What are they? How are they done? Why are they done? Who does them?
I believe the term ‘vanity search’ was originally applied to the process of using the board search engine to search all the forums for threads in which your own username appears, either in the username field or in the text.
If I hadn’t been on the boards since yesterday, I might log in, click ‘search’, and then check to see what’s going on in threads I’ve posted to, or see if anyone is talking about me.
As you likely know, though, serching like that uses up a lot of board resources, so ‘vanity searches’ got a bad name.
I’ve recently heard the phrase on the board, too.
If it’s searching the board for your username, I do that all the time. I’m interested in following threads that I’ve participated in.
I believe the phrase is more of a negative one to see if someone has mentioned your name in a thread.
I still don’t see what the problem is, though.
I’ve always interpreted vanity searches to mean searching for your own username in the text field; in other words, to find out when posters are talking about or referring to you. I don’t think checking threads you’ve posted to is, strictly speaking, a vanity search.
If I’m absent from the boards for a little while, I’ll search for threads I’ve participated in (Search By User Name: KneadToKnow) to see what’s gone on in those.
About once a week, I do what I consider a vanity search (Search By Keyword: knea*, Search For Posts From… a week ago). Sadly, because many people abbreviate my user name as KTK or K2K, I can’t do a really thorough one. I feel really sorry for users like Eve who can’t do one at all, even if they want to.
I don’t do it often, but I agree with Ruby. It seems to me there are more complicated searches that can be made than seeing what threads you’ve participated in for the last day or week. Some people think that one should search to make sure there aren’t threads like the one being started, search to see if Cecil had anything to say on the subject. Personally, I go for KISS and looking to see where I’ve been seems fairly simple. Of course, I don’t start threads because mine sink like rocks. :o
I don’t like feeling I’ve been rude by missing someone’s response to one of my posts. A vanity search reminds me of all the threads I’ve posted to just to be on the safe side; once a week or fortnight is fine.
When I lose track of the threads I’ve participated in, I will put my username in the righthand box and find them. I always limit my search to one week.
When I am curious whether anyone knows I exist enough to mention me in a thread I have not participated in, I put my username in the lefthand box, still setting the limit for one week. This is a vanity search, and I would imagine it is somewhat more intensive for the server, so I only do this about once a week, or when the board is very slow (few people posting, I mean, not the board itself being slow). Vanity searches also turn up threads I posted to in which someone responded to me. It’s extra important to go back to these.
Fair point. I follow Achernar’s method; username search once a week or so, vanity search in the other box maybe once every two or three months.
About once a week, I do a “vanity search” simply to find out if there have been new contributions to threads that I’ve participated in – e.g., in GQ, where a question can be answered and the thread drop after four or five posts, or the subject can linger and be discussed for a week. I skip over threads listed in the result that I’m actively participating in, but do check to see what, say, Guano Lad had to say about mammal acclimatization in New Zealand after I responded that none save bats were native there but some species had been introduced.
I guess I’m saying much the same thing as Achernar – use it, in moderation, to provide the courtesy of reading what somebody responded to one of your posts, particularly in a thread you’ve lost track of.
I search for “Polycarp” as a keyword very seldom, and as noted by others, when the board is not particularly active – just to see if anyone has happened to make reference to me. This too can be a courtesy – I might have missed a comment in Cafe Society that says, in effect, “Polycarp is quite a fan of Spider Robinson; I hope he drops by and explains what he thinks Spider meant by that analogy.”
I do searches on my username in the username field pretty frequently. It’s the easiest (only) way to conveniently keep track of the threads I’m participating in. I don’t think this is a proper “vanity search.”
My understanding of the term, like JeffB’s, is that it involves searching for your username in the text field, like Achernar said, just to see if anyone’s mentioned you. I haven’t done one of those in months. There’s a unique problem with doing that on my username, though, which is that it’ll turn up any threads in which the words “white” and “lightning” appear, which happens more frequently than you might think. Esprix is famous for doing these.
I can’t imagine why I was mentioned here. 
Esprix, who only found this thread by doing a vanity search
See, that’s what I mean. Poor Eve will never know she was mentioned. 
I do vanity searches (my name in the text field) fairly frequently to see if anyone’s followed up to something I specifically said, or asked me a question. Most people (not all) will put your name in the quote. I also subscribe to threads I’ve started.
Does that make me a bad person?
Esprix, did you ever consider changing your username to “kibo”?
Some of us DO have names with a better “kibo factor” than others.
Some will understand the reference.
I first heard about “vanity searches” on Usenet. The idea was that people would search for their own names (usually their own unique handle), which could be done easily with a text “grep” tool on the local files on your local machine or server.
(Tangent: This was popularized back when it was more common for your news server to be on a local Unix machine. Usenet’s not much like that anymore, and a web message board like this one is certainly nothing like it in this respect: a grep on your Unix server ran using your hamsters, a search on the SDMB uses Unca Cece’s hamsters.)
Anyway, I recognized yabob’s reference: kibo was the nick of a Usenet poster who routinely searched for his name anywhere it was mentioned, and responded.
For myself, I’ll use the search function if I’ve been following a thread and can’t remember the title, using my username in the “Search by User Name” box, as Achernar and others describe. A true “vanity” search, though, would be using your username in the “Search By Keyword” box, to see if others are talking about you (that’s where the vanity gets involved). Even if that idea interested me (which it doesn’t especially), there’s also the fact that my username is not well suited to such a search. I can see how Esprix’s name would work really well, though.
You can do a three letter search on Boardreader however. (remember to put “straightdope” as the first search term).
I just did a search on “straightdope eve” and it returned a number of threads (here is one).
None of the returned threads are more recent than Jan 6, 2003 though. I’m not sure how often they update their database.
(BTW, I don’t think it’ll return results for posts where you’re the author… it’ll only return links to threads where you’ve been mentioned in the text somewhere.)
Esprix, you’re so easy!
Algernon, actually I’m pretty sure boardreader will return posts that you’ve written. I searched boardreader for “White Lightning” straightdope and every result on the first page was a link that had turned up the instance of “White Lightning” next to a post of mine.
White Lightning, thanks for the follow-up.
The few tests I ran with boardreader, I couldn’t tell. All the threads that I found had the search word in the text. Some of the threads had the search word in the text and as a username, but none had just the search word as a username.
Doesn’t mean it won’t return those threads of course… I just didn’t happen to catch any of those situations. I’m glad you did.
Thanks.