Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Access to old forum threads

windmill 🚫

Forums seem to be available back to Aug 2015. Is there any way to access, or even better to search earlier threads?
I have been a member since 2010 using the handle 'Windmill'. Some time between 2010 and 2015 I sought help locating a werewolf story on the lost story forum. I was pointed to the story I was looking for. I would now like to re-read this story but the thread is no longer available.
Unfortunately I have forgotten most of the details of the story (apart from the fact that I enjoyed it) and can't submit a new lost story request.
Is there a webmaster out there who can search old threads?

Replies: Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster) madnige

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)
Updated:

@windmill

Before August 2015 we didn't have our own forum software. We used google groups:

https://groups.google.com/g/storiesonline

Replies: windmill

windmill 🚫

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Thank you for providing the URL of the Google Group. I wasn't able to find my previous post. Maybe my memory has let me down.

Replies: REP

REP 🚫

@windmill

Or their archive has not been maintained. From what I have heard, that is a more likely reason.

Replies: Dinsdale

Dinsdale 🚫

@REP

Google Groups was a massive source of spam in newsgroups. Someone finally managed to raise a ticket and complain, they reacted by announcing that they would stop accepting updates on 21 (?) Feb 2024, but that existing data would still be accessible.
They carried out the first part of that announcement, I have no reason to suspect that they reneged on the second part.
What people really wanted was for them to delete the spam they had facilitated and then act as a read-only, searchable repository for newsgroups. My understanding is that they "depeered" all other newsgroup servers on that date so newer posts are not searchable, at least by Google. Rather pathetic for a search-engine company.

madnige 🚫
Updated:

@windmill

In the link Lazeez gave, searching 'conversations' for 'werewolf' returns just 26 results - a small enough number you can look through them individually to try to spot the one you're thinking of - there don't appear to be any relevant matches for 'windmill' (note the Google Groups handle wasn't tied to the SOL handle).

This approach doesn't help with what I want to find - I recall that in a discussion on scores, some author (I think 'Deadly Ernest'/Ernest Bywater) gave a concrete example (actual numbers) of a situation where a reader giving a story a score of 10 could actually decrease the score SOL shows. Does anyone have a link or copy of that?

(Fat finger edit)

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Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Access to old forum threads

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