Strange Problem

About This Message Board
1

About one hour ago I made a post to this forum to discuss the problem of time outs and I asked some general questions. That is not the problem I wish to now discuss.

A few minutes ago, I came to this forum and decided to make another post in the same thread. The post I wanted to make described another problem I was having and I will explain that problem at the end of the post.

Unfortunately, although I was fairly certain that I had written that post and posted it to this board, I could find no trace of my post or my thread. I suppose it might always be possible that I somehow neglected to post that thread. But I just want to make that problem known in case other people may have it as well.

I will now discuss the problem that I tried to post a few minutes ago. Here it is:

I wanted to ask for some advice about a problem I’m having. I attempted to use the “Advanced Search” tool in order to see if there may already be a thread discussing this problem so that I wouldn’t make a duplicate thread. But no matter how many times I tried to sue (Oops! … subconscious brain fart) … use the search tool it just kept timing out.

I started off by supplying a phrase like, “How to get rid of some very tiny flying insects in my home”

On my first try, I tried to search all forums, search through all posts (not just the titles), search during the past year. I figured I’d begin by making the most general kind of search and if I found too many, I could then just try a more restrictive search. But no matter how much I restricted the search …

i.e I changed the search time down to just the past few days, I searced titles only, anyway, I hope you will get the idea. But no matter how much I restricted the search, it just kept timing out.

I am posting this in case the cause is some kind of problem that will cause every one to be unable to use the search too. I would expect the problem will be something silly that I may be doing. At least I hope so.

I do not expect to get an answer to this post - unless other people begin to find their searches all time out as well. I’m just posting this as a courtesy to the admins of this board so they may know it could be possible there is a problem.

2

A)The short answer, for the missing post, is that the board has been wonky for the last day or so. It’s likely you did, in fact, start a new thread and it disappeared itself.
B)When searching, less is more. Instead of searching for “How to get rid of some very tiny flying insects in my home”, try something like “tiny AND bug” or “Small AND flying”, no quotes. The problem being that if someone else did ask a similar question, it’s unlikely they used the same phrase you’re thinking of, so just go with a few keywords.
B)The search here is notoriously bad. It’s easier to search the board (and any site, for that matter) by going to google and searching for “site:boards.sraightdope.com [search string]”, again, without the quotes.

TL;DR, post the thread/question again.

3

Thank you Joey P. I will give that a try.

P.S. As far as “TL DNR” goes, you are quite right. I should have known better.

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Charlie, you may find using Google instead of the built in vB search engine to be more productive for you.

How to search the SDMB using Google

Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

5

To try to find your missing thread-

User CP —> Your Profile link —> Your Statistics tab —> “find all threads started by…”

For looking for existing threads on a topic, like Tuba said, google is best. There was an add on floating around that created a Google search SDMB text box I found useful. Maybe someone else knows where it is.

6

And a lot faster/more effective.

And from there I was going to make some snark about what your actual problem is but I like Canadians and am just in good humor today. :wink:

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And if you’re really stuck, we have some skilled googlers who can sometimes help you find good search terms.

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Thanks very much to everyone who replied and offered help.

Kopek reference my “real” problem. The only defense I can offer is that I had just woken up and was feeling very groggy.

But I still should have known better than to write such a long and rambling post. I sure do wish I could have edited it. But I am now using the “preview” feature more often and I hope to be more careful to avoid long and rambling posts. I know what a pain they can be. Thanks again.

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I did that a while ago. I searched google for (without quotes) "site:boards.straightdope.com " and bookmarked it. Here’s a link., then I took the bookmark and made it a button on the toolbar at the top so all I had to do was click the button and enter my search after the text already in the search box.

IIRC, someone took it a step further and made a pop up box to start the search with.

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Here’s that thread.
Here’s the post what I was talking about. I have no idea if code from 6+ years ago works on current browsers, but you can certainly try it and find out.

ETA: It works on the current version of Firefox (71). Keep in mind that the button does not spawn a new window or tab so if you have something typed, but not submitted, you’ll lose it.