# Thread not showing poster names
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [August 24, 2012, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470 "2012-08-24T07:46:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470/1 "2012-08-24T07:46:08Z")
In “General Questions”, there is a thread titled, “native american facial hair”.
> **[native american facial hair](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=3610)**
>
> I could’ve sworn that my fourth-grade teacher told us that Native Americans (Indians, then) cannot grow facial hair. She pointed out that all the photos of the chiefs from the 1800s and descriptions from earlier than that show men without a trace of...
When I open the thread, it shows the text of the posts, but not the names of the posters.
Whazzup? Is this a quirk of my browser, or is it happening to other people?
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### Author:  [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470/2 "2012-08-24T08:14:08Z")
You’ve been here as long as you have and have never seen that phenomenon on ancient threads?
I’m not sure of the exact technical explanation, but it’s not just you, something got screwy at some point with the board’s database.
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### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470/3 "2012-08-24T08:25:50Z")
> [@mbh](#):
>
> In “General Questions”, there is a thread titled, “native american facial hair”.
>
> [native american facial hair - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=3610)
>
> When I open the thread, it shows the text of the posts, but not the names of the posters.
>
> Whazzup? Is this a quirk of my browser, or is it happening to other people?
I’m seeing the same thing. I’m on Chrome, FWIW. Only thread I’ve ever seen this on with this forum software.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470/4 "2012-08-24T08:32:37Z")
The board runs vBulletin currently, but it didn’t always. It used to be UBB and I think it might have been something else when it came fresh from AOL. Really really old threads have things like posters’ usernames stored in a format that vBB can’t use unless the poster was active after the switchover. If you go to Comments on Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports or General Questions and scroll to the bottom, you can set it to sort threads by start time, in ascending order and from the beginning of the forum’s inception that are all guests with a few 99ers scattered about.
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### Author:  [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470/5 "2012-08-24T14:46:25Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#):
>
> Really really old threads have things like posters’ usernames stored in a format that vBB can’t use unless the poster was active after the switchover.
Well **mangeorge** posted in that thread back when and he is still around yet he is still listed as guest. His is post 10. You can tell because he ended his post with:
“Peace,
mangeorge”
just like he still does now.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470/6 "2012-08-24T14:57:23Z")
Yeah, looking at more threads, it looks like no username info is stored from that time period and threads that were started that long ago with posts that are headed by a username are that way because the post was made after the software shift, I guess. I’m not a computer whiz.
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### Author:  [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470/7 "2012-08-24T15:52:34Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#):
>
> I’m not a computer whiz.
Yeah me neither. I just wanted to point the **mangeorge** thing out to help others try to figure it out. I highly suspect that you are correct though.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470/8 "2012-08-24T16:00:12Z")
I could have sworn there were threads that would have a whole bunch of guests posting and scattered throughout would be random 99ers sticking out like a sore thumb with their modern headings.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-not-showing-poster-names/632470/9 "2012-08-24T17:03:20Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#):
>
> I could have sworn there were threads that would have a whole bunch of guests posting and scattered throughout would be random 99ers sticking out like a sore thumb with their modern headings.
There are, that’s just not one of them.