Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2006 13:17:13 -0400
Reply-To: Sam Walters <sam.cooks@VERIZON.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Sam Walters <sam.cooks@VERIZON.NET>
Subject: Searching the archives, suggestions for successful searching
In-Reply-To: <035901c6d1ab$05372270$afaf9b18@home9edf5abec6>
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As was noted in another post you can find the archives through this
address: http://gerry.vanagon.com/archives/vanagon.html
Or if you just go to the vanagon.com website and follow the links
related to mailing lists you will be led there.
No, you don't have to read them all. Nothing anywhere close to this.
The archive have a search feature. Click on the link from the base
page that reads "Search the archives."
At least 90% of the time you will get better info and get it sooner by
searching the archives for a half hour to an hour than you will by
posting and waiting for people to reply to your problem. For many
problems you can find the answer in about the same time it takes to
write and post the email asking the question.
The search features that are presented when follow the "Search the
archives" link allow you to find only those posts that have words
related to what you are looking for.
You can search for posts that have the words of interest to you in the
title. This is the fastest way to search usually, but you will miss
some posts that didn't have the exact words you wanted or if the thread
had multiple problems some of which were not in the subject line.
The search engine doesn't read all test of all the messages when you
search by subject line, obviously much faster. If I can't find what I
want by subject line, then I start searching for posts with the words I
want in the body of the post. But this is much more time consuming as
the computer reads every word of every message looking for the words you
specify. And it means you get more messages that you have to read to
find what you want. But that is what it takes sometimes.
As many of you know, if the search takes too long, the search engine
"times out" and you get nothing.
(And for those of you who repost the original post and then the whole
thread with each reply that means that you are forcing the search engine
to actually read the same post over and over as it does its job. Think
about how you are slowing down the archives by not trimming posts.)
Virtually every problem comes up repeatedly. This means that you often
can get some good information by searching only a small portion of the
archives. I rarely search back for more than 6 months to a year if
having it search the message texts. I'll search back further into the
past when only using subject lines since the computer isn't going to do
as much work. On the search for key code last night, I searched two
years since I only did the subject line. I only got about 6 hits and it
only took about 15 seconds of search time.
Many times however, the best replies on a problem are not the most
recent as some people get tired of typing the same thing over and over
and the person's best essay on a subject was written a long time ago.
So, sometimes you have to keep going back to find the best info. Often
people will write something short and note that they wrote something
more detailed some time in the past.
There are a relatively small number of people who provide the vast
majority of the really good technical information to this list. There
are also some very good people who have quit replying because they got
tired of people expecting them to type the same essay over and over and
wouldn't use the archives.
So sometimes, particularly if I remember that the names of one or more
people who are particularly knowledgeable about a certain type of
repair, I add sender names to the search criteria. Then I only get
posts on the topic of interest by that person or the several whose names
I put in. This can be tricky since some people use more than one email
account or have changed service providers through the years and don't
always have the actual name in the email address.
But, for example, if you want to know something about transmissions, you
could limit your search to posts by Daryl Christensen and Dennis Haynes
and probably get 95% of the list knowledge about most, if not all tranny
issues, from those posts. Maybe even if you only read what those two
had posted in the last two years.
Mark Drillock, Mark Keller, and Dennis Haynes are all great sources of
info on troubleshooting the FI and ignition system. Mark Drillock and
Chris Turner are among the most knowledgeable about year to year
variations in the Vanagon, Mark more so on the components like brakes,
tranny gearing, FI components, wiring, etc., and Chris more so on body
details, interiors, etc.. I am not trying to include everyone who
provides good info, just giving some examples. Reading the list should
gradually give you an idea of whose posts are right on the money time
after time.
Searching free form databases requires some patience and skill. If you
make the search terms too specific and detailed you will often miss
posts that could be useful to you. Sometimes you might use one term to
describe a part and others usually use another term. So you might have
to think of alternate ways of putting in the search term before you get
anything.
I often see where a person has put in a detailed phrase and searched
once and then concluded that there is nothing in the archives. He or
she is usually wrong. In such a case I usually can put in a more
general term and limit the search to a short period of time and get lots
of hits. So give the archives a chance by intelligent searching and
being willing to try several approaches.
I hope this helps.
Sam
--
Sam Walters
Baltimore, MD
89 Syncro GL, Zetec Inside
85 Westy Weekender
85 Mercedes Benz 300D Turbodiesel - to become veggie oil powered
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