Exactly. I have tried discreetly to broach this problem with Jim Robinson, but feel like I was rebuffed each time I did. He responded as if I were stupid and didn't know how to properly use the search engine. Also, he ignored my queries (twice) on why google.com no longer finds anything on FR when doing a site specific search. I know Jim must be very busy, so maybe my questions just got lost in the clutter.
Ernest, backhoe, myself, and several others spent weeks indexing every "calpowercrisis" article we could find. I personally indexed over 500 articles over a period of several week - finding them on google, then indexing them by posting "To:calpowercrisis". At the time I thought I was adding something of value to the forum.
If there is a way to find these old articles now, I don't know what it is. The new search engine works really well, but only searches on titles, AFAIK. Maybe John is working on an enhancement...or maybe not.
Also, I've been wondering lately why I've been putting in KEYWORDS all these years. I would scan entire articles and add the appropriate names in that field, assuming that "someday" this information might be valuable to people like Alamo-Girl. I hope it will be again.
The only way I'm able to find old articles these days is by searching my hard drive for the title of articles that I know I posted, then searching FR for that. It works, but only for articles that I posted.
I'm sure Jim has his reasons, but certainly he must be aware that FR in it's present condition is no longer useful for research. I'm guessing that the present limitations are intentional, and are probably due the the lawsuit. Or maybe Jim's just tired of working long hours for peanuts.
I could sure understand that, but would like to hear him explain what the heck is going on if he can. I feel like all that time I spent researching and cross-linking threads is now wasted.
It's Jim's forum, and he owes me nothing, and I owe him plenty. Still, I feel like I am part of a community of like minded people here, and feel justified in bringing this up.
If it's just a lack of funding for a proper search engine, I would glady to contribute to that, but somehow I sense there is something else going on.
If there is, we should know what it is so we can help.