RESTRICTED: Find all posts by member - only find OWN posts

That would be a good option, to opt-out... but no matter what you do, your posts are easy to scan through Google. The find posts option here, for members, just makes things easier to view while on the forum, rather than having to go through google and chop back and forth.

MQTA said:

That would be a good option, to opt-out... but no matter what you do, your posts are easy to scan through Google.

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That's not true.

Looking through Google brings up less than one dozen posts for someone with over 1,000!

I hope the feature returns soon; it's been gone way too long now

I think I suggested this before, but since noone responded as to whether or not it was feasible I'll ask again, ...

in my user control panel I have the option to "view all subscrbed threads" now I am assuming that this just displays threads I have subscribed to w/o having to search every thread on cf. if this is the case, why not have that as an option when someone clicks on my name something like "view all wild01's subscribed threads"
and perhaps, for the sake of privacy, give me the option to turn this feature off, just like I can hide my rep and health if I want to.

I really miss this feature. Yesterday someone added to my rep w/o ever posting in the thread. I have no idea where this person hangs out. It would be cool if I could check out their opinion on things and see if we are of like mind, but for now I cannot. Cf just isn't the same w/o it. :waaaa:

Still Hoping we get the feature back!! Erwin, are you still considering it and looking for a way to do it?
karen

I don't understand why the search can't be set up to search only public forums, forums that everbody has access too, then the server computer thingy would not have to compare usernames to see if they had permission.

I've noticed that you can search in individual forums, that is almost as good as the orginal search feature.

MQTA said:

That would be a good option, to opt-out... but no matter what you do, your posts are easy to scan through Google. The find posts option here, for members, just makes things easier to view while on the forum, rather than having to go through google and chop back and forth.

Click to expand...

Google is a very poor way to search for things on this site. . . it only brings up a smattering of posts.


Erwin . . I am hoping you will be able to come up with a solution soon. I know it takes time, and I appreciate your willingness to work on it. . . I hope it is OK to share my thoughts regarding how important this feature is.

Not being able to look at posts of others makes it hearder to have more than superficial discussions with people you don't know. It also makes it hard to impossible to find helpful information you know someone posted, but don't remember where it was.

We used to be able to search ALL posts in addition to posts by a particular member. The ability to search all posts was taken away to speed up the site, and google has never come close to being an adequate substitute.

Those of us who really used this feature consoled ourselves with the fact that we could search for posts by members . . .

Now that is gone too . . and I know it is your hope that this is temporary.


I find my ability to use this site, and ultimately its usefulness, significantly hampered by the lack of adequate search functions. We can't easily find and refer back to previous discussions of the same topic. We can no longer easily access the WEALTH of information that this site contains.

What is the point of posting very informative posts if no one can find them later?


We really need to have this feature back. It is of great benefit to serious posters here at CF and ultimately to CF itself. Without it, CF loses much of what has made it great.

CF is a goldmine of information that can no longer be mined.

What good is gold if it is stuck in the ground? It is worth nothing to anyone. It is useless.


Without adequate search functions, this site is like a goldmine that has been shut down, rich in gold deposites in its depths that can't be extracted, with access restricted to the most superficial levels where it is hard to get much out of the rock.



The Search function is a FUNDAMENTAL tool of ANY forum. Now that it is completely gone, except for our own posts, the functionality and usefulness of CF is significantly lessened in my opinion.



In regards to the suggestion that this be a feature individual users can turn on or off when it comes to others being able to search their posts, I do not think it should be able to be turned off and on by individual members, as that would encourage those who want to troll, etc. This is a public board, and anything you don't want publically known should not be posted here.



My vote is to bring back all search functions lost over the past year or so . . . if you are working on something inovative, perhaps FULL search functionality can be brought back?

Anyway, thanks for listening.


Hopeful . . . . .

thereselittleflower said:

....

What is the point of posting very informative posts if no one can find them later?


We really need to have this feature back. It is of great benefit to serious posters here at CF and ultimately to CF itself. Without it, CF loses much of what has made it great.

CF is a goldmine of information that can no longer be mined.

What good is gold if it is stuck in the ground? It is worth nothing to anyone. It is useless.


Without adequate search functions, this site is like a goldmine that has been shut down, rich in gold deposites in its depths that can't be extracted, with access restricted to the most superficial levels where it is hard to get much out of the rock.

...

Hopeful . . . . .

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Excellent points! Thanks for stating all that. ITA

Personally, as a CF member on a dialup connection... I'd rather have CF be slow, than to continue without this feature.

thereselittleflower said:

What is the point of posting very informative posts if no one can find them later?
...
CF is a goldmine of information that can no longer be mined.
...
What good is gold if it is stuck in the ground? It is worth nothing to anyone. It is useless.

