Record number of duplicate posts?

Noting three different posts about the mexican ufo incident, I tried 'search' on +mexican +ufo.

I found there was yet another thread, bringing the total to four.
Is this a record for ATS, or how many is the record for duplicate posts of current news items?

The popularity of UFOs prevails...


The threads are:

Mexican Airforce to release UFO footage

mysterious objects over mexico???

Look at this Very Interesting

ATS: Mexican Air Force Pilot Has UFO Encounter

I think the search function should be at the top of each page on the site, with a note asking people to use it before starting new topics.

It can be reduced in size and can take the place of the blog vote that's there now.

I've seen many, many duplicate topics here recently.

I've left the first one as it was the original and the last one as it is on ATSNN.

OK?

If you can just use the complaint feature in the future it would be good.

Thanks.

I think the search function itself is a little too complicated. I don't consider myself a stupid person, so it would follow that I would know how to use the search feature - but, I don't. I may know how to use it, but the question really is "Do I use it as efficiantly as possible and how it was designed to be used?". The answer is no. Unless one had some part in the development of the search, we (the users) probably won't understand as well as you (the mods) want us to.

There is a handy tutorial that explains Boolean search engines in the tutorial tab.

m...

[Edited on 5-12-2004 by Springer]

I don't especially like the new search or tutorial for it, Google is better within ATS.

To look at the "record" you need to review identical topics at ATS over time. The policy used to be new twists on old topics were OK, that seemed to cease when people kept bringing up 9/11 unanswered questions (which still exist in a big way, of course).

Record in one day might be 5-6, but record overall would be more likely 20+ on like topics.

I notice one of my pet subjects, the Diebold electronic voting scam, was resurrected again about three weeks ago. I'm all for growing awareness of that.

all of that may be true, but do consider the record number of new members and activity on the site, I think that plays a part in the number of dupes you might see?

As the saying goes, if you put two dozen monkeys in a room with a typewriter eventually they will type out the complete works of Shakespeare.

That never changed. And the preference is to either...

1- find an old thread and pick up where it left off...
or
2- reference old threads in the first post of a new thread


But for hot news items, it's common to see multiple threads on ATS that cover essentially the same topic. We try to control that as much as possible, but there's only so much that can be done when 100+ or so members online at the same time are seeing the same news as everyone else. Given our massive numbers lately, I'm surprised we don't have more repeats.


As for the Boolean search... it's an extremely powerful tool. Those that take the time to learn it will reap the rewards. Given the size of our database, plain-text searches are out of the question. (Also be aware that Google will not have every thread)