Friends of Captain Awkward

I've had a couple times where I have tried to search for a Support Group thread and get an error saying "(search term) is too common." This isn't just for words like "and" or "the," it includes words specific enough to be the only good descriptors for the thread I want.

Is there a way around this? An advanced search feature perhaps? I don't think using longer phrases in quotes helps either, the system just ignores the quotes.

If there's something that could be done about this from a web dev side, I am a programmer and could potentially volunteer on it.

Seconding this. I'm not sure if I've ever actually been able to successfully search for something, and that's using my If I Could Deal With Grad School I'd Be A Librarian Already skills.

Agreed. I searched variously for an insomnia support thread last night and finally I went to the support section and just looked through the whole thing until I found one.

I don't know how to fix it, but a workaround is to use a wild card. So, for example, search for insomni*. If it's not an actual word, the search doesn't flag it as "too common".

Oh thanks, that helps somewhat.