# A Math Riddle Turns More Confusing

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-math-riddle-turns-more-confusing/228933>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [February 12, 2004, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-math-riddle-turns-more-confusing/228933 "2004-02-12T23:01:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-math-riddle-turns-more-confusing/228933/1 "2004-02-12T23:01:07Z")

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Over in GQ a thread named “A Math Riddle” is displayed.

When I clicked on it, it contained no post at all. One of those, I thought. But I couldn’t find even a button to post a reply or to contact a moderator.

And then I decided to click on the name of the poster on the GQ page. DoperChic, it reported, is not a registered user and so no posts can be displayed.

So how did the thread even get there?

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**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-math-riddle-turns-more-confusing/228933/2 "2004-02-12T23:32:10Z")

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I’m going to go way, way out on a limb here, and indulge in some really wild speculation, but I think I might posit that maybe - just maybe - there could possibly have been perhaps a glitch in the board software. Unlikely as that is.

😉

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**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2004, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-math-riddle-turns-more-confusing/228933/3 "2004-02-12T23:45:53Z")

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Ah, well, I don’t know why you weren’t able to access **DoperChic** ’s profile, but it showed up for me:

[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php?u=5405](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php)

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**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-math-riddle-turns-more-confusing/228933/4 "2004-02-13T04:56:47Z")

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I did see a “post reply” button in there, but when I tried to use it, I got a “no thread specified” error. When threads get fucked, they get fucked hard.

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-math-riddle-turns-more-confusing/228933/5 "2004-02-13T09:25:24Z")

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In a way though, it is a good thing that we can’t post to OP-less threads (of course it would be better if the phenomenon simply didn’t arise), as it prevents all that confusion where the first response (which is usually a witcrack on the theme of _missing_) is mistaken for a pointless OP.