Why is it that sometimes the icon for searching for posts by a specific user works and sometimes it does not? Also, I have noticed that for those individuals who fall under the category of not being able to just click the icon, I also cannot do a regular search for their posts by just typing in their names. Whenever I try, the search just tells me to enter a keyword or a username in order to search.
Also, when I search for my posts, it shows my second most recent post to be in the thread WARNING-SPOILER! by Mojo on 8-21-00 but the only time I posted to that thread was over two months ago on 6-20-00 at 2:07am. What is up?
I’m not exactly sure about your first question, I’ve never had that happen. I think I can, however, answer your first.
When you search for a particular user’s posts, it brings up all of the threads with posts from that user. The order, though, is not from your newest post to oldest. It is from the latest thread to be posted to that you have posted to, to the oldest. The reason WARNING-SPOILER! came up is because even though you posted to it a long time ago, someone else has posted to it more recently than your last post. I hope that makes sense. Basically, look at the “Last Post” part of the list when you search. That’s what decides the order of the list.
I’ve had this happen a few times.
I have a semi-related question that’ll probably sound egotistical, but what the hey. I tried to search on my name to see if I’ve been brought up in threads where I may not have posted, so I put “Ellen” into the keywords search and got a lot of hits. Whoa!
But, when I got to the threads, it turns out that a lot of people have just been using the word “excellent.” ExcELLENt. Hmpf.
Well, my question is, is there anyway to do this search without popping up every post where someone has uttered, “Excellent, dude!!”
Seems as though I recall a discussion on the topic of user-name searches a month or two ago, but I can’t find the thread. As I recall, user names with spaces (sometimes) cause the search feature to puke. I imagine that there’s some threshold string length that the search engine requires, because I was successful in searching for Arnold Winkleried, Trout Mask Replica, and Duck Duck Goose, but not 1 2 3 4 me or SF CA US.
Do you have an example of this?
As far as the search with usernames that include spaces or special characters, I’m not really sure what the algorithm is, I too have suffied from varying degrees of success with the vBulletin software.
I would suppose that at the vBulletin site, http://www.vbulletin.com, they could give you a more complete answer (click on “community” at the top of the page to go to the Q&A section of their website.)
Oh, and Ellen, I don’t know of any solution to your dilemma. I face the same problem with my username, I could such for Winkelried with a reasonable degree of success, but sometimes people refer to me as “Arn”, “Arnie”, “Winkie”, etc… There are doubtless some threads in which my name was mentioned that never received a response from me, and some unfortunate soul is weeping and feeling unloved. C’est la vie!
I think that the search feature needs a string of at least three consecutive letters, unbroken by spaces, numerals, or other symbols. Hence, a person could search for “Arnold” or “Winkelried” and find posts by him, since those are both over three characters. However, for users like “1 2 3 4 me” or “MC”, there isn’t any such string, so I’m afraid that they’re out of luck, at least until the next version of vB, when they’ll hopefully improve the search engine.
Oh, and Arnold, you should probably also search for “Winkelreid”. I don’t even know how many times I’ve misspelled that. Usually, folks just call you Arnold, from what I’ve seen, because we’re all lazy.
Soooo…Evilbeth. Are you still trying to indulge yourself with secret crushes on yet unnamed posters? Looking for new objects for your affection? 
Seriously, there were a couple of posters whose posts I tried to search and ran into this problem. One was a friend of mine, Medea’s Child. (I’m guessing it was because of the apostrophe, and it has since been fixed)
As to the second issue you raise, Silent Rob has it dead on. As someone who faithly reads posts of certain friends here (the 1 1/2 friends I have), I’m very used to using the search engine to help me.
LOL No, actually I was just looking at some posts on similar subjects that I had remembered people posting to. But now that you mention it…
Thanks for answers, guys!