Question about one poster quoting another

[Charlie_Wayne]

I was looking at a thread in Great Debates. It is titled, “So, do Satanic cults exist?”. In the words of the moderator who closed that thread, “it was closed because it was a zombie thread and began attracting several nonsense posts”.

On my PC, the thread occupies 5 pages and on the last page, there is a post by FriarTed that quotes the now-banned poster “lastoftheindependents”.

My problem with this is I could not find the post being quoted anywhere in that thread. I looked at the first four pages and I hope I am not mistaken but I couldn’t find it anywhere.

I’d like to ask how is this possible? How can one poster quote another poster in a thread and then the post by that first poster (who is now banned) doesn’t seem to appear anywhere in the thread?

Am I mistaken about something here? Or is it possible that some mod deleted that post? The curious thing is that if the post was deleted and the poster banned, how is it possible that they made several more posts in this thread.

The post and the thread are not of any importance to me. I’m just trying to understand the way this board works. Here is a link to that thread.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=326492&page=5

[tomndebb]

Sequence:

The odd poster’s first post was quoted and later deleted, (probably under the assumption that it was some sort of spam or trolling–I was not the Mod so I don’t know for sure).

I came across the nonsense on the last page and closed the thread until I could find out why the poster had not been banned.

Another Mod banned the poster.

[PlainJain]

Not this situation, but another way this can happen is that someone can post, another poster quotes that post then the first poster edits, alters or deletes their original post.

[CairoCarol]

@Imaginary banned poster

It’s also possible that someone could have created a hypothetical/invented post in order to prove a point, isn’t it?

Mods, please forgive me if I’m breaking any rules by quoting the above.

[Chronos]

It’s also possible to quote something from another thread, though if you’re doing that you should make it clear that that’s what you’re doing, lest you confuse matters.

[simster]

@CairoCarol

Mods, please forgive me if I’m breaking any rules by quoting the above.

This is why, while I fully agree with post deletions of spammers*, that a note of some sort should be left in its place so that future thread readers don’t think participants have gone fully insane.

Especiailly in a thread about satanic cults.

*which, in this case, the poster in question was not a spammer, but the rambling/non-sequitur posting style certainly looked like spam filter test material.

[Jonathan_Chance]

You’re entirely right that I should have left a note about deleting the post. In my defense, I’m not at my best. But I won’t do it again.

[running_coach]

@Jonathan_Chance

You’re entirely right that I should have left a note about deleting the post. In my defense, I’m not at my best. But I won’t do it again.

Would it be possible to replace the spam text with a note and leave the post itself in place?

[Leo_Bloom]

@Jonathan_Chance

You’re entirely right that I should have left a note about deleting the post. In my defense, I’m not at my best. But I won’t do it again.

Present tense? You OK?

[Senegoid]

@runner pat

Would it be possible to replace the spam text with a note and leave the post itself in place?

This has been suggested here in ATMB several times by several people, myself included. My general impression has been that the mods make remarks to the effect that it sounds like a good idea and they’ll (maybe?) start doing this, but then they never actually do.

Note also: Links to other posts have a field in the URL parameters called “postcount” or something like that. But when a post gets disappeared, the subsequent posts in the thread get re-numbered so you don’t see a missing number, and then links to those posts have an incorrect “postcount” parameter.

It doesn’t seem to matter much, but when you display an individual post, it has the post number in the upper right corner, and that will be incorrect.

[samclem]

@runner pat

Would it be possible to replace the spam text with a note and leave the post itself in place?

@Senegoid

This has been suggested here in ATMB several times by several people, myself included. My general impression has been that the mods make remarks to the effect that it sounds like a good idea and they’ll (maybe?) start doing this, but then they never actually do.

You’re correct. We considered it years ago, but found it unworkable.

[Steophan]

One other issue I’ve seen in zombie threads that’s not relevant to this case but might still be of interest to some people is that, if a user has changed their name, the username changes on the original post but not the quoted ones.

[Colibri]

@simster

This is why, while I fully agree with post deletions of spammers*, that a note of some sort should be left in its place so that future thread readers don’t think participants have gone fully insane.

If deletion of the spam or troll post causes a continuity error or a problem understanding the thread, I try to leave a note to that effect. If I delete a spam post that raised a zombie, and others have posted substantive comments after it, I will also explain that so the first poster to respond after the spammer doesn’t get blamed for bumping the zombie. If all I am doing is deleting the spam post and any reports, and that doesn’t affect the rest of the thread, I won’t bother.

We delete a lot of spam posts. Leaving a note in every case would be a lot of work.

[Cheshire_Human]

@samclem

You’re correct. We considered it years ago, but found it unworkable.

[spammy link and text removed]

Check my edit.

[PlainJain]

@Jonathan_Chance

In my defense, I’m not at my best.

Twix, is that you?

[Chronos]

Quoth Steophan:

One other issue I’ve seen in zombie threads that’s not relevant to this case but might still be of interest to some people is that, if a user has changed their name, the username changes on the original post but not the quoted ones.

That’s because the quoted name is just text, not (so far as the software is concerned) a reference to the actual poster. You could (as far as the software is concerned) put any name in a quote attribution, including a nickname or the name of a completely different poster (but don’t do that latter one).