In any case, even if the search worked, it's tedious to search for conversations you wanted to watch. Almost all public forums (news, travel, photo-sharing) of this caliber have this feature. And gardening is the most confounding with the myriad of subjects in which most gardeners are interested (number of forums visited.)

Gardenweb forums have basically looked and functioned the same for a decade.

1) I never noticed it until you said something, guess I assumed it was some kind of ad.

2) requires a lot more clicking.

3) leaves the page (right-click "open in new window" disabled.)

4) the writing is so small I can barely see it, and even after I noticed it, it's so small I didn't realize at first that it's actually a bunch of different links. Maybe if they were in list form it would be visually easier to use.

5) If there is a way to access my clippings (without making a bookmark) without first entering a forum, and then a thread, I'm the idiot who can't figure it out.

6) It's not the function I want. Unless I remember the date of the last comment on each thread, I don't know if something new has been said without opening each thread.

7) It's not the function I want #2. I want to easily find entire threads, not something said by an individual.

8) Ideally, I would like the option to receive an email notifying me of a new post in regard to each thread.

9) The page is clunky to look at/use, displaying each entire result instead of a list.

These are the basics of how modern forums function, many other details I didn't even mention.