Author Topic: Why is this specific post of mine deleted?  (Read 1589 times)

I noticed this a long time ago, but at the time there was controversy related to Badspot so I didn't want to fuel the fire or anything by the implication of this post's removal. There are (probably) perfectly legitimate reasons for it being gone so don't get lead astray.

I found out about this when a friend asked me about my opinion on Blockland's wellbeing, and I dug through my posts to find my ideas. This is a reference to the post I wanted, but the link itself leads to no particular post (the post is deleted, and the link will default you to the page). I know for a fact the link worked before since I preview check my posts, and the post definitely existed before.

The contents of the post were just brown townyzing some statistics from this graph, and contained no offensive or targeting language. It was purely neutral and I even stated I didn't want to rile up anybody, just post my thoughts on the subject. (it was related to the derivatives of the graph at certain time periods. Maybe a forum friend can back me up here...)

So, the victim complex us problem users tend to have automatically made me think that Badspot removed it to hide it from players, but after some thinking it could have been lost in the HDD failure that happened long ago.

The post is before that date so it makes sense, but what doesn't make sense is why the surrounding posts are perfectly intact. I don't 100% know how the MySQL is formatted for the SMF database, but as an educated guess it seems like posts would just be entered by date and referenced with the topic as the key. So with that said, there's no particular reason why database corruption would remove ONLY my post and leave the others alone.

And that's why I'm asking... if the database corruption is no excuse, then why was it removed? I kinda get it if Badspot wants to keep "muh v21 ruined the game, blockland is dying!!" posters away, but the content of the post was (and I know it's not worth much coming from me) pretty innocent and neutral.

My guess is it happened when the hard drive failed. that's why new in Day/Night discussion threads takes you a few posts behind the real newest post.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2017, 10:29:27 PM by Super Suit 12 »

that's why new in Day/Night discussion threads takes you a few posts behind the real newest post.
when you go to the new stuff in a topic, it doesn't bring you to the last post
instead it brings you to the first unread post

As stated, I remember a few topics having random posts missing, maybe it was unlucky to recover your post and seemed like a coincidence.

Yeah.. I want to give the benefit of the doubt, but statistically speaking, the chance for corruption deleting that specific post is like zero. The posts around it are fine, I think all my other posts are intact too, for a HDD failure to hit that post is EXTREMELY unlikely because I bet the data is stored sequentially as posts are created and I know my post time was probably within hours of the surrounding poster's. If a bunch of posts were deleted that had their time around then, then it would make more sense, but right now it doesn't add up.

Of course I don't really know 100% how the database is formatted or stored or anything so it's speculation for now. Anyone else experience deleted posts, and what times?
« Last Edit: November 12, 2017, 12:57:56 AM by Val »

There's roughly a 3 hour gap between the surrounding posts. In my timezone, this is on May 30th roughly between 4:30 PM to 7:20 PM.
After checking out other active threads, I cannot find posts between those two times. In some threads, no posts on May 30th exist at all.

Edit: In fact, those two posts are the closest I can even find between those two times.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2017, 12:57:09 AM by Shift Kitty »

Ok, after checking out the topic number of the deleted post and looking at topics before and after, it DOES look like there's a strip of time that's consistently blanked out. Of all the possible combinations of posts and topic times, it floors me that the one post I lose is a controversial one. Like this is some winning the lottery stuff... I'm glad there's no greater conspiracy though!!

And I guess this topic does a pretty good job illustrating the break in time, there's consistent posts and suddenly a three hour skip.

COOL!!

Those are some pretty bizarre odds. But the evidence is right there that it really was just data loss. That's pretty damn crazy.

My guess is it happened when the hard drive failed. that's why new in Day/Night discussion threads takes you a few posts behind the real newest post.
when you go to the new stuff in a topic, it doesn't bring you to the last post
instead it brings you to the first unread post
There's roughly a 3 hour gap between the surrounding posts. In my timezone, this is on May 30th roughly between 4:30 PM to 7:20 PM.
After checking out other active threads, I cannot find posts between those two times. In some threads, no posts on May 30th exist at all.

Edit: In fact, those two posts are the closest I can even find between those two times.
it's only the day discussion topic, but even if someone quotes one of the first 5 posts in a page after a certain point, it links back to the previous page
and yes it's due to that whole hard drive failing thing, but it's slightly different.... interestingly, 5 posts in that day topic got repeated on january 31st between 4:40~ pm to  6:25~ pm central time
https://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=299847.6285 notice how on the previous page the last five posts got repeated on that one?? same times and everything too, then that just messes with links to the first 5 posts in the pages afterwards and takes u back to the previous page, like for example clicking on the quote Becquerel directed to me

IDK why it would randomly repeat posts. Maybe there was some kind of database repair tool used that inserted in data and decided some parts were just garbage. My best guess for the 3 hour range is a bad sector on the HDD, ie physical damage like the head scratching that area.

And I would have never guessed post loss could be narrowed down like that, I expected the bounds to be like a week or something, and it's freaking insane that one specific post got caught in it (seriously, the planets must have aligned), which is why I posted in the first place. But I guess you learn something new every day!

i'm still pretty curious about my case tho, are there any other posts on january 31st between 4:40~ pm to  6:25~ pm central time that were also repeated??

nice to know the day/night discussion topics plays an archival role in history

nice to know the day/night discussion topics plays an archival role in history
I swear its like this HDD event is our key to being able to affect the physical timeline

nice to know the day/night discussion topics plays an archival role in history
yes important people will look back on our gr8 threads!!