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Re: There is a clear instruction about searching first on the posting screen. . .
I totally agree. Very uncalled for. And someone mentioned 'instant' results and that people are lazy. To me, it is much simpler searching for a name first as compared to registering, then typing out a post, explaining the situation, then remembering and checking back for answers that MAY take a while to show. I think it is more a matter of neglectful and/or ignorant confusion, in that, they simpler fail to notice the 'search first' blurb.
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I'd like to add that it may be particularly confusing for people who are fairly new to the Internet (whatever their age) and who come to this page without first going through the main page. And it is perfectly possible that many people find this page first; if you Google the words "name facts", the URL for this page is the very first one that comes up. Many people who are making their first posts here may actually therefore not be aware that this board is connected to a dictionary listing of names, and if they are new to the Internet they may be confused by the word "database" and not clearly recognize that the underlining of the words "search for it" means that's where they are supposed to "click" in order to do a search.

This message was edited 9/25/2005, 8:49 PM

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Not sure if anyone else is still reading this thread -- but in thinking about it overnight I am sure that the phrasing to "search for it in the database" is part of the problem here. Some of you may find it hard to believe, but there are still lots of people out there who would be completely intimidated by that computerese and would think that they are being asked to do something complicated and mathematical instead of merely "searching a dictionary."
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You could be right I spoke to one of my freinds whos a teacher and she said virtualy the same as you did on this post and the last. So I guess that its not really surprising that we get so many people who just post names rather than search the data base a combination of
Youth,
Having a short time on a school computer,
Having English as a second language,
Not being able to understand Computerese,
And a Google for name facts bringing someone to this page rather than the home page
Could add up to an awful lot of people not realising or being able to do a search for the name they want info onA childs smile is worth more to me than Gold
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