There is a world of wisdom lurking deep within the heavily-protected archives here. A world where all can be nade known; a world where no one need ask redundant questions... There is sooo much hidden, yet we know it's all there.... Alas, the new archive scheme hid it all from us.... But, not if you know where to look, they say... And, where is that? Just WHERE do I start? I don't even know the date most of these forums came into being, and I type, and type...sequential YYYY MM info, and still, some yield none of their hidden secrets! Since it's now seemingly impossible to search subject matter, can we at least have a page which lists the specific date a Forum came into being? That would take probably about 5% of the guesswork out of it. According to the stats, there are 1,000,000 forum posts here. Without a way to view them easily, they may as well not exist at all.

I think it only goes back to 07/1999, several months after willow created the poser forum. IIRC there was only one forum at that time. the rest came into being gradually, from 2000 to 2004, and some have also been deleted.

That I knew, but thanks anyway. :) But I was lookingfor all the info I could find in the Deep Paint 3D Forum, and since I don't know when it began, I wasted alot of time searching month-to-month. Not just that, but many, many forums...often, there is knowledge to be found elsewhere, mneaning, for example, the terms "specularity" and "UV" apply to many different softwares. It would be great to be able to enter a forum, hit the Archive button, and be able to do a search based on such subject matter. I bet the search in the Marketplace doesn't have near the limitations.... ;)

I feel the new archive format such as it is now is totally useless. At least the old way we could just click our way through until we found the right thread...now we cannot even do that.

It's yet another "improvement" brought to you by the programmers and staff of Renderosity. The search engine was close to useless before, but now, it's TOTALLY useless! bonni

Im curious...was this particular 'improvement' ASKED for by the community..?

One answer would be to generate a static page for each month with just the subject of the first post for each thread.

These pages are only going get out of sync if someone goes on a deleting spree.

"Im curious...was this particular 'improvement' ASKED for by the community..?" I sure didn't ask for it. But, in a way, we all 'asked for it' We've been bad guests, I guess. ;)

"But, in a way, we all 'asked for it'" No doubt ;) It would be interesting however, to find out exactly the improvements that 'were' asked for and that were incorporated into the site, as opposed to the 'improvements' that were 'not' asked for and incorporated into the site... My bet is, that most of the 'improvements' that we are going to see, have not been 'asked' for >:(....but thats just me being a wasp again..pay me no mind ~lol~

I seriously dislike the archive format as it is now. Unless somebody has posted to a thread within the last few days, the thread just vanishes. In the smaller forums, there is a lot of emptiness. :sniff: Out of sight, out of mind... and when you can't even readily find it, it must not exist at all. Carolly

Maybe they could start selling links to the good threads in the Marketplace. ;)

"Maybe they could start selling links to the good threads in the Marketplace. ;)" ...don't give 'em any ideas, sweetie! lol

snickers Too late. See the post above this one. It will nevertheless be locked, and thrown into that blackhole of a room where only the elite PTB may see it....but it is funny :D

Glad you like it. :) I don't think it'll get locked and tossed; I would hope they have a sense of humor around here. I would think they'd NEED it dealing with us mutants. ;)

Humor? In the staff room??? Oh, you don't know the least of it! Just like EMTs and emergency room nurses have to make jokes to deal with the ugly realities they face, the staff here has to deal with surreality of the worst kind, and also takes refuge in grim humor. Killing-off-the-Clone Wars used to be more fun when the political forums were open. Bad Hair Day was won by the image where the woman was sprouting orange dynamic hair all over her body (it was a nude crotch shot, so had to be removed anyway). Worst Lighting of the Week Award might still be going on... when I had to patrol the Poser Gallery at least 15% of the images had a huge bloated sun or moon in the background, but lighting from the front, and I doubt if that has changed much. Carolly Evil Overmistress of the UnderDark and proud member of the Secret Society of Ex-OverSeers

LOL@Carolly, You just brought back a lot of memories from my time in the staff forums. If members only knew...lol It gets worse though. The Admin forums have the same thing going on regarding the Moderators forum. Sorry.I had to let the cat outta the bag. Tom

"If members only knew...lol"

Oh, we know. (more than you realize probably) Why do you think we get so much satisfaction watching you all have to be nice to us when our questions involve purchases or any money to this site. :)

8 ) I know..it's funny to watch it all unfold. There are those privy to copies of the staff forums that are not supposed to be seeing all that banter. I'm glad I'm outta the loop now. 8 ) Tom

Heh, most of which is mainly in the past. Other than the search function still not functioning right and the archive pain in the butt, the site is actually running very smooth now. There are no major upsets happening right now, getting rid of OT hasn't caused the collapse that was predicted, no unbalanced judgements as have been the major source of complaint in the last few years are being hashed about. 'Course I stayed away from Tim's State of the Site Address this year so that may be why this place looks more utopian to me this year. :)

Please change it back to the way it was!! It is virtually useless now unless you want to wait around all day to find something. I loved the archives and often would go through them and it did not take forever to do so. Please change it back! :(

I just went to look up some old posts and they were hidden in "archives." You have to know what you're searching for in order to find it. It's especially important for the developer threads.