This thread from 2009 shows up in my list of New Posts with the latest post listed as a 7:30 post from Telemark, but clicking on it doesn’t show any posts after 2009.
Am getting a cached version, or was it bumped by a spammer and then cleaned up?
It was spammer.
I can’t prove it natch, but I’m pretty sure it’s happened to me where my post noting that I’d reported a spammer was deleted. I assume it’s so that the thread sinks back into its grave and doesn’t confuse people by making them think I decided to report an innocuous post from 2014 or whatever.
Yes. We routinely delete spam posts, as well as “reported” posts, and also replies to the spammer by those who didn’t realize it was spam. This will cause zombies resurrected by spammers to float back down to their previous resting place and disappear from the main page. This may go for trolls as well. Threads started by spammers are deleted in their entirety, including any reports and replies.
Excellent. I guess I’d just never observed that specific aftermath before.
There was a spammer this morning who was bumping a bunch of old threads. In most of them, it was just the spammer’s post and maybe one saying “reported”, and I deleted all of those. In one of them, however, there were already a few real replies after the spammer, so I just left a note that so-and-so wasn’t actually the one who bumped the thread, so people wouldn’t make zombie jokes at his expense
I might add that sometimes people will make posts that are pertinent to the subject of a zombie the thread before we get to it, because they don’t realize it’s a zombie. If posts in GQ actually add new information, we won’t delete them and may leave the thread open with a note that the thread was bumped by a spammer and the subsequent posters shouldn’t be blamed for resurrecting it.
I saw that spammer–the sites linked to seemed oddly random. Don’t most spammers have a single focus?
Yeah, it seemed odd to me, too. I guess it was one of those “Internet marketing companies” that advertise in the back of respectable business magazines, and they had multiple clients. I guess.
That was my 15 minutes of fame.
yeah most of the posts Chronos was talking about last night was me …reporting them …
But a lot of us had a full on discussion when the Indian preschool spammer made 3 or 4 threads last week …
We had one several years ago when no mods were on during the night who would post 70-90 threads. Every night. A horoscope service(in India) to find a wife or some such.
Wow, they really start early!
Most of those threads yesterday actually had multiple reports. If I really wanted to, I could go back and see who reported first, and who actually posted “Reported”.