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

[Erwin]

Due to server strain, I've had to once again remove this feature from members.

Members can all still FIND ALL THEIR OWN POSTS by clicking on "OWN" in the navbar at the top of EVERY page.

Explanation:
The main reason this was removed is that before the database query searched for all of a member's post then checked every single post against every forum to make sure the member has access to the forum. This really slowed down our site basically because we have so many posts and so many forums, as well as so many members.

What I did to speed things up was to remove the forum permission check. This really made the database query fast as all it did now was to search for the member then their posts - no forum checking.

Now, if they are your own post, you would have no problems as you would be able to see them anyway. However, if you search another member's post, you will see all their hidden posts, their drafts, their appeals, and if they are staff, all their staff posts. See the problem?

This is why for the moment I've limited it to only searching your own posts.

Trust me, you WILL see a huge increase in CF speed. At least you can still find your own posts.

NOTE: I will be working on a coding solution so I can bring this back. Until then, this will be temporarily off for members.

The request to remove this feature was posted here:
http://www.christianforums.com/t1184223-slowness.html

Thank you for understanding.

[RadicallyTransformedMom]

I must say i am disappointed about losing the feature. I didnt experience too much of a slow down personally. I do however respect your decision Erwin since your the webmaster. God bless.
karen

[servant4ever]

yay! CF is fast again!

[CaDan]

Due to server strain, I've had to once again remove this feature from members.

Members can all still FIND ALL THEIR OWN POSTS by clicking on "OWN" in the navbar at the top of EVERY page.

Explanation:
The main reason this was removed is that before the database query searched for all of a member's post then checked every single post against every forum to make sure the member has access to the forum. This really slowed down our site basically because we have so many posts and so many forums, as well as so many members.

What I did to speed things up was to remove the forum permission check. This really made the database query fast as all it did now was to search for the member then their posts - no forum checking.

Now, if they are your own post, you would have no problems as you would be able to see them anyway. However, if you search another member's post, you will see all their hidden posts, their drafts, their appeals, and if they are staff, all their staff posts. See the problem?

This is why for the moment I've limited it to only searching your own posts.

Trust me, you WILL see a huge increase in CF speed. At least you can still find your own posts.

NOTE: I will be working on a coding solution so I can bring this back. Until then, this will be temporarily off for members.

The request to remove this feature was posted here:
http://www.christianforums.com/t1184223-slowness.html

Thank you for understanding.

Just as a bit of brainstorming....

Would it be possible to make the appeals forum a completely separate BBS by running another instance of VBulletin with a different MySQL database? I suppose you could do the same with other private forums such as the staff forum, moderator apps, and site supporters.

[Neenie]

CF pages are loading much faster. Definitely worth sacrificing the search all members posts option...

Thanks Erwin! :thumbsup:

[Shannonkish]

YAY! CF is MUCH FASTER for me...... Thank you Erwin!

[bill16652]

thank you for speeding up cf. it is worth it to lose the search feature

[Dracil]

Phooey. I find it useful to find people's old posts to know where they're coming from in the debates.

[ChrisWins]

Thank you for all your work. Sincerely: THANKS!!!!

My opinion, for I wish it to be stated and known:

I hope you can get that feature reinstated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will GLADLY trade speed for the feature because it is useful to follow certain people's posts, as you know. There are many I love to follow up on or just read because they're very insightful.

Please work on getting it reinstated. Like i said - i'd trade speed for convenience any day of the year!!!!!

Thank you and God Bless!!!

[Erwin]

I'm working on other ways to do this. :) Thanks for being patient.

[strengthinweakness]

Thank you for all your work. Sincerely: THANKS!!!!

My opinion, for I wish it to be stated and known:

I hope you can get that feature reinstated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will GLADLY trade speed for the feature because it is useful to follow certain people's posts, as you know. There are many I love to follow up on or just read because they're very insightful.

Please work on getting it reinstated. Like i said - i'd trade speed for convenience any day of the year!!!!!

Thank you and God Bless!!!

I second this post, word-for-word! :) I know that solutions take time though, so I will be patient. Thanks, Erwin! :clap:

[Rochir]

Ok... I hope the search other members' posts function will be back soemtime. In the meantime - YAY for such a caring webmaster as Erwin!:thumbsup:

[Plan 9]

I'm working on other ways to do this. :) Thanks for being patient.

Thank you, Erwin, for expending the time and effort to work out a solution which will allow us to have this feature available again! :)

I love being able to get to know other members by reading their posts, and to be able to find posts I especially admired on first reading, but I hate even the thought of accidentally accessing material of a private nature. :eek:

[angelnstix]

:( I miss it. But it's not my time nor energy running this site.

