Question: How to search old WLDG forum notes?

I opened an orphan bottle tonight, and remember it as being one featured on the old "wine 101" board way back at the beginning. But I can't figure out how to read the notes that were posted there. It's the Paul Jaboulet Aine Paralelle 45 CdR 1998 - part of my effort to drink up all southern rhone 98s. I am pretty sure I posted a note on it then, and I'd like to see how this compares to my feeble attempt at notes six or so years ago.

Yes, the search function on this type of message board leaves something to be desired: the ability to search for terms only in the subject line. Unfortunately, most discussion forums use this version, which I'm sure is a money issue; completely understandable.

Good Luck!!

A.B., the search engine on this site is able to search on not only the subject line but the full body of the Message, as well.

OW, I assume you mean the Wine 101 feature on the Netscape Board?

No, Bob, the 101 feature on the really old WLDG board, going back, I think, to 2001 when the 101 started.

Aha, let me take a look there.

Try this, OW:

http://www.myspeakerscorner.com/forum/i ... mid=324699

My guess is that your 2001 note no longer exists. The explanation is a little, just a little tricky.

Go to the following search page:

http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/wldgsearch.phtml

You will see that you can search on the basic database, WineLoversPage.com Search Engine. If, but only if, you included the TN: convention when you entered your tasting note on WT101
the note will be preserved forever.

If you didn't, as you didn't on the 2003 note, when you posted the 2001 note, then searching Wine Tasting 101 (WT101) will find it, unless Robin pruned it out. I found only one entry for Author Holmes, text Aine, and the the earliest preserved entries are from 2003. So it's gone, unless you can think of other ways to search for it.

Let's try searching Wine Lovers' Discussion Group (WLDG).

***

Nope, nothing there.

In any event, go to

http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/wldgsearch.phtml

and search on other variants; it's most likely though that you didn't use the TN: convention, and the 2001 thread has been deleted.

Regards, Bob

A.B., the search engine on this site is able to search on not only the subject line but the full body of the Message, as well.

Nonetheless, for example:

I typed "riesling" in the search field and got very off-the-wall results; the very first thread was "Word Association", and the first thread with "riesling" in the topic was 13 lines down--just doesn't seem like the most effective search to me.

So, say I want to find peoples' notes on Chateau Ste. Michelle: A search brings up every single thread that has "chateau" in it, and quotations do nothing to narrow the returns.

Please, realize this is nothing against WLDG; I have pinned-up anger towards this forum software from the several other forums I frequent that use it.

A.B., I find the AND convention a useful way of narrowing searches.

I didn't find any posts for Chateau and Michelle, but if found 12 hits for Domaine and Michelle. I think almost all of them contained a reference to Domaine Ste. Michelle in Washington State; one of them referred to a post by David from Switzerland who referred to a lady named Michelle and wines containing the Domaine word.

I did the search on riesling that you did, and found that all of the hits contained riesling or Riesling in the text of at least one Message in the thread.

The system doesn't return words that appear only in the topic line, or at least I haven't explored it far enough to know how to do so.

But this is quite a good search engine, and I know that the ability to search effectively was a major reason Robin chose this software.

Regards, Bob

A.B., my guess above is correct. According to the Search page, you can

Search previous:
Search topic title and message text
Search message text only

But you can't search on topic titles only.

In any event, I'm not defending the system, but just sharing some of my tricks developed over the years in searching databases.

I like the "" convention personally, but even on Google I'm increasingly using the AND or the ++ convention as an effective alternative.

Regards, Bob

I see--well I'm sure the search engine on here is accurate, just not idiot-proof like I prefer my search engines

You have to admit, though, that being able to search topic titles only would be very useful here. All TNs (that I've seen) are posted "WTN/TN: Bla-bladdy-bla-bla," so being able to look up that exact thread without siffting through the garbage would be nice. Just type in "Bla-bladdy-bla-bla," and get only the TN thread you seek.

Boy, ain't that the truth!

I've always loved doing research, much of it for the hell of it, and much of the joy comes from finding tricks that turn up interesting things.

One of my greatest adventures was getting access to the stacks at the University of Wisconsin Library and wandering for hours learning about all kinds of indexing systems.

The Google Books project brings back many of those joys -- makes me feel young again, it does.

Regards, Bob

Thanks, Bob, for the pointers. I found a couple of notes, but never found the original notes from 2001. The note from 2003 helped, though. It, and another from 2006, helped me reconstruct things a bit. After 2001, I had three bottles of this left. Drank one in 2003 and found it much improved over the 2001 experience - bigger, fruitier, more balanced, quite interesting. I found a reference to another bottle consumed in a 2006 note I made on the value of taking inventory, when the wine had lost most of the fruit, and had only the secondary flavors, etc... Not bad, just not fruity. The wine this week was pretty much the same. Not oxidized or maderized, still brick with only slight amber at the rim, but iodine and leather, or iodine soaked leather (a single smell, not layers) with a faint hint of fruit coming in the mid-length aftertaste. That sounds horrible, but it wasn't. I actually enjoyed it for what it was. And that was the last bottle.

It sounds like you got your money's worth from that purchase, OW. It's great fun to watch the way a particular wine varies from time to time.

And, incidentally, demonstrates the value of a wine diary -- the written record adds a whole new dimension to the fun of this hobby.

Regards, Bob