On Tue, 2 Jul 1996 08:12:16 -0700 Richard Burkett said:
>So, Eric:
>When, oh when is the archive search going to be reinstituted for listservs
>running on PCs? The list I help run (over 3000 members strong) has a LOT of
>topics that keep coming up time and again that could be easily answered with
>a quick search of the archives.
 
Yes, the archive search feature is highly desirable.  But there is a less
desirable side effect being revealed here: doing a possibly CPU intensive
search to get an answer that should (a) be in a FAQ or (b) have been included
in the "welcome" message.  We have netnews at this site and I'm not too fond
of it.  There's too much traffic and too high a percentage of it is crap
from airheads: but boy, do I ever like news.answers.  Or, if the FAQ I want
isn't on the local system then a quick FTP to rtfm.mit.edu.  Archive search
is inherently a good thing.  Archive search jobs can be done right.  But,
in practice, archive search is a royal cpu pig when used in a culture that
doesn't exploit the wonders of a good FAQ file.
 
                                                   -Kary
 
P.S: This was intended as a general observation and no specific slight was
intended to the submitter, his list or his site.  Is anybody else nostalgic
for the days when you could have a discussion in the US without having to
add an explanation for the reading-context challenged?