It isn't a disagreement about the definition of "starting at". It is just that you assumed that the "start" being referred to was the start of the implied date range on the timeline of when the nodes to be searched were originally created. The "at" refers to dates on that timeline but the "start" in question is the start of the process of the search that is about to be done.

Perhaps I will change it to "starting with" as, reflecting upon it, that seems to be a more common usage when the period being started and the measurement being discussed are from separate timelines. Or perhaps I should restate "searching" to make it clearer. But then, "Start searching with <date>" sounds wrong... or maybe it is most correct despite sounding a bit awkward...

If you look up the history of Super Search, you can see that originally "oldest first" was not just the default order but the only supported order (due to a limitation in the MySQL optimizer). So nf=1 started out as how to override the order (but wasn't supported at first). Soon after nf=1 became supported, it also became the default. The radio buttons already sent either nf=1 or nf=0 so that was not changed. What was changed was what the absense of any "nf" parameter meant (which also changed the default state of those radio buttons on a freshly-loaded form).

Further, Super Search tries hard to shorten the short-cut URL to the point of removing optional parameters. So "nf=1", being the default, gets removed. "nf=0" cannot be removed.

As for "nf=1" giving "inconsistent results", you'd have to elaborate on that before I'd look into it further.

starting at

Accepting my initial misinterpretation of what was not a bug, I might suggest alternative phrasing ... not that you're asking, but it does seem at least possible to discuss. :-)

What about replacing "starting at" with "bound by"? Not sure if the majority would accept it but it seems to describe the behavior more clearly to me.

Alternatively, the whole thing could be boiled down to Search From -or- To  /n  Present -or- YMD (with the GUI elements in the appropriate spots). Still not sure that's any better than what's already there, if I must be completely honest, but it is reasonably simple.

The completely general case of specifying two dates (From and To) would of course add to the complexity of an already complicated form. I assume that this would be undesired and unacceptable.

Minimal URL

I like this minimal URL thing. By coincidence, I use the same logic for the search forms I made at work. Started as just a debug for myself and ended up being a popular little feature. Thanks for the historical explanation for nf=0.

inconsistent results

Tried to reproduce what I think I saw as different behavior from nf=1 but haven't been able to do so. At this point, I'll have to mark it up to my own delusion. I shouldn't have used that phrase without a solid example (whether it was true or not).

IMO "Starting from" or "Beginning at" (or possibly "Beginning with") would read better.

Or the opposite: "With no nodes older than" (or something along those lines). [ Thanks for the correction tye ]

"With no nodes older than"

That has the advantage of being less ambiguous. But it has the disadvantage of being unambiguously wrong.

- tye