The ghost poster

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1

Strange… I have seen two posts in two threads today by what might be considered by some to be a ghost. By this, I mean the user information block- name, registration date, and post count are missing.

Instead of seeing something like this:

KeithT
Member

Registered: Apr 2000
Posts: 43

I see this:

Registered: Dec 1969
Posts:

Affected threads are these:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=38013
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=38180

Is the SDMB haunted, or is it a clever plot by the Illuminati to distract me from my studies? Mystery poster, reveal thyself!

2

Sometimes I wish my posts would do that.

3

Wow, that’s strange.

It’s like seeing light from a dead star, or a thread/post by Wally get bumped to the first page. Very vaguelly eerie, indeed.

4

The really eery part is the registration date. 1969?

5

whoever the ghost is, they seem to be knowledgable about the board. Could this be a regular poster and a VB glitch?

6

I was coming here to start a thread about this . here’s a direct link to one of the posts . I see a reg. date of 1970 .

7

The other thing I think I noticed was an awful lot of this:
[Edited by UncleBeer on 09-12-2000 at 05:21 PM]

Wonderd if it might be related ?
What a strange day, Freaky self-destructing, the weird CD Milk and this stuff… Admins and Mods you have my very firm appreciation. Thanks.

8

Ok well here’s what I can see .

In the IMHO thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=38180 a poster called niveous is mentioned by relic_11 but I can’t see any posts by niveous.

In the GQ thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=38013 UncleBeer did a test edit on the ghosts post. This could be because of the no name thing but could this have somehow wiped the posters (niveous ?) details from the server . It must be a recent change as nobody in the threads seem to notice it including one moderator .

I don’t know of a poster called niveous but there you go. Also now that I think about it , it may be a referance to nivea cream considering what the threads about .

My 2p worth

9

Wow, 1969. That’s what I call an amazing amount of foresight.

10

Wait, there was a post by a niveous! I went back to check on the spelling twice! And there wasn’t a ‘ghost poster’ last time I was there, but there is now. The ‘ghost post’ is not the post I commented on by niveous. Whats going on?

11

No! I mis-read the second time! The ‘ghost poster’ is niveous!

12

I see a poster called Nimue who relic 11 replied to calling them Niveous. I can’t see Niveous but I can see a ghost poster

13

:smiley: . Throws his Sherlock hat into the air .

14

No, that can’t be Primaflora, The ‘ghost poster’ mentions nimune in the begining of the post, so it can’t be her.

[Catches yojimbo’s Sherlock hat, puts it on, gets an odd craving to snort coke and play the violin, whips hat off and tosses it back to him]

15

I wonder if the ghost poster could be the new user
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php?action=getinfo&userid=9495
seeing as user 9495 is an “invalid user.”
When I did a search for niveous I get the star trek thread
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=37688&pagenumber=2
where there’s another ghost post.
Very wierd!

16

Poster in thread 38013 is poster number 8938
Poster in thread 38180 is poster number 9495

Assuming the numbers are assigned sequentially, the first has been around at least a little while but the second must be one of the newest members. The MB home page shows the newest member to be el mono, number 9497. Interestingly, el mono’s profile shows up, but the two mystery posters’ profiles do not. (I get an “invalid user specified” error).

17

You’re correct bibliophage there are two of them .

I think it’s fairly certain that one is niveous . The Star Trek thread also shows the ghost as 9495 .

But who’s the other one ?

This is so much fun. I’m just glad I’m not one of the techs(you guys/gals rock) who have to clean up the mess .

18

Damn. I hope trolls can’t capitalize on this.

19

Try and search for el mono’s posts. I come up with nothing. Plus strange, ne?

20

Yoink!
::grabs the Sherlock cap off yojimbo’s head::

Poster number 8938 appears to be MJH in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=37662

A search for MJH’s posts confirms this:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=35032 and http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=35875
were started by this poster.

I’m not a MySQL expert, but is it possible that the database somehow “ate” these users’ profiles?

::gingerly hands the cap back to its owner::