Deletion of Posts

Has anyone experienced a deletion of a post that they submitted? Recently, there was report of a post being deleted without a reason. I have, on occasion, deleted a duplicate post and it just may have taken them both out. If so, please respond here. It's quite possible that if someone inadvertantly posts twice, it has to stay. I know I have done it, thinking that the first one didn't go.

[Marc]

If anyone posts and the post does not show up or 'disappears', please let us know. Atul and I can review the log files. Every thread and every post that is edited, moved, deleted or whatever is logged.

In addition, threads which are 'deleted' are really NOT deleted. The are marked 'hidden' so no one sees them, but they are still in the database and can be 'brought back'.

One comment, however. Many of you have probably seen thread titles change. I change many thread titles. Sometimes to correct misspellings, many times to make the title 'clearer' and thus index more correctly. But - even these changes are logged.

My concern is if you post something and the post 'disappears' it may indicate a database problem. I check it every couple of days and have seen no indication of a problem, but one never knows. I want to catch any database problems early so do let me know if you're having any problem.

[Marc]

As an addendum: The logs are logs of what admins and moderators do. Users can only 'operate' on their own posts and as such there is no log of what an individual user does to their own posts.

The admin and moderator logs are for us here to see what each other is doing.

Originally Posted by Marc

As an addendum: The logs are logs of what admins and moderators do. Users can only 'operate' on their own posts and as such there is no log of what an individual user does to their own posts.

The admin and moderator logs are for us here to see what each other is doing.

Every once in awhile, I get duplicate e-mails from people who, for some reason, don't feel the message went. I have done it here in the Cove before the Moderator thing and just went in and edited the repeat to nothing because I didn't have permission to delete a post. I would just show up as a line with no post. I have also seen others do it here, saying they don't know how it happened. So, in the future I would leave the duplicate to avoid the possibility of deleting both posts. Maybe it's a software thing. I would like to test it, but I'm not sure if deliberately posting the same thing twice would work. If nobody else has a problem with what appears to be a missing post, chalk it up to a glitch, or cockpit error from a pilot in training.

[Marc]

If you find such a duplicate please let me know before you do anything. That way I can take a look at it.

There is a 'flood check' feature which only allows a post every 60 seconds so clicking the button twice by mistake shouldn't cause this.

One of the things that can happen is someone clicks the submit/post button and the data doesn't 'make it' to the server. I have seen it now and again where my post didn't take, but I always know because there is no 'follow through'. That is, I don't get the next 'screen'. Usually if I do a traceroute I see a router between here and there screwing up. I rarely see this problem though.

I'm not convinced this is a significant problem because I've only seen it happen a couple times this year my self and because I would expect more people to be complaining.

[Claes Gefvenberg]

I have on occasion managd to post duplicate posts, but that has imo been caused by my own eagerness. I simply pressed send again when nothing happened due to lag in the wires, and hey presto: Two identical posts.

It has never been a problem to delete just one of them and thereby correct the mistake.

/Claes

Originally Posted by Claes Gefvenberg

I have on occasion managd to post duplicate posts, but that has imo been caused by my own eagerness. I simply pressed send again when nothing happened due to lag in the wires, and hey presto: Two identical posts.

It has never been a problem to delete just one of them and thereby correct the mistake.

/Claes

If I'm not mistaken, only Moderators can delete a post, anyway. Other members cannot, so they edit the duplicate down to nothing. I've seen that a few times. The more I thnk about it, the member who reported the missing post had a duplicate post and I attempted to remove one of them, but never checked to see if the other one stayed. Anyway, discussing it should eliminate the possibility of it happening again. Hey, affected member, Mea Culpa!

[Marc]

When I changed over to this beta software I enabled all registered members to be able to delete their own posts. Unless it's the first post in a thread (the starting post). Deleting the first post in a thread deletes all posts within a thread and the thread it's self.

You weren't mistaken per se. I never 'advertised' the change.