RAT Re: "Dancing Bear" posts

["William Houts" <houts.w@ghc.org>]

>If you go to the Web site at:
>
>http://www.ratconference.com/ 
>
>Link on the star and you can search the RatBase for related "ideas" and 
>eventually find the exchange by going to the email source.  We deliberately 
>didn't enable other methods of search.  The philosophy being that even 
>opinions stripped of the author and/or any immediate reference to a source 
>authority has a better chance of being elevated into the world of ideas.  
>This complicates, sometimes even frustrates a search such as the one you're 
>attempting because there is no guarantee the exchange ever entered past the 
>editor into the RatBase.  However, the Dancing Bear exchange is there, but 
>where I don't know offhand.



Hey Nick,

Thanks for the help.  Unfortunately, I still couldn't find it.  I searched for "dancing bear", but it only returned posts from 99.  I'm pretty sure that the exchange happened sometime in 8=95 or 96.  What do you suggest?  I have tried using the Rat Base, and found various things posted by various friends and myself, but not the ones I was looking for.

Personally, --and I'm certainly guided by my current frustration in this-- the Archives should be guided by an allegiance to real and immediate rats rather than to a vague and hypothetical posterity.  
For the record, I heartily recommend a restoration of the ability to search for posts by particular persons by name.  I'm very interested in reading past posts by such rat luminaries  as Chris Jeffries, Allison Narver,  John Sylvain andd...well, modesty forbids.

   
       --Bill