From: Neil E. Amrhein (neil@compu-powr.com)
Date: Thu Jul 08 2004 - 09:37:16 PDT
> Of late, a significant number of requests for info get answered by
> direct replies to the poster instead of the list. This is why so many
> questions get asked over and over and over. Because of this tendency, a
> search of the archives gets you only the previously asked questions, not the
> answers.
Ron makes a good point here. However, I would point out that there is no archive "search" that I am aware of, which helps contribute to this exact problem. If Google hasn't cached what I'm looking for from the archives, then I am hitting the list with it, even though it was asked last month.
As an example, I was/am looking for M211 information. I remember some discussion in the past about the transmissions, etc... But going to the archives (which have not been updated in quite a while anyway) and manually loading each month of each year and scouring subject lines for this stuff is a waste of my time. So, I hit the list and hope someone is gracious enough to answer my questions (again). Some list members like to rant about how many times they've posted about a CUCV this, or an M35A2 that, but they must have never tried to find anything in the archives, or I doubt they'd complain so much.
If I am in the dark, and there is an archive keyword search available, please let me in on it. Otherwise, I would suggest adding one as an invaluable tool to help members find information, and to stop members from whining ("Doesn't anyone read the archives? I'm posting this for the 5th time....blah, blah, blah..."). I believe there are 3rd party sources for mailing list archiving. I'd be willing to kick in a few bucks toward it.
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