Deletion of threads en masse

Catharsis · Feb 7, 2009

Recently, pretty much the whole of Forum Games has been deleted, presumably by the database error (the late January one wiped out every thread created before March or April 2008, I think, and the recent February ones seem to have eradicated threads created between April and June). That's pretty galling because there was some good stuff in there, but I digress.

My question is: has this been happening to any other forums, and if not, why is it confined to this one particular subforum?

Ginger_Ale · Feb 7, 2009

That was done intentionally, in order to free up space for new posts and data. I guess Forum Games' posts were deemed expendable...

Thunderfall · Feb 7, 2009

Yes, that was done intentionally to free up some space.

I deleted threads whose last posted date is before June 1, 2008 in there. That's the only public forum we could delete threads without affecting people's postcount, since it's not enabled for that forum.

That said, I don't think we'll need to delete any more threads there anymore.

Azale · Feb 7, 2009

Is there any way to delete an old thread without affecting post count?

Catharsis · Feb 7, 2009

Oh, well, that's disappointing, but thanks for the response.

At least it's not happening to any other subforums.

Thunderfall · Feb 7, 2009

Azale said:
Is there any way to delete an old thread without affecting post count?

The forum has a mass prune post feature that delete posts w/o updating people's postcounts. But even that is not permanent. From time to time, it may be necessary to update counters which would update people's postcount to their true postcounts.

Ekolite · Feb 7, 2009

Does it really matter what people's post counts are? If it was me I'd go ahead and delete the old threads regardless.

GenMarshall · Feb 7, 2009

Azale said:
Is there any way to delete an old thread without affecting post count?

Thats what I noticed happened to me as well. Before I was almost heading to 29,890. But then dropped down to 29,860 when the event said in the Games Forum happened.

Perhaps the same issue with posters who used to post in the old Parlament thread. Then later on their posts and threads were deleated.

Cutlass · Feb 7, 2009

Azale said:
Is there any way to delete an old thread without affecting post count?

On UBB forums, yes. I don't know that it's an option on vBulletin.

I would say go ahead and delete anything that hasn't been looked at in years. Anyone that obsessed with their post count will be ok.

Birdjaguar · Feb 7, 2009

There is a lot of great history in some of the old threads that would be a shame to loose. I say improve functionality so the past can be preserved.

thomas.berubeg · Feb 7, 2009

Birdjaguar said:
There is a lot of great history in some of the old threads that would be a shame to loose. I say improve functionality so the past can be preserved.

Ay... I might be slightly Biased, but we just lost a whole part of our history, over in Forum games... Some of the old games and players, who have since passed from us, shaped our History, and the way games are played nowadayds... (Unser Giftzwerg, especially)

But i Understand why it happened.

Tee Kay · Feb 7, 2009

All the Draw Your Own Story thread are gone as well

GenMarshall · Feb 7, 2009

taillesskangaru said:
All the Draw Your Own Story thread are gone as well

Well, only the older ones before July of 08

Thorvald of Lym · Feb 7, 2009

...And I was so close to completing A Concise History of DYOS V, too!
Seriously. That thread was an important piece of history.

azzaman333 · Feb 8, 2009

No wonder I couldn't find the music quizzes of the past.

DaveShack · Feb 8, 2009

It's unfortunate, but the alternative was to lose the ability to post at all until the database server is upgraded.

One way y'all can pitch in and help to avoid similar problems in the future is to stick to quality posting. I don't know the actual percentages, but here's a sample calculation. If 10% is spam in a 4GB database, not spamming would leave 400 MB more space for quality posts.

Agent327 · Feb 8, 2009

(I was going to post this earlier, but: ) IMO separation of the Off Topic forums from CFC would result in a more permanent solution; after all Off Topic is just that: off topic. (No real reason to keep it inside CFC.) Just a thought.

Dachs · Feb 8, 2009

JEELEN said:
(I was going to post this earlier, but: ) IMO separation of the Off Topic forums from CFC would result in a more permanent solution; after all Off Topic is just that: off topic. (No real reason to keep it inside CFC.) Just a thought.

Then what do people do with their off-topic discussions on the other CFC threads? Mods can't say "take it to OT" anymore! :crazyeye:

Heretic_Cata · Feb 8, 2009

azzaman333 said:
No wonder I couldn't find the music quizzes of the past.

A pitty that.

Good thing i kept the samples on my comp.Bad thing is that i didn't keep the answers to them. :sad:

dutchfire · Feb 8, 2009

In the future, would it be possible to archive parts of the database into .txt (or other format) files before deleting the posts from the database?

Deletion of threads en masse

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