The two minute search limit is becoming extremely onerous to regular users of the Caf�.
From a practical point of view, does it matter if it is two minutes or thirty seconds?
I don't think so.

I can understand the need to prevent continuous searches, one after the other.....but in reality 30 seconds would accomplish the same thing as two minutes, but make the experience far less painful than it currently is.

The point is to break up the pattern of hitting search after search, which 30 seconds would do.

Obviously the end result of the current two minute rule is that folks simply stop searching altogether as it becomes to painful to wait for the next search.

Is this the purpose, to stop people searching?

If so, it seems difficult to understand, and if it's not, then it's important to state that this is exactly what the two minute rule does.......sends folks away in frustration.

I guess folks leaving in frustration DOES lighten the load on the search engine......but is this really a solution?

My questions do not mean to imply a lack of appreciation for the Café or it's hard working staff, simply to point out that the two minute rule has turned what was one of the extremely strong points about the Café into something far less.

From a practical (and technical) point of view, yes, it does matter if it's two minutes or thirty seconds. Absolutely. 30 seconds would not be enough for some searches. Allow me to explain.

At this moment, the search engine database includes 392,567 unique words. The most often used words, in descending order, are "one", "out", "magic", "some" and "think". The word "one", all by itself, matches 402,119 search records.

It takes at least 30 seconds to run a search for the word "one". Add another word to the search and it takes longer.

That is just one example, there are hundreds of others I could make. The point is that a lot of searches take 30 seconds or longer to complete. Having a time limit of 30 seconds would provide no help at all.

So, as to the points of your post:

1. Does it matter if it is two minutes or thirty seconds?

Yes, without question.

2. ... in reality 30 seconds would accomplish the same thing as two minutes ...

No, not even close in a lot of cases.

3. The point is to break up the pattern of hitting search after search, which 30 seconds would do.

That's not the exact point of the limit, and 30 seconds is way too short.

4. Is this the purpose, to stop people searching?

No, the purpose is to keep the server up and running.

5. ... the two minute rule ... sends folks away in frustration.

Most people understand the reason the limit was installed. Some don't. That's just the way it is.

6. I guess folks leaving in frustration DOES lighten the load on the search engine......but is this really a solution?

No, it isn't, but it's the only thing we can do at the moment. Maybe if we get rich we can spread out the load to several different servers, but we only have one server to run everything on. The search engine just happens to be the most resource intensive process on the entire server, and we can't allow unlimited searches to crash the server.

7. ... what was one of the extremely strong points about the Café ...

I agree.