Click to expand...

I'm still mining. Whenever I see a post I find interesting and/or inspiring, I copy and paste it into my browser's notepad (and I add the name of the member, the thread, which forum). If I see more than one post, I go to "thread tools" and select "download thread".

That might be tedious and I imagine the "searching all posts by a member" is faster and I'm not saying to "just forget about that function" - all I'm saying is that in the meantime CF provides you with means to keep a nugget here and there.

Matrona said:

Personally, as a CF member on a dialup connection... I'd rather have CF be slow, than to continue without this feature.

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The problem isn't so much it being slow as it crashs the server and no one can access cf.

I would like to add my comment here. While I found the feature very useful, I felt like my privacy was being invaded. For example, If I wanted to post on the prayer forum and I wanted to be discreet about it and still post on the friendship page and on the sites where the denominations are and the topics, I didn't want to feel stalked if someone chose to follow my posts. To me I had nothing to hide, but the feature felt very threatening.

I would like to add however, I did find it useful when I lost track of a converstation and or a poster to be able to track the person and read the posts. So I guess I could see the pro's and con's.

God Bless and thanks Erwin for all you do regardless of what ends up being.

NewSong

Erwin said:

I will try my hardest to bring back a "search members" post feature that is both workable and secure... bear with me...

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I am very glad to hear this and I pray that you will be able to get this done very soon - I really miss the feature. I have been losing contact to some of my favourite friends here because of this; I never know, where they acutally are, so that I could read their posts or support them when necessary.
It is very tiring to keep contact by using the PM.

So I hope you will have success very soon!
May God bless you!

NewSong said:

I would like to add my comment here. While I found the feature very useful, I felt like my privacy was being invaded. For example, If I wanted to post on the prayer forum and I wanted to be discreet about it and still post on the friendship page and on the sites where the denominations are and the topics, I didn't want to feel stalked if someone chose to follow my posts. To me I had nothing to hide, but the feature felt very threatening.

I would like to add however, I did find it useful when I lost track of a converstation and or a poster to be able to track the person and read the posts. So I guess I could see the pro's and con's.

God Bless and thanks Erwin for all you do regardless of what ends up being.

NewSong

Click to expand...

However, as has been said before . . this is a public boad . . nothing that you don't want others to find out about should be posted here . . .

Crippling this sites capabilities for the sake of "privacy" will only give a false sense of security, for google crawls this site, and someone who wanted to "stalk" you most likely could still find out enough information through google to do so . . .


To hamper this site's search capabilities for the sake of privacy will only lead to a false sense of security.




Peace in Him!

5solas said:

I am very glad to hear this and I pray that you will be able to get this done very soon - I really miss the feature. I have been losing contact to some of my favourite friends here because of this; I never know, where they acutally are, so that I could read their posts or support them when necessary.

Click to expand...

Second this although since the task hasn't been accomplished yet the "very soon" part seems wickedly unlikely. Almost 1/6th of a year now.

It's taking too long; to heck with slowness, it should be re-installed now.

5solas said:

I am very glad to hear this and I pray that you will be able to get this done very soon - I really miss the feature. I have been losing contact to some of my favourite friends here because of this; I never know, where they acutally are, so that I could read their posts or support them when necessary.
It is very tiring to keep contact by using the PM.

So I hope you will have success very soon!
May God bless you!

Click to expand...

I second this.

Truly Blessed said:

I second this.

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Amen, Truly! I third it!

I put my foot in my mouth the other week by joking with a member I didn't know well. In times past, I've avoided that by reading the last 100 posts or so of members I'm with whom I'm unfamiliar, in order to become better acquainted with them. Perhaps I just have a weird sense of humor, but I've found that even our incredibly friendly winky emoticon doesn't always convey that I'm joking. Since I can't find my friends, who know when I'm kidding, in order to post with them and since I don't wish to inadvertantly give offense, I post far less than I used to.

I also don't see how our staff can possibly mod as effectively as they both should and desire to without having it as a tool. (eg. when a member joins only to spam being able to find all their posts quickly can save an immeasurable amount of work).

I bet a lot of these ideas have mentioned and mulled over, but I'll give my two cents anyways

I have not idea of the specs of the database, but what about a better search feature than Google's site search?

Or...I know some forums have a "last 5 (or 10, or day) posts made by SallyNow" feature.

Oh well...I still like CF, and I'm certianly not going to leave over this or anything, but it would be nice to have some sort of "find posts by" feature back, in whatever form. Although, I also understand your pretty busy, so it may take a while. Real life is important too.