I had some issues with the search page not finding the stories I was looking for and this discussion is the result. My earlier post isn't necessary so I'm turning this into a general discussion about searches on the site.

These are the relevant points from the earlier post.

Why wouldn't I just look in the Archive for old stories? (www.lcfanfic.com for anyone not familiar)

• Well not every story is posted to the Archive for one thing. Not every story is finished for a variety of reasons. And, finished or not, a lot of those stories are worth reading and discussing, which is the purpose of the forum.
• The message board is sorted by the age of the POST, not the age of the story. For example, before Marcus Rowland's recent post on "Aussie Rules" by Female Hawk, that story would have been deep in the archive. Now it's near the top. Old stories with new posts float to the top, which is great for discussions, but don't expect to always find posts in the same place.

I think would be really cool if a lot of people were to read older stories and YOU made those comments that moved them up in the list. It would also encourage the authors of those stories. It might even inspire some of those authors to write new stories. And I think it would be really cool for someone who hasn't been around for a while to poke their head in and find new feedback on one of their stories.

Hi Shallowford!

The "5 years max range" is a bit of a misnomer. For one, you can just clear the entire date range and search every post ever posted.

And, from experimenting just now, the 5 year limit only applies to the "newer posts" search, not the "older posts".

I think, maybe the best thing would be to just remove that label to avoid confusion up front.

Michael

Hi Shallowford,

Thank you for thinking about this problem, coming up with a solution, and being willing to implement it.

Another way to find older posts might be to use Google. If you add in the following to your search, Google will only search the MB:

site:lcficmbs.com

I've found this trick to be very useful whenever I need to locate something on a site that is lacking a good search facility.

I just doublechecked by searching on google for:

site:lcfic.com "Zebedee's Sons," and the relevant TOC was the first link returned.

Joy,
Lynn

OK. Lights have gone on.

There seems to be a difference between the "Newer than" search and the "Older than" search.

• With the Newer than search, if you delete the number field ( ___ Weeks) then the system assumes you meant "1". Selecting the blank time period does a full search. (I didn't realize that there was a blank option above "Days" in the time period dropdown.)
• The Older than search is more forgiving and will search the entire system if you delete the number field or leave the time period blank.

Thanks. I'm not a Google user so I didn't try that. For any other Yahoo users, Yahoo Search has the same function and it does NOT find this story.

(My previous post is irrelevant so I have time. If anyone is interested in knowing how to create 3200 hyperlinks in five minutes, let me know.)