Max has been doing a fair amount of work lately, but hasn't conquered the Forum Search yet. I just did a search for hamish - came up with results in the Digital Tradition, but not the Forum. Searching for common words is not a good text, since many common words are excluded so as not to overtax the system looking for "and."

I've included all sorts of search tips and some little-known search utilities in the very first message of the FAQ. If you want to find a thread by thread title, the best tool has always been the Filter, right at the top of the list of threads. There's also the Old Advanced Forum Search, which is in the QuickLinks dropdown menu on almost every Mudcat page. As much as possible, I have tried to change the message title of lyrics posts to ADD: Threadtitle, so they can be found easily in the old search utility.

It's always been a mistake to depend completely on the one search engine. Different utilities word better for some sorts of searches. And especially if you are trying to search by the title of a thread or messages, the Filter (thread) and Old Advanced Forum Search (message or poster name) are better tools. I find that I use the other tools far more often than I use the main search engine, even when the main search is working swimmingly. And hey, I'm pretty good at finding stuff here.

But yes, Max knows that there's a problem with the search engine, and he's working on it. It depends on an index, but the index keeps getting corrupted. He'll fix it, and it will go bad again in a day or so. It's fwustwating.

-Joe-

P.S. As I boasted above, I'm pretty good at finding stuff here. If you can't find it, ask.