Forum search-by-poster: Please!
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Hi support folks:
As it stands, one can search forums using a poster’s login name as the search term, and get maybe a few results — just results where the poster’s name happens to be used in the message text.That’s because the search function doesn’t see the poster’s name field. It would improve utility considerably if the search function could have an option to search by user name. (Because having identified that person X gives interesting answers on some area, I want to read more of their posts or replies.)
The special case of searching for one’s own posts (for example to see if following up is necessary) *is* covered by the hyperlink in the “Welcome, [username]” text in the forum header… however the discoverability of this feature is virtually nil. (Wouldn’t the assumption be that it’s a hyperlinked name would link to a profile, for example, as do the hyperlinked names of all othre users?). The *function itself* makes sense, but to have a good return-on-investment the link needs to be spelled out. Eg:
Welcome [username]. Your own posts <– make this a link.
I will say it’s nice that the list of one’s own posts includes info on whether there have been any further replies. Useful.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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At least they’ve improved the form, so it’s intuitive:
The permalink is
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/profile/raincoaster
So you can just change the name, hit return, and get someone else’s posts.
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Hahahahaha — well that does the job. (And “why didn’t I think of that!”). But not exactly the obvious UI affordance :-).
Also — FWIW I see I goofed up my original description a little. In general, the hyperlinked names of other users don’t* link to their profiles, but rather their websites.
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No, but the word Member under their name does. Which also isn’t intuitive unless your username is Member or you’re extremely dirty minded and want to check everyone else’s out.
The profile URLs didn’t used to work that way. I gather this change is quite new. They used to be alphanumeric salad.
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Ah-HAH! Well, I guess I’m very glad I posted this question.
So my new suggestion, very much scaled down: In the forum left sidebar, change the string “Member” to “Member’s posts”. (Along with the change to “Your posts” in the header.)
Meanwhile — I got some browsin’ to do!
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