BleepingComputer.com: Posts disappearing???

Yesterday morning I posted in this topic:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/top...ml#entry1339427

and during the day noticed that there were 40-50 new reads in that thread.

Later last night I went to add to the thread and my post was missing along with one other.

Why was my post deleted?

If I posted something not acceptable, at least a courtesy PM letting me know that I had would seem to have been appropriate.

I've re-posted essentially the same information and it is still there, so I don't understand what happened.

It's not in Deleted Posts

garmanma -

Do you see any posts in the "Deleted Posts" area from that thread?

It is in deleted posts, I found them. Whats odd is there is nothing in the activity log showing that they were deleted, ever. I went back to before they were even posted according to the timestamps.

I have no clue how they got there. No forum 'paper trail' that I can find. You finally have yourself a true mystery JohnWho.

Animal, on Jul 13 2009, 10:39 PM, said:

I may have a "true mystery", but it would seem the board has a serious problem if it is arbitrarily deleting posts for no apparent reason.

Is this a known IP Board problem?

Abacus7 also had a post removed in that thread.

Do the logs show why his was deleted and by whom?

@JohnWho, your post was deleted on accident, and I couldn't find it to put it back. I meant to get back to it, but I did not. I will note though that there is a growing tendency to find ways to mimic the now removed quote feature, which again leads to posts being unreadable yet again. How hard is to to form a complete sentence that addresses a particular person on a particular point?

Abacus' post was deleted because it was off topic.

Thank you for the honesty, groovicus,

but if my post was deleted "accidentally"

why didn't any of the Staff (or you if you deleted it) send me a PM regarding the incident?

You may be getting upset with me for bringing this up,

but, c'mon, a little common courtesy isn't that unreasonable, is it?


(Edit to correct to groovicus)

This post has been edited by JohnWho: 14 July 2009 - 04:09 PM

groovicus, on Jul 14 2009, 10:46 AM, said:

This is a separate issue, is it not?

And the answer to "How hard is it?" is, sometimes, very hard, often when responding to multiple points in a post 2 or 3 posts back in a thread. Especially when in other threads on this board and on other boards it is much easier for a member to post replies.

I attempt to only quote that part of the earlier post that I'm directly responding to in an attempt to respect the concept. But, of course, anyone could show that I often could have used a few less words.

Using the "@username" idea is only effective if the other person only made one point in their thread, even if a reader then has to scroll up to see what that point was. If they made multiple points, it becomes even more difficult for both the responder and the readers without some sort of pointer or quote to show exactly what is being referenced by the response.


I understand your desire to limit the length of posts by not allowing the "quote" feature, but if it makes communicating that much harder for the members, is it really doing anything other than aggravating the member and lessening their desire to post in that Forum?

Quote

It does get to be a bit difficult at times, and it can get to be an annoyance to have to find a way to be able to indicate what point you're pointing at when there's multiple points and that you only want to use certain points, but it's probably better than to have to read about hundreds of lines of text from one post. Of course, it actually is easy if you give a very quick sentence of the point that the other poster is making by devoting the first sentence with something like "For your point where you said 'so and so'...." sort of thing can help reduce the clutter while keeping it simple and easy to understand the point you're looking at....if that helps at all......

Quote

At the gamefaqs forums where there is the occassional "tier list" debates, one of the biggest problems is the exact point that groovicus made about gigantic posts that are hard to read that is full of "quote this, my info that, quote this, my info that" sort of thing. With the section I go to, most of the debaters try to keep it condensed, but there's sometimes a few here and there that will just go on and on and come close to the maximum character limit (I think some 24400 or something like that.....it's been forever since I last saw it) and do it again for three posts in a row to get their point...and sometimes, they will make up irrelevent stuff that is probably there that could also be considered flamebaiting.

Aaaaaand I'm shutting up.

I cannot figure out how quoting a person entire comment in a post and then writing a reply to the entire thing makes any sense. What you do is answer the OP with complete sentences. You can also Address a person directly by saying.. For username.. I understand what you meant when you said... and insert the specific thing you want to refer to in italic type but I wonder if you considered *insert your point here*

That makes for a lot less text to wade through.

Oh and please note. I felt no need to QUOTE anyone here because my point addresses the specific issue of the quote feature. I do realize this is not the exact topic here, but I do feel that has been addressed. My point stands on it's own and I do not feel a need to quote anyone to make my point.

When someone starts a topic and says what they wanted to say.. they know what they said. They do not generally need to be reminded of what they themselves said. What is wrong with scrolling back to see, if reminding is needed? I and many other people are of the opinion that the quote feature is a lazy habit because you just wrap in quotes and do not take the time to break thoughts down into bite size pieces (so to speak).One big block of quote, then another big block of texts follows. You can italicize specific things or just address what they said without quoting another post that is a duplicate of the previous. It is redundant to do that in most cases.

I think, the way it is now, is a vast improvement,to what it used to be.
Groovicus, did us all a favour, making these changes.
Easy to make reference to a previous statement,if need be,by quoting Post number,or one line in Italic,that someone said previously.
I personally, was sick to death, of reading pages of quotes,and the same thing,many times.
Some members, were putting huge Quotes in their posts,and adding only one line.
The way it is now,to me anyway,is the best of both Worlds.