h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Traveller in Time with question marks
"There will be a reason for the search to show 'No Results Found' even if others do get a list.

< F2131439?thread=3130415 >"

If you get No Results Found then the reasons are either there were no results, or the search call failed at the database (which is not unheard of).

We don't cache search results (yet).

And I presume that link was just a non sequitur as it appears to have nothing to do with the subject at hand?

How is the people search going to behave now that someone can change their nickname and have both old and new versions visible in threads at the same time? (I was looking at one example of this earlier today.)

That has always happened - for as long as we have cached threads. The old name only persists for a maximum of twelve hours, and only if no postings are made to that thread. It's a glitch we have to accept if we want caching to be effective at all.

The example I saw was from the previous day, ie more than 12 hours, but I suppose they might only have changed their name today, ie within those 12 hours.

Old postings can be newly cached - something I posted years ago could be cached today and wouldn't change if I changed my name. You might also see a name change back and forth if the page of posts is cached on one web server and not on another. All of these are expected, and the price to be paid for caching.