Information on using the Search feature...written by shirley knott.

Alot of posts are answered with 'read the FAQ' or 'do a search'. everyone should learn how to do this:
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FAQ

at the top of this forum board you'll notice a bunch of options (entrance / search / home / who's online etc). one of these is 'FAQ' (Frequently Asked Questions) which contains answers to most of what you may wanna know about The Shroomery, from rules and board use to mycological terms, other drugs FAQs, and cultivation knowhow. if it's specifically cultivation info you want (and that is what this particular forum is for) you can click here as a shortcut.

Search

there are two different Search functions:

1) the one ^ up there ^ at the top of the page (between 'entrance' and 'my home') is used to search the forums for posts by members: a bit of practice is all you need at this.

forum(s) to search - choose the forum you want to search in, if you know it. a good option is 'mushrooms and mycology' if you're looking for mushroom information. searching all forums is slower, jams the system, and brings you back a bunch of redundant junk, but it can be useful if you just don't know where you saw that special post....

keyword search terms -this chunk is largely culled from this faq page by Senor Doobie):

The Bulletin Boards search function contains some powerful ('boolean') options to enhance your query if you search for more than 1 word. Basically + means the word must be there, - means it must be not there. Let's say that your search terms are mushrooms, friend, and grow. If you just want to run a search that will bring you to posts that mention ANY of those terms, you could leave out the +, and just enter the terms like this:

(A)mushrooms grow friend

This will bring back posts that contain the words mushrooms OR grow OR friend or any combination of those. However, if you want to run a search for posts that contain ALL of those terms, you must enter the terms like this one below :make sure to include a space between the search terms preceded by the +

(B)+mushrooms +grow +friend

This will bring back a list of posts that contain ALL 3 of these terms in them.

(C)mushrooms +grow friend

This will get posts that MUST contain the word grow but can also contain EITHER mushrooms OR friend or both. Use MINUS (-) .....by searching like this

(D)+mushrooms +friend ?grow

you will get results for posts that DO contain both the words mushrooms and friend but DO NOT contain the word grow. Similarly:

(E)-grow ?mushrooms ?friend

would give you a list of posts that contain none of the words, neither grow, nor mushrooms, or friend. Finally, if you are searching for an exact phrase like 'My friend knows how to grow a lot of mushrooms', you would put double quotes around the terms:

(F)?My friend knows how to grow a lot of mushrooms?.

username search - enter the name of the person who posted, or leave it blank if you don't know.

date range - if you know it's recent, why waste your time searching older archives? this one is self-explanatory

result format - self explanatory. showing a preview is very helpful, but means you can fit less on one page.

when you've filled in all the boxes, click one of the options at the bottom (all posts is a good one), cross your fingers and press 'submit'.

2) a search of the rest of the shroomery, excluding the forums: super search link . with this one you can search the entire website for everything from t-shirts to recipes, music to art, and everything in between. just not the bulletin boards. this place is huge like a tardis - i only discovered this supersearch feature after i'd been here several months!

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also, don't forget the archive of completed growlogs - you can happily spend a whole day reading these, and since most are full of pictures, you'll find many of your questions answered.

have fun, and don't get too miffed when you're told to 'read the FAQs' or 'do a search' for something that's written here a thousand times. you'll get out of this hobby what you put into it! I hope this hasn't confused you too much

! It's quite satisfying to quickly find what you're looking for, so practice practice practice!

sk