I moderate an e-mail discussion list that recently moved to a new server,
using Sympa 5 to handle mail traffic and mhonarc for archiving. The desire
for easily searchable archives was our reason for the move -- but now our
members are finding the archives nearly impossible to search by subject, or
indeed any other way.
When we call up a list of messages with the keyword in the subject line,
then click on a message to open it, we get a "Page not available" error
message. We can see where the messages are, but we can't get to them --
unless we scroll through the messages day by day by day, which takes forever.
What do we have to do to open and read messages we've located by searching?
Another irritation is that when we want to search an entire month looking
for a particular message, the last day of messages always comes up first.
How do we force the search engine to list the messages starting with the
first day of a month?
What we need are instructions for the end users on how to search the
archives, but I have not been able to find such instructions anywhere.
We're blundering about blindly, wondering what we're doing wrong, and
becoming constantly more frustrated. Do instructions exist? Where can I get
them?
BTW, I do *not* have the power or the expertise to make technical changes
in the software; our list is on a hosted server, and only the administrator
at the host company can make changes in the software. What I want is help
for the end users -- the members of our list who simply need to know how to
get into the archives and locate particular messages.
Sandra Parshall
