Finding old posts
 

How do you find old posts? I know I have replied to some and even when I search for the exact title I remembered, it doesn't always show up. What is the full proof way of finding a prior post that you want to see?<BR><BR>Thanks.

For some posts, there IS NO single good way to locate them.<BR><BR>Give me some good examples, and I can show you (if I succeed) how I tracked them down.<BR><BR>Useful pieces of information are:<BR><BR>1. the single most UNcommon word that appears in the post. For example, it is VERY difficult to find threads on "Hotel Paris" (in some city other Paris). You will always do better with ONE word than multiple.<BR><BR>2. to the best of your recollection, ideally even with date and time, the last time you know that you saw it. You can jump backwards 10,000 posts at a time if you know where you need to go - - like this:<BR><BR>http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgTopics.jsp?fid=2&start=10000<BR><BR>3. the country index can help.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

Thanks Rex. One of the posts was on women and their fashions, attitudes, and bathing habits in Paris or something like that. It was most funny and interesting. I can't remember the exact name though. I wanted to see how the post was going. I was successful once or twice on a specific name of a hotel or location though. Thanks for your tips.<BR>

&lt;&lt;even when I search for the exact title&gt;&gt; <BR><BR>So, what were you searching on this one? "on women and their fashions, attitudes, and bathing habits in Paris or something like that"?<BR><BR>How will I know when I have found it? Did you post on it? Do you have any idea when you saw it last?<BR>

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This search engine seems to interpret a string of words as an exact phrase rather than as several words that appear with the body of a post.<BR><BR>For instance I typed the phrase "finding a prior post" from your first question (sans the quotation marks) and the only return hit was *this* thread - it did *not* return all threads that contained all the individual words within the thread or a particular post within it.<BR><BR>You'd be surprised what you can recall from a thread you are seeking - all you need to do is remember one phrase from within it and you will likely get your hit.<BR><BR>If you are looking for old threads on some general topic, say hotels in Dublin, you use the ampersand thusly:<BR>dublin & hotel (the engine isn't case sensitive). BUT if you do this search it simply returns threads where both search term appear within the *overall* thread - as opposed to threads where the search terms appear within a *given post*, which would be more precise. <BR><BR>Nevertheless, if you recall a combination of unusual words or proper nouns from the thread you should have success.

to hobbywizard - - your timing is impeccable. For three years now, I could have sworn that this forum didn't have anything like Boolean searching (well, it seemed to have the worst kind - - every word was "OR"ed together!)<BR><BR>You seem to have discovered that they have added it. I wonder when this happened?<BR>

I find a lot of old posts around abandoned farms.

up, for michele<BR><BR>still can't find your thread on fashion etc<BR>

for Michele<BR>

<BR>fyi<BR>