alternatively
can anyone say if it might be possible to hotwire our yahoo data
base to a proper search engine
--- In
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "acroorca2002
<orc@o...>" <orc@o...> wrote:
> jack craig &al
>
> > > Do you (or anyone else) know the number of the original
> post
> > > concerning this? I'm struggling to find it.
> >
> > In this regard, would some sort of index be helpful?
> > I have the same problem when trying to find an old posting.
>
> great idea & it certainly would be helpful
> tho it seems a bit like belling the cat
>
> an enormous undertaking
> & besides
> who is there that would do it
>
> for making a decent index is a time consuming & mostly lost
art
> but doing it here would be an even more daunting job than
usual
>
>
> for example i recently had occasion to search for alflga
>
> thanx to our ridiculous bp search engine
> it took me over 20 separate dips to reach back to message 1
> & i got a total of 16 hits
> but most of them required still more careful scrutiny
> before proving to be marginal or irrelevant to my own interest
>
> & that doesnt even take into account any well meaning but
> nonstandard abbrevs like algafl flalga alagafla flalagaflla etc
etc
>
> or nonabbreviated mentions
>
> so anyway i could post these fruits of my play somewhere
> & maybe i should for starters
> since alflga is alphabetically first by one reckoning
> & in case this leads us anywhere
> 927 1340 1498 2396 2398 2400 2401 2402 3605 3606 3607
> 3608 3609 3612 8456 8462
>
> but note that this list is still completely unannotated
> & it leaves anyone else who is interested in this topic almost
> completely in the dark anyway
> not to mention if they were interested next in any of the other 84
> american multipoints
> or the 161 world class multipoints
> etc etc
>
> or yikes what about common offpoint topics
> like just ordinary borders
> or claves
> or prawns
>
> or perfectly topical topics that are not normally coded
> like say references to your book or any other source materials
> etc etc
>
>
> on the other hand
> a simple & nonexhaustive list of any particularly useful or
> seminal messages might be more easily compiled
> but that would still require revisiting all the many thousands of
> messages just to ferret out even only the best of these
>
> or we could make a random collection by everyone just adding
> the results of their own searches whenever it occurs to them
> but that would be raggedy too
> & still very much hit or miss at best
>
>
> however
> i do believe the present almost impossible reality isnt really so
> bad at all for such devoted seekers as ourselves
> who thrive on almost impossible challenges anyway
>
> indeed it seems to me that bp as it is presently constituted by
> cosmic happenchance actually mimics very well the reality of
> trypointing on the ground
> especially for those who prefer to deliberately handicap
> themselves anyway for that extra challenge & reward
> by going for example without maps or gps or compass or on
> moonless nights etc
>
>
> so in a nutshell
> having spent years wishing for the perfect data hub myself
> i now believe that wishing things were easier or trying to make
> them easier
> even if it were possible to do so
> may actually run counter to deriving the greatest possible
> satisfaction in this our already truly awesome game
> of search & enjoy