GameBanshee Forums

..and ideas where it went?

It was entitled Maximum Experience Points and Party Development (..or something close to that).

It's possible it was collateral damage during our frequent spam wars. I've come close to deleting real threads while removing spam before, and maybe I took it out by mistake. Unfortunately, however it got deleted, it appears to be permanently gone now.

SWC

Bummer.. LOT's of time spent on writing that thread - as in multiple pages and multiple hours to write it, and I was looking forward to finishing it.

I think at this point the deletion policy needs to be seriously reviewed. Just how much of a review (actually reading anything), is required to remove a thread? Also, consider that the thread was started by me (..and I'm not exactly a new poster with a suspicious forum name). I'm also pretty sure I was the last poster as well (..after having responded to Claudius's post). Basically, what rules are in-place to remove a thread? And of course, what better rules need to be in place to avoid something like this?

An "oops" is well - less than satisfying. (..as a procedural response, not with respect to a personal error - if in fact it was yours at all. Errors happen ).

Scottg wrote:I think at this point the deletion policy needs to be seriously reviewed.

It's not like we have a committee that votes yea or nay on each thread. We see spam; we delete spam. The way the interface works, there's a little check box next to threads with new content, and we just check the ones with spam and then press a button to delete them. The problem is, when clicking on dozens of spam threads -- and we get dozens a day, easy -- it's possible to click on a real thread by mistake and delete it as well. That's probably what happened to your thread, and since I'm the one deleting the most spam, it was probably me. If so, I apologize to you.

SWC

swcarter, when you ban a user can you in the single fell swoop ban all of their posts? I am a mod on another forum and if

a spammer say 3243jJJO posts spam they might post 20 spam. If I have 200 spam ready to be deleted I can just ban 40 users and take care of all the other posts of the users. Of course this means you have to be super careful; imagine if a real user had all of their posts banned? (yikes).

I ask this because it has been so successful on this other forum because you don't have to check box each post. You can just ban a user and take with it the other 10-100 other posts of them.

With this tactic you need a successful 'gotcha' word jumble or else they can just create endless spam bots.

Claudius wrote:swcarter, when you ban a user can you in the single fell swoop ban all of their posts?

Sometimes the forum allows me to ban a user and automatically delete all of their posts, but usually I have to delete posts manually.

SWC

swcarter wrote:It's not like we have a committee that votes yea or nay on each thread. We see spam; we delete spam. The way the interface works, there's a little check box next to threads with new content, and we just check the ones with spam and then press a button to delete them. The problem is, when clicking on dozens of spam threads -- and we get dozens a day, easy -- it's possible to click on a real thread by mistake and delete it as well. That's probably what happened to your thread, and since I'm the one deleting the most spam, it was probably me. If so, I apologize to you.

SWC

I appreciate the apology.

My real concern however is not that it occurred, but rather can it happen again?



Let's not just "call it a day" or view it as if it requires a committee, but rather look for something that can potentially be corrected to avoid it happening again.



Within the process you have described the thing that "stands out the most" to me is:

"..to threads with new content".

That's a problem.

It should be:

"..to new threads".


Think about it. How many spammers are going to have multiple posts within a thread? In this case it wasn't just 1, 2, or even 3 posts within my thread, but rather 12 (if I remember correctly).

(..if they do, then you should review those a bit more carefully so as not to remove legit posts - but my guess is that most spam isn't more than one post.)

If just this one aspect in the process of determining spam can be corrected - then you have at least *largely* mitigated any potential loss.



Also, from your 1st response:

"..it appears to be permanently gone."


The process you have described in conjunction with any degree of "permanence" has the appearance of a typical email system..

-does it have a "Trash-bin" feature?

It *should*, and if it does then any particular post isn't simply "lost" until someone goes through and deletes the "Trash-bin".

Just what could be the rush to delete the "Trash-bin" (assuming it's there)? Even hundreds of spam posts a day shouldn't require much space to hold for a couple of weeks. Gig's are cheap. Give your legit forum members a week to make a thread-loss alert.

Again, IF there is that functionality - then it's yet another point in the process that should be corrected.





..and I'm sure there are other areas that could be further reviewed to prevent a problem like this from occurring again - it just takes a modicum of thought and effort to make the process better.

just to let you know this just happened to in a thread for planescape torment...to do with Strength at 18/30 that i was helping someone out,
as you can see form my number of post if have i cant afford to lose any...

Have any other threads suddenly disappeared? Maybe there's something else going on.

SWC

My Thread for Baldur's Gate 2 has also gone missing.

It was about my BG 2 Let's Play series. I'm new here and assumed that I had maybe unknowingly broken some forum rule. I messaged a moderator, but he hasn't got back to me yet.

Baknor88 wrote:It was about my BG 2 Let's Play series. I'm new here and assumed that I had maybe unknowingly broken some forum rule. I messaged a moderator, but he hasn't got back to me yet.

Advertising gets deleted, including advertising for youtube channels.

SWC

swcarter wrote:Advertising gets deleted, including advertising for youtube channels.

SWC

Alright, fair enough, I guess rules are rules. But that's not the most sensible one in my opinion. The BG 2 forum is a bit dead, and there's only so much you can 'say'. Players like to share their AARs, and Let's Plays is essentially a form of AAR.