In slrn-0.9.8.1pl1-4.20070716cvs.fc8, the "subject search" function ('s' key in header display) searches only through the article authors, not their subjects. This is caused by the fix for a bug in this functionality, contained in slrn-0.9.8.1pl1-asearch.patch. The same fix is already contained in slrn-0.9.8.1pl1-20070716cvs.patch.bz2. The patch command succeeds to apply the patch twice, but on the second attempt it gets applied in the wrong place so the search function breaks. Omitting slrn-0.9.8.1pl1-asearch.patch fixes the issue for me.
Fixed in slrn-0.9.8.1pl1-5.20070716cvs.fc8. Thanks for the report!
slrn-0.9.8.1pl1-5.20070716cvs.fc8 has been pushed to the Fedora 8 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.