This is one of my pet peeves (if you haven't noticed).
The shoutbox near the top of every forum page (above the main content, it has a heading that starts with "IB Shout, IB Shout History, ..." is often misused and thought of as a search box.
The shoutbox is a simplistic form of chat. (Many other forums are using things like this, sometimes you'll see the name "tagboard." It's basically the same thing). It's not real-time but it's meant for short messages between users.
Often in the history (which is accessible through the link "IB Shout History" near the top of the box) I will notice entries that look like search terms, and have nothing to do with the conversation in the shout box.
Usually the people who post these are new to the forum, but not always. I can understand someone who is new to the forum getting confused about the location of things on the forum, but on something like this? The button to the right of the text box says "Post Shout" after all.. I don't see any possible connection to searching for anything on the forum. (If it doesn't say "Search", why is it assumed that you can use it to search?)
Or perhaps this is a "human thing" on many webpages, where the first text entry field on the page is assumed to be a search field (people are looking for a search function and spot a lone text box in the upper right area of the page). Anyway, the point to this post is to try to get people to realize that you cannot search with it. Typing anything into the box and clicking the button will cause the entered text to get posted into the shout box, not operated on as a search in any manner.
If this continues, one possible idea is to place grey text in the box that reads, "Enter your shout here" or something like that, as soon as the box gets the input focus the text disappears and the user is free to type whatever they want. I don't want to resort to having to remove the text entry field from there (it is all too convenient for posting shouts) or causing it to pop up annoying dialog boxes to force people to realize that it can't be used for a search field.
Anyway, if you have any other creative ideas for stopping people from unintentionally using the shout box as a search box, post them here.