vote out of thousands, but I wanted to go on record with my feelings here. Maybe I’ll post that in ATMB, or the PIT!
Feelings? I love you man!
Sorry, that was to a very special Doper - you know who you are!
So there’s an indexing problem, but remember that when the board was hacked somewhere around Feb of 2002, many months of thread were lost forever. One of my favorites that I started was lost.