From time to time a member (often a new member) will initiate a thread about a topic that has been discussed previously. Invariably someone will reply that they should have used the search function to investigate that topic and that discussing it again is a waste of time.
Some thoughts from this administrator about that:
- How is a person to know that it's been discussed and that they should search for it.
- If a person is expected to search for a certain topic, then every member should be expected to search for every topic.
- Many times there is new information or new ideas to be revealed with the re-initiation of a topic.
- If everybody used search every time and found what they were looking for, they would never have to post and this would be a very boring forum.
- This is a community of people designed for those people to talk to each other. Insisting that one should use search rather than post is bogus.
- I'm guessing that 70% of what's discussed here has been discussed in some form or another in the past.
- If one doesn't wish to read a topic that has been discussed previously, then one should pass by it without making the poster think they did something wrong.
- Finally, our search function sucks. You are very lucky to find anything by using it.
JLK
