Two Q's about search: old UBB threads and deleted (maybe) threads

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  1. Are the old UBB threads unsearchable? These:
    http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/002227.html

  2. I ask because the “Teenagers are worthless” Pit thread reminded me of an old Pit thread in which a then- and now-respected poster brought a shitstorm upon his/herself, by doing much the same thing, saying really nasty stuff and getting called on it (to put it mildly). I’ve searched using the username in the Pit, but it ain’t there. I did, however, find a thread about the thread I’m looking for, which gives the above UBB URL as the post I’m looking for.

So I can’t find the thread, is it because the UBB threads didn’t make it to our search database, or was the übercontroversial thread deleted (I highly doubt it)?

I kept things relatively anonymous, since I don’t think anyone wants it brought up again. If anyone wants to discuss this thread privately, AIM and e-mail are in my profile.

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Lemme tag another question on here…

My profile is at
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=239

Does that userid mean that I was the 239th member of the board? (Give or take, I know there were test accounts and such.) And does that make me special?

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UBB threads should be included in the search index, but at one point, we did “prune” a lot of threads, meaning the one you’re looking for might not be there anymore.

Your user-id does indeed mean you were the 239th to sign on. Subtract a few test accounts, and you’re probably 235th or so. And it doesn’t make you special at all, just early. :wink:

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I also note that, depending on the date of the lost thread, we did have a major board hiccough, where all threads from the prior three months or so were “disappeared.” So the pruning that Coldfire mentions may have been inadvertent. I don’t remember the dates of that particular headache, though.

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Coldy, I would assume the routine “pruning” (is it routine?) would spare popular/long threads and focus more on test posts in ATMB, and extra-pointless threads in MPSIMS that get no responses. Obviously, I could be wrong. And this was before you became a mod… I could tell from the context of the other thread.

CK, if you mean the infamous “Winter of Lost Content,” the thread predates it. It must have been somewhere between 9/99 and 6/00, because I remember talking about it with a friend in HS. (She posted twice ever, a double post in that thread. Of course I don’t remember her user name. :smack:)