I think I missed something; a pit thread was started yesterday by a blatant troll. I won’t go into details. But along with the troll’s stuff was an angry exchange with a regular member and most other people that posted in the thread.
This morning I’m surprised the thread petered out when I went to sleep so I look in the pit. The thread is gone.
So is this an occasional policy I missed? It was clearly just a poorly played troll that started the thread, so I am not even complaining, just curious how this works.
Threads started by trolls are usually wished away to the cornfield, especially threads like the one in question which was just blatant trolling right from the start.
If a troll posts to existing threads, sometimes it can be difficult to remove all of the troll posts without completely disrupting the existing thread’s flow, so sometimes those posts will be left in place.
A mod might also decide for some reason (folks are having fun with the thread, it’s taken on a life of its own despite the troll, etc) to leave the troll’s thread in place, but that’s the exception, not the rule. Threads are most often disappeared, not left in place.
As engineer says, this is pretty much standard policy. We cornfield threads by posters who start trolling right out of the gate. Often you won’t notice because the thread is gone almost immediately. In this case, there was a delay in part because it was in the Pit, since there is some tolerance for trolling in that forum. But blatant trolling like that thread isn’t permitted even there.
Also as engineer says there are factors that may result in us locking or leaving a troll thread or posts, but those are exceptions.
It was an extremely disrespectful thread to have on Memorial Day, IMO, and I’m glad it’s gone. I shouldn’t let stuff like that bother me, and I don’t know why I feel compelled to rise to the bait of the troll but that just hit a nerve with me.
Heh. I still have that ‘vanished’ thread open in a browser window I left on last night. At least, it has posts 51-89 on page 2. I’d archive it but it really is a waste of electrons. Definitely doesn’t come near qualifying as “missed content”. Not like back in the Winter of 2001-2002. (I’m still annoyed about that. My classic column about going to prison got et in that disaster)
The thing I remember most about the Winter of Our Missed Content were people posting nude photos of themselves. Someone, who will remain nameless, posted a dick pic in a wizard robe.
I am confused though, because I joined the boards in 2007. We must have had something similar happen after 2007.
If it makes you feel any better, Qadgop, disappeared threads like that aren’t utterly destroyed. They’re still in the database, and mods can still see them, and we could if for some reason we wanted to bring them back.
And yeah, I wasn’t too pleased about the Winter of our Missed Content, either. I had a really fun thread going then about the Music of the Ainur. Some of the content from that time ended up getting snagged by Web archiving spiders, though, so it’s still possible you might be able to find copies of your thread somewhere.