[snoochface]

I thought I was going crazy and imagining I'd seen a feature that never actually existed. Good to finally find this thread! :D

But yeah, thanks for making things faster, it's much, much, much (did I mention much?) nicer to load the forums up now. I do miss the feature though, so I appreciate you working on finding a solution. :thumbsup:

[Dracil]

What about a compromise? Allow finding all posts by members once per day (or even week). It's not needed that often, but being able to use it once in a while might be good. That should prevent server strain, but allow us to use it sparingly.

[I'm Lovin God Always]

Hello - I hope this feature comes back soon :) I'm dying here without it. Okay, not really dying but I was just wanting to use it right before I came here to post this.

Any progress? That once per 24 hours idea sounds good. Possible? Anything?

Well, thanks :)

[Letalis]

I'm glad, I didn't like the idea of people searching through all my posts. So thanks Erwin. :clap:

[I'm Lovin God Always]

No no no, you see, there are many people, I have learned, who post such great things. It is truly a blessing to be able to read posted messages by certain people without having to spend wasteful time looking through countless different threads for those posts. I cannot begin to say how much I have learned because of that feature nor can I express how much it is missed. It is more of a blessing than anything. Thank you for considering its reinstallation as soon as it is humanly possible. :clap: :clap: :pray:

[MichaelFJF]

No no no, you see, there are many people, I have learned, who post such great things. It is truly a blessing to be able to read posted messages by certain people without having to spend wasteful time looking through countless different threads for those posts. I cannot begin to say how much I have learned because of that feature nor can I express how much it is missed. It is more of a blessing than anything. Thank you for considering its reinstallation as soon as it is humanly possible. :clap: :clap: :pray:
Ditto

[wild01]

I'll add my $0.02 here, not having this feature is driving me crazy. I realize that it it was neccesary for speed, but I for one would be much happier with this feature and a slow site, suggestions for possible solutions
I don't know if this will help but a view subcribed threads Feature for other peoples threads, that way the server wouldn't have to search all the posts just link to that persons threads, or maybe only search posts made in the last month? it really helps to tell where a person is coming from to be able to look at their other posts.

[I'm Lovin God Always]

I'll add my $0.02 here, not having this feature is driving me crazy. I realize that it it was neccesary for speed, but I for one would be much happier with this feature and a slow site

:thumbsup: I'll take slowness, too! AMEN!!!

[theseed]

Wow, that means that it only took one person to slow down the entire system. I've search with google trying to find my posts as well. However, I'm not sure if my username registers as text. Does anybody know?

Erwin, what if you made it possible so that you could only search for posts by going to that forum?

[theseed]

I'll add my $0.02 here, not having this feature is driving me crazy. I realize that it it was neccesary for speed, but I for one would be much happier with this feature and a slow site, suggestions for possible solutions
I don't know if this will help but a view subcribed threads Feature for other peoples threads, that way the server wouldn't have to search all the posts just link to that persons threads, or maybe only search posts made in the last month? it really helps to tell where a person is coming from to be able to look at their other posts.
Have you tried google?

[theseed]

Erwin,
Another idea is to have one search that everbody can see, and only searches the common forums, and another one for staff, and finally one for own, or maybe you could put in a box with "own" beside it. We check it and search our own posts.

[ChrisWins]

Have you tried google?

Apparantly a Google search is EXTREMELY limited. The postings I pulled up for someone numbered about 8 out of about 800 and those eight ranged from May last year to last month. Not good.

Here's hoping and even praying it comes back and the sooner the better. Ultimately the last 500 would be sweet. But why not something in the meantime? Last two months? Ot the last 100 posts? Last 50???? Something!? Please?

Thanks :)

[theFijian]

Here's hoping and even praying it comes back and the sooner the better. Ultimately the last 500 would be sweet. But why not something in the meantime? Last two months? Ot the last 100 posts? Last 50???? Something!? Please?

I'm not sure if Erwin's already explained this but I'm guessing that to pull back even just the last 10 posts for a specific user would still require a query on the whole table, and this is the crux of the problem. I too hope to see it back someday in some form or other.

[Dracil]

I agree, the Google search is near useless. :(

[Erwin]

Apparantly a Google search is EXTREMELY limited. The postings I pulled up for someone numbered about 8 out of about 800 and those eight ranged from May last year to last month. Not good.

Here's hoping and even praying it comes back and the sooner the better. Ultimately the last 500 would be sweet. But why not something in the meantime? Last two months? Ot the last 100 posts? Last 50???? Something!? Please?

