I’m not talking about controversial threads that were killed for one reason or another, but “harmless little threads” that can’t be found with the search engine.
I remember a couple of different topics from “a while back,” but I can’t find them despite using words that I know should find them.
Were any threads actually lost in one of the board meltdowns?
Just in case you’re interested, I posted a question about William McKinley’s injuries in GQ (two years ago, maybe).
Another one was in GD, which was about Shoeless Joe, and cited a study that ESPN had done that showed he wasn’t quite so innocent as is often believed (three or four years ago).
The whole period from ~12/07/2001 to ~03/20/2002 is missing, and back in UBB days, some forums were purged of stuff prior to ~07/01/1999. Individual items here and there have gone away as well.
Also make sure that you’re setting an appropriate range of dates to search. I think that the default is “since yesterday”, whereas you probably want “a year ago or older”.