I didn't want the "recent comments" to be abused, by people constantly adding comments to things like the 1142 or 9622 thread and bubble it back up, so I limited the recent comment check to only go back as far as the number of days you have showing on the front page.

So if you show 2 or 3 days on the index page of metafilter, recent comments only looks for recent comments in the past 2 or 3 day-old threads for them.

This was done back before I archived threads, so I could bring this feature back without the time limitation (since things go into the freezer for storage after 30 days and won't be abused).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:55 AM on April 5, 2003

Cheers, matt. As it happens, my default shows 7 days of posts - so that explais the absence of that thread in the search pool?

I have this supplementary question: why does the 'user' search not show, for example, any result for the term "Miguel Cardoso"? [Nor indeed, for the term "Carlos Quevedo"]

Am I just a search-feature klutz?
posted by dash_slot- at 9:16 AM on April 5, 2003

there's no space in miguel's name, and this search works fine for me.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:56 AM on April 5, 2003

OK.

My last query:
miguelcardoso: no results.
dash_slot- : no results.

I'm stumped...
posted by dash_slot- at 3:32 PM on April 5, 2003

dash_slot-, both of those searches are set for "in the past year" only. If you change this to "since day 1" then both usernames show up, as you both joined over a year ago but after day 1.
posted by MUD at 4:58 PM on April 5, 2003

ok, one more.

12 people board a train in boston. the train leaves boston at 10:15 and heads east averaging 62 miles per hour. 33% of the passengers are computer illiterate, 40% are prone to heart disease, and none of them read metafilter. what color is the train when it plunges into the atlantic?
posted by quonsar at 7:03 PM on April 5, 2003

dash_slot, the "users" option means you are searching userpages only, not comments by those users. Maybe that was throwing you off? So if you search my name there, using "from day one", you'll see a list of everyone whose userpage mentions my name anywhere, even in a title or alt attribute. If you pick the "in the last year" option and search my name again, there are less results, because the members who've mentioned me who've joined within the past year are omitted from the list.

Hm. Not sure if this explanation is helpful, or more confusing.
posted by iconomy at 7:43 PM on April 5, 2003

More fun with user names: has anyone noticed that when you search for members (selecting "users" and "since day one") who have a user number between 1 and 1238, you will not find a return leading to their user page? You can try this with users like andrew cooke, y6y6y6, dhartung, and anildash, and, um, mathowie. (Mouse over the returns for Matt, and you'll see that none of them are "user.mefi/1").

However, you can find anybody using this string: http://www.metafilter.com/username.mefi/NAMEHERE.
Also, did you know about this page: "Users with stories to tell"?
posted by taz at 9:16 PM on April 5, 2003

Thanks, iconomy. That was it.
posted by dash_slot- at 1:34 AM on April 6, 2003

This is still messed up...i think it's important. We always have unfolding stories posted and sometimes things dont come out til a week or two later after the thread died down...it seems like it shd be jumped up in recent comments if there are any developments.
posted by amberglow at 9:44 AM on May 4, 2003

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