Thanks :)
I am working on a solution. :) Please be patient.

[wild01]

I am working on a solution. :) Please be patient.


thank you Erwin, I really aperciate all you do to keep this site up and running.
keep up the good work. :thumbsup:

[Matrona]

I am working on a solution. :) Please be patient.

What if you made it a site supporter feature to look up other members' old posts?

The strain would be lessened, and it might encourage more people to donate or renew their site-supporter status.

I am trying to be patient for its return but it is difficult to get a handle on suspicious people without this feature.

[Col]

I don't see what the fuss is about. Why are so many people so paranoid?
Very few boards provide this feature, and I can understand why it has been discontinued in order to improve the running of a site this large. Afterall this is a discussion board not a post museum.
I think that another improvement could be made by deleting threads which are over a certain age thus further reducing pressure on the servers. If a thread is not viewed or added to for a certain period, then delete it.
Its a discussion board not an archieve. Lets discuss and move on. I'm for speed over superfluous features every time.
Well done Erwin :thumbsup:

[Sycophant]

Explanation:
The main reason this was removed is that before the database query searched for all of a member's post then checked every single post against every forum to make sure the member has access to the forum. This really slowed down our site basically because we have so many posts and so many forums, as well as so many members.

What I did to speed things up was to remove the forum permission check. This really made the database query fast as all it did now was to search for the member then their posts - no forum checking.

There are a couple of ways I can think of that may be able to improve the speed an effiency of this type of query, although not being familiar with the specific database structure, I can't immediately offer any solutions.

I've PM'd you Erwin, I just thought I'd post here in case my message is missed.

[I'm Lovin God Always]

Col - here's what some of the "fuss" is about...

CF is also a terrific place to learn, not just post, discuss, and move on. Some people are better teachers than most. Being able to look up old posts belonging to those certain people is truly a blessing. A wealth of knowledge can come from that slow feature and there are people who'd happily trade the knowledge for the slowness. Without the feature we're just stuck.

Thanks Mr. Webmaster for trying to get it reinstalled :)

[Lost]

Thanks Mr. Webmaster for trying to get it reinstalled :)

:amen:

hugs for Erwin! :hug: :hug:

Lost
GRRRRRRRR! RAR! lol (who is very frustrated over missing feature) ;) :P

[Sephania]

originally posted in the 28 hour downtime crash of Jan27th


Just a quick question, I noticed when it first went haywire that while you could get into the opening page and chat but not the individual forums, you could access the PM and send and receive. Now I don't know a whole lot about databases, but this would seem to me to be on a different one? The PM's I mean. So if that is true, couldn't you somehow split the forums so as the "lighter" forums would be on a data base where you can't search for posts and the more "in-depth" forums would be on another that would have the search capability?

Just thinking, it really is a lose but I dont' think a necessity for the whole of CF.

[Tini]

I used this feature from time to time.
I found it useful. If you can make it faster (e.g. access from the Public profile - or only give the last ten odd posts) it may be a compromise.

But thanks for all the work you put into CF.

[loribee59]

Hate to resurrect this old thread, bet Erwin was hoping it'd lay dormant for a while... :)

I've given some thought to the pros and cons, and the pros is winning out, because there are posts that are like "pearls of wisdom" that one can learn so much. (I agree that 1,000 posts is too much...500-800 posts is better)

However~ I agree with some who don't like the idea of people "dumpster diving" into their posts and here's where my idea comes in:

Could it be possible to have an option, where you can turn on or off your posts being viewed? This way, members can elect to turn it off for safety reasons.

Just thought I'd toss in my 2¢.....

[I'm Lovin God Always]

GRRRRRRRR! RAR! lol (who is very frustrated over missing feature)

GRRRRRRRRR multiplied :sigh:

Welcome to the month of March :(

[g4goddess]

Hate to resurrect this old thread, bet Erwin was hoping it'd lay dormant for a while... :)

I've given some thought to the pros and cons, and the pros is winning out, because there are posts that are like "pearls of wisdom" that one can learn so much. (I agree that 1,000 posts is too much...500-800 posts is better)

However~ I agree with some who don't like the idea of people "dumpster diving" into their posts and here's where my idea comes in:

Could it be possible to have an option, where you can turn on or off your posts being viewed? This way, members can elect to turn it off for safety reasons.

Just thought I'd toss in my 2¢.....


i like this idea. I personally don't like the idea of "dumpster diving" either and value a bit of privacy - i know, i know, its a public board! – but if it were an option, i'd opt to turn it off on my profile.

[MQTA]

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.

