Hi Jil You wrote: >Hi Lynn >To your query, "YES", I am aware of your position on your role as an admin, >and I beg to differ. I take great pains to work on the surname boxes, and >the category boxes, but that's my choice. > I take great pains to work on the surname boxes and categories, too. That's part of our duties. >I hate to see posts by one user >over-looked in searches by another just because surnames didn't get into the >search engine. > We can keep our fingers crossed that whoever is searching will search not only on surnames but also on keywords. >I've come to realize that a lot of newbie posters don't >include surnames because they haven't figured out the purpose yet, just as >others add in ALL of their surnames. > Agreed. >I don't see the value in penalizing newbies just because they didn't get it right the first time. > I don't think a poster is being penalized if an admin doesn't add a surname. *Adding* surnames to the surname box is not an admin duty. If a poster omits surnames from the box, at least the post can still be found by keyword search and there is no harm done to other researchers. On the other hand, if a poster includes the wrong surnames in a surname box, there's nothing to prevent some poor soul from getting hundreds (thousands!) of hits on a name that doesn't even show up in the posts. For my money, spending time cleaning up the surname boxes that include names that *don't* belong there is much more valuable to all posters than it is to add surnames that are contained in the posts. A good example: yesterday I moved a few posts to the new ESTHER message board. To make sure I didn't miss any, I searched the surname boxes for "esther" and received nearly 200 hit. Unfortunately, on all but a few of the posts, "esther" was a first name and not the surname. > >Anyway, I'm not here to condemn or argue; like you, I'm all for the >preventative measures such as those suggested yesterday and today. > Yep, me too. :-) And if the boards ever get to the point where all the posts are on the correct board, all the classifications are correct, and the surname boxes only contain surnames mentioned within the post, I promise I'll start adding surnames to the surname box, too. <vbg> Best wishes, Lynne