I swear I searched; what can I do better?

May 21, 2006 1:53 PM

Rightyho, I just made an arse of myself by posting this. In about a femtosecond, folks rightly pointed out that it was a dupe.

But I did search in the MeFi/Yahoo searcher up there, and I have since tried to get Google to give me a clue that it was a dupe, with the link: and site: tags. No luck so far.

Can anyone suggest a bulletproof way of establishing that MeFi has not discussed a subject before?
posted by gdav to Etiquette/Policy at 1:53 PM (16 comments total)

crunchland's profile has a good method.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:59 PM on May 21, 2006

I tried doing a url search up there and did not get a hit, then I searched "moscow" and "architecture" and got the original post. Not sure of a bullet proof method, crunchland has some good pointers in his profile.
posted by marxchivist at 2:02 PM on May 21, 2006

See? I was right.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:11 PM on May 21, 2006

Femtosecond, I like it, can't wait to use it in conversation tomorrow.
posted by marxchivist at 2:17 PM on May 21, 2006

Thanks to both of you for your tips.

Marxchivist, do you think that your search found iconomy's tags, rather than any content?

I'll try crunchland's method next time (I'm obviously barred from even reaching the "Post a link" link at the moment because of the 24-hour limit).
posted by gdav at 2:19 PM on May 21, 2006

Here's my search. It doesn't even look like it picked up "architecture" on the first hit, which was the original post.
posted by marxchivist at 2:24 PM on May 21, 2006

I remembered the link first time round and checked 'moscow' in tags.
posted by the cuban at 2:39 PM on May 21, 2006

gdav, I'm *pretty* sure that the method that crunch mentions works all the time. Just make sure not to type in the http or the www - just the domain name and the extension. I typed in 'muar.ru' in the 'url' field after clicking 'New Post", and this is what came up:


posted by iconomy at 2:43 PM on May 21, 2006

"the crunchland method" - sounds like a gym-sponsored diet plan... ;)
posted by dabitch at 3:01 PM on May 21, 2006

You too can shed pounds and inches in only femtoseconds with The Crunchland Method of weight management! Ask any staff member for details!
posted by iconomy at 3:05 PM on May 21, 2006

Not only is it an exercise plan, it's a type of birth control, and an edible floor-wax!
posted by blue_beetle at 3:17 PM on May 21, 2006

A search using the mefi search engine for moscow turned it up.

You can also do the "crunchland method" on the search page. Here is the result page for the domain.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:23 PM on May 21, 2006

Okay, cheers.

BTW, I learned the word "femtosecond" some decades ago as part of the folklore surrounding a (?) physics researcher at Oxford:

While the femtoseconds pass,
Campbell sits upon his arse.

The identity of this Campbell was already lost in the mists of time by the time I got there.
posted by gdav at 3:31 PM on May 21, 2006

Actually posting it is 100 times more likely to turn up a dupe than searching, because the minds of several thousand people who've paid attention is always worth more than some search engine, and not prone to the simple lexical pitfalls that make finding difficult. So your "bulletproof" method is just to post it and bite your nails for a while. But duplicate FPPs have stayed up in the past, because no one caught them fast enough. So no, there's no bulletproof way. Crunchland's preflight checklist is a good one. Even before his famous post I considered most of the stuff in it de rigeur. Now that he's articulated it for all, there's no good excuse for a preventable dupe.
posted by scarabic at 4:26 PM on May 21, 2006

If there are femtoseconds, then there should be masculoseconds, except they should be faster, if you know what I mean...
posted by wendell at 4:50 PM on May 21, 2006

masculofirsts, femtoseconds.
posted by soiled cowboy at 9:14 PM on May 21, 2006