She edited the graphic to which the post refers. Once a post contains a graphic, the owner of the site containing the graphic can change the graphic to anything she wants.
You may remember that recently one of the sites from which our members stole smilies changed the smiley to a smiley with an annoying registration box.
All anna did is change the graphic on her site, to it appears differently when you call it up now.
TubaDiva
If you are looking for bugs, I could have sworn I pushed “new thread” when posting above. My question is not about this thread, although I was reminded of my question by it and may have just been here.
(Nothemama
If you don’t know, why answer? You aren’t helping. Nothing personal, it’s a generic problem on all message boards. Some people think all questions are directed at them.)
Rechenanlagen, Notthemama did answer your questions.
You use the “Search in” pulldown box when you know which forum the post/thread you are looking for is in. If you don’t use it, it searches all the forums, which can be a waste of your time, especially if you have to use the “Any Date” or “Last 30 Days” because it’s not a recent post.
Search with user name will bring up posts in the forum being searched (or on the MB in general if you choose “Search All Forums”) that were posted within the time frame being searched.
You ask “Does it make any difference when used with “search with user name”?” If you use “Search Forum X” and “Search by User Name Y”, you should get posts by Y in Forum X. Not sure what sort of difference you are asking about, but yer:
a) You will get only the posts in Forum X made by Y (not posts made by Y in any other forum).
b) You will get only posts made by Y in Forum X (not posts in Forum X made by any other poster).
Should you search by Subject Only or the entire message? That depends. If you don’t know the subject of the thread that the post you are looking for is in, you would search by entire message. If you do know the subject, it might be quicker to search by subject.
Sadly, the items don’t correlate in the way you’d expect.
E.g., if you specify both a word and a name, you get threads where different people used the word, not the person in question.
The basic question was this:
I want to search on a person’s name; does it matter whether the “search-in” pull down is set to “entire message” or “subject only”, and howso?
I.e., is the person’s name considered part of the subject, part of the message, or neither.
**
You are a newbie, so I won’t totally redesign your anus for your rudeness.
However, if it’s all right with you, I will take a few moments of your valuable time to explain why, even though I didn’t know the EXACT answer, I did bother to take few moments of MY valuable time to attempt to help a newbie who was ASKING FOR HELP.
Some posters ask questions because they just like to feel involved, rather than have any specific need for information. Sometimes they are too shy to join in over at Great Debates, or to post a question in GQ, and you certainly couldn’t pay them to be caught dead in the Pit, where someone might (gasp!) flame them.
So they hang out in MPSIMS and ATMB. Some of us old hands, out of the kindness of our hearts, check in with ATMB every so often, just to see if there are any lonely newbies sitting forlornly in the corner. If there are, we ask them to dance.
I don’t know how they do things on those “other message boards,” but on this one, Sparky, a question that’s posted is fair game for anyone who feels like answering. And here, yes, all of us DO feel that “all questions are directed at us.” That’s why we’re all here–we like answering questions. Some of us, however, don’t deign to respond to the more trivial questions, such as “How does the Search button work?”.
Some of us, however, like me and Kat, feel at least an obligation to attempt an assist. People helped us with our dumb questions when we were much younger; we are just passing it along.
If it gets your panties in a bunch to receive incorrect or incomplete information, then, babe, you better stay out of General Questions and About This Message Board, ‘cause you’ll be walkin’ around with a permanent self-inflicted wedgie. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen OPs answered with, “Well, my WAG would be…” and it was, if not totally wrong, at least way off base.
You do know what a WAG is, don’t you? “Wild Ass Guess.” Just because we’re an MB devoted to Fighting Ignorance doesn’t mean that we’re all Walking Encyclopedias.
So if you decide to stick around, better resign yourself to the fact that people might actually try to help you even if they don’t know exactly what they’re doing themselves.
The Straight Dope Message Board is a place, first and foremost, for conversation. It’s not just “Information Please.” And in any conversation, you’re going to have people try to give you Wild Ass Guesses. Get used to it.
And if you’re seriously having trouble figuring out how Search works–geez, just do what everybody else does and fiddle around with it for a while, and see what happens. It’s not rocket science.
Kat, many thanks. Here, sweetie, have a box of cookies. What’s your pleasure–Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Pecan Sandies? Oh, no, she’s going for the Fig Newtons…! What a maniac…
Here’s another suggestion ( for the future, TubaDiva, if it’s a problem. No need to answer now. I’ll resurface this thread later on.)
Why not suggest links to Cecil’s archives on the Post New Topic page?
Or among the instructions at the bottom. (I notice that these have changed already today, so I know it must be doable, not hard-coded as several people suggested last time.)
Just a thought.
Sometimes, while those of us who provide impartial and not entirely informed answers are doing so, we will provide enough information for someone more proficient to come up with a more complete answer. Jesus Christ, you’d think Notthemama said “I’m not entirely sure, but swallowing rat poison’s bound to help.”
waterj2, I can’t fathom what you’re on to me about. Can you be more specific? I thought (think) it’s a good suggestion.
Links just make things easier to follow. If you have a better one, let’s hear it.
ROFL!!! Not only yes but hell yes!
Thanks, Anna. You’ve done a good thing and brightened my day, too.
(Now I look at this thread in an entirely different way. 
)
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
who appreciates solutions to problems.
Not a bad idea.
As the techs finish up on all the necessary stuff to get this site 100% up and running, they can begin to tackle the little refinements that make it a better experience. This is absolutely one of those things, and a pretty cool idea.
I’ll make sure they see this. Thanks!!
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
TubaDiva - you made my day too.
My post was addressed mainly to Rechenlagen for his complaint about Notthemama’s answer not being informed enough. I was just continuing from what Notthemama said in his post right before yours. Your idea seems OK, but I really don’t spend much time in the Comments forums, so I’m pretty ambivalent about it.
I’d like to register a complaint about posts that complain about how people complain about an administrator’s complaint.
And I’d like to postactively register a complaint about posts that complain about this post.
Peace.
Well put! (Sure, you know I’m guessing, but that’s how I got through parsing sentences in grammar school. )
No, turns out that option isn’t used for names.
Other sites put the options in a better layout, so it’s less confusing what goes with what and what’s being ignored.
The only real problem here is that if the search seems slow, you tend to doubt your instincts and think “was I supposed to turn off full message searching?”
I was asked by to resurface these suggestions when the conversion rush was over.
It’s been a while and even the congratulations have started to fade, so I’m raising these again now.
I hope new readers can ignore the backbiting stuff.
(It’s old fights, and all the current squabbles are on the Pit forum, as they should be.)
The link on the first one got destroyed with loss of {img}, so i’ll repeat it
(it’s still sideways- I don’t want to right it again, in case {img} ever gets turned back on):
** http://lamerino.tripod.com/searchsuggestion.gif **