[ChrisWins]

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

[wild01]

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:

[RadicallyTransformedMom]

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

[theseed]

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. :confused:

[Erwin]

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. :confused:
Different usergroups have access to different forums.

The issue that each post does not contain information about what forum it is in.

Only threads have that information.

The thing that slows the search down is that each post must first be linked to a thread, and then the forum checked.

Due to the number of posts and threads, this process really kills the database server.

I am looking at some novel solutions to this - the issue now with me is time - I am very very very busy in real-life. :) This weekend is a write-off - I will try my best to fix this soon.

[theseed]

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

[thereselittleflower]

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.

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 . . . . .

[Erwin]

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

[MQTA]

....

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 . . . . .

Excellent points! Thanks for stating all that. ITA

[Matrona]

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

[carmi]

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.


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.
:)

[doofus125]

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

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

[NewSong]

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

[5solas]

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

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!

[thereselittleflower]

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

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!

[I'm Lovin God Always]

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.

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.

[Truly Blessed]

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!

I second this. :thumbsup:

[Plan 9]

I second this. :thumbsup:

Amen, Truly! I third it! :D

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).

[SallyNow]

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.:P

[doofus125]

When you search for something it has to search the WHOLE DATABASE. It doesn't matter what restrictions you make, it still has to search every thread and forum, bringing the site to a halt. Erwin is working on a way to reorganize the database to fix this issue, but it will take time.

[SallyNow]

When you search for something it has to search the WHOLE DATABASE. It doesn't matter what restrictions you make, it still has to search every thread and forum, bringing the site to a halt. Erwin is working on a way to reorganize the database to fix this issue, but it will take time.

Really? Even for just having the last 5 posts in the user info page? Eep! No wonder it's taking a while to find a solution.

Oh well, searching the forums manually can be good too...you see some opinions and ideas you would never have thought before.

*will wait patiently, since the problem seems complex, and Erwin has a life outside of the internet, which is a very good thing*

[Matrona]

What are the kinds of posts that are restricted from being read and have to be excluded from the search?

Would it be easier if moderator forums were made read-only for regular members, instead of banned from us outright?

I'd LOVE it if that were the case... no more ivory tower!!

[doofus125]

Really? Even for just having the last 5 posts in the user info page? Eep! No wonder it's taking a while to find a solution.



Yup, this is why it isn't such an easy fix, the whole system would need to be re-written. Did you ever notice that the threads/posts have a number? It starts with 1 and goes to the end, then it has to match it with a forum to display where it's at.

[Erwin]

Really? Even for just having the last 5 posts in the user info page? Eep! No wonder it's taking a while to find a solution.

Oh well, searching the forums manually can be good too...you see some opinions and ideas you would never have thought before.

*will wait patiently, since the problem seems complex, and Erwin has a life outside of the internet, which is a very good thing*
Yes, I have a BUSY life outside CF. :)

This is on my priority list, believe me. I will try to come up with a solution this weekend.

[Erwin]

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).

Mods have access to this feature right now. :) This is because they have access to all forums. The issue is one of working out how to restrict the search results to NOT show restricted forums. :)

[theseed]

Ok, I have a solution. There needs to be 2 search engines. 1) for restricted forums, which only staff can access. and 2)one for all public forums which any guest can read.

A third engine may be necessary to search site supporter forums.

And to make it even more convient, staff could have a a meta-search that searched all engines on the same forum.

So certain search engines would only be available to staff.

The only down side is that it could take a long time to set this up?

[theseed]

Ok, I have a solution. There needs to be 2 search engines. 1) for restricted forums, which only staff can access. and 2)one for all public forums which any guest can read.

A third engine may be necessary to search site supporter forums.

And to make it even more convient, staff could have a a meta-search that searched all engines on the same forum.

So certain search engines would only be available to staff.

The only down side is that it could take a long time to set this up?
Let me rephrase--there should be at least 2 databases, not one.

[doofus125]

Ok, I have a solution. There needs to be 2 search engines. 1) for restricted forums, which only staff can access. and 2)one for all public forums which any guest can read.

A third engine may be necessary to search site supporter forums.

And to make it even more convient, staff could have a a meta-search that searched all engines on the same forum.

So certain search engines would only be available to staff.

The only down side is that it could take a long time to set this up?

Again, it still has to search the whole database just to do one of those searchs.

[doofus125]

Let me rephrase--there should be at least 2 databases, not one.

Sorting those into different databases would take forever.

[Erwin]

As promised, the feature is back in beta-test:
http://www.christianforums.com/t1372231-back-find-all-posts-by-member-beta-test.html

I'll close this thread - you can continue discussion in that new one.