I have seen threads locked.
I have seen threads moved.
I have seen inappropriate content edited by mods (at least I think I have, perhaps it’s just my imagination)
But I have never before seen a thread just disappear. I was going to post to a thread on “Police - more harm then good?” when poof it’s gone.
As a general rule, we only edit to break links or to remove excessive material that’s been copied and pasted from another site, for copyright purposes.
We almost never remove threads from public view…except for threads started by spammers. We consider someone who posts multiple times a spammer, as well as someone who posts the same thing on other sites. The Police thread had at least three postings, and the OP was trying to direct traffic to his (or her) own website.
It was a spammer. I disappeared it.
You rarely see spam on the SDMB because we are swifter and deadlier than Keyser Söze. poof It’s gone.
-xash
Administrator
p.s. please don’t google it. If you don’t get the reference, watch Usual Suspects first. Googling it might spoil the movie for you.
Fair enough - though couldn’t there be some token memorial to the threads passing? Maybe a bunch of flowers or a one-line obituary in the local paper, or perhaps displaying the spammers head on a stake like a medieval traitor’s?
Sometimes we have an open casket ceremony, where we invite those who knew them well:
This forum is alive? If yes, please remove this topic and my account.
I’m sure the Chicago Reader would entertain your submissions.
Both of those were beautiful ceremonies. We shared a laugh, we shared a tear; I’ll miss those crazy people…
With the others, do you cremate* them or bury them in another forum?
[sub]*delete[/sub]
As Lynn and xash have already indicated, the threads or posts are removed from view. They are retained in case they are needed to document the activity of a spammer (for example).
More of a celebration, really.
$.0000001* to the first person to get the reference.
*Actually, you’ll get nothing more than the satisfaction.
There’s the guy who keeps signing up on this and other forums and posting threads with “the END OF ATHEISM” in the title under different names. Some kind of weird spiel involving the evils of atheism and Nostradamus. He just posted a few threads like that today and got disappeared and banned yet again; I recall one mod comparing it with playing whack-a-mole.
I also saw the “This forum is alive? If yes, please remove this topic and my account” guy/bot post to another forum and reported him there.
[Invasion of the Body Snatchers] YOU’RE NEXT! YOU’RE NEXT! YOU’RE NEXT! [/IotBS]
I have always maintained, though, that we should REALLY be impaling their heads on spikes, as a Warning To Others.
Nobody ever listens to my really GOOD suggestions.
Well, if you keep disappearing people, how can anyone tell? You can’t see the heads!
The suicide thread someone posted the other day seems to have been disappeared. Fair enough say I.
You mean that Shodan is really the Secret Master of the SDMB?!?!
Regards,
Poly
