Originally Posted by cactuspete
IMO, the lack of a search function is making a shambles of many FT forums. Duplicate posts, duplicate threads, etc. - - generally more noise and less meaningful content (or at least more difficulty in finding meaningful content). The longer that this continues, the damage will be more severe.
Wow! One of the rare occasions when I agree with you!
It's pretty depressing how far downhill FT has gone without a search function. The repetition is just staggering. It was problematic before; now it's destroying some of the forums. Take a look at the Starwood forum, for example. Seems like there are brand new threads asking about the NYC Starwood hotels every day (OK, maybe an exaggeration, but not that far wrong), as well as on a host of other well-worn topics. How many hundreds of separate threads on essentially the same topic do we need, anyhow?
As for the moderators helping by doing a search (which they still have access to), very few of them do that. (In some cases, I wonder if the moderator even knows how to use the FT search function. Maybe a little tutorial would help.) My impression is that most moderators act as police officers, trying to prevent or end flame wars and off-topic ramblings, more than anything else; there are notable exceptions, of course!!!