Old Threads Disappearing

[Daryk]

So I watched Dune 2 yesterday, and oddly enough went back to look through the old d20 Dune game I played in here a few years ago. While I was going back and forth between the Character and OOC threads, they disappeared (and I notified the Administrator as directed by the error). Is there any way to recover those threads so I can download the relevant text? If I had known they were going to disappear, I would have done that sooner.

[flat_footed]

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?516975-d20-Dune-Voice-from-the-Outer-World

Is this the one?

[Rockphed]

I cannot remember the time limits off the top of my head, but threads in certain forums do get deleted after a certain time. I believe that there is no way to recover them unless there is an old forum back-up somewhere. I don't expect Roland to keep old back-ups, so don't get your hopes up.

[Daryk]

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?516975-d20-Dune-Voice-from-the-Outer-World

Is this the one?

That's the IC thread, yes. As I mentioned, I was literally flipping between the associated OOC and Character threads last night when I suddenly started getting errors. The really weird thing is that I still have older threads in my subscription lists, so it doesn't look like an automatic deletion based on age (much less activity, since I was just in those threads).

[DigoDragon]

A friend and I have noticed that all the old OOC forum thread links for an old mutual campaign stopped working, but the IC links still work. Rockphed might have it right and the OOC threads got purged first.

[Rawhide]

Threads in certain forums (OOC and message board games) will be automatically purged after a time. Forums where this purge will happen detail the length of time before threads will expire in the forum description. e.g. Recruitment threads will expire after three months of the last post, while OOC threads will expire after one year.

[Daryk]

One year? Is that a recent change? The game in question was six and a half years old, and I was literally reading the OOC thread minutes before it disappeared.

[The_Snark]

It's not a change as far as policy goes; there's been a little notice saying "OOC threads will expire after one year" in the description of the Out-of-Character forum for a long time, and a similar one in the Finding Players forum. However, until recently this didn't actually happen - I had OOC threads in my subscription folder that were nearly a decade old.

[Daryk]

I still see older OOC threads in my subscriptions, so I'm wondering. If there's no way to get back something that was deleted less than 30 hours ago, I'll stop poking here.

[J-H]

Speculation:
The server seems to be more stable this weekend. As part of mitigation efforts, the admins may have actually implemented some old-thread purging that was overdue.

[Rawhide]

One year? Is that a recent change?

Nope. It has been that way since this specific forum arrangement was created (way way back, there used to be only an IC and an OOC, nothing else).

[Daryk]

I suppose they're gone then... thanks for the reply Rawhide.

[LeSwordfish]

Maybe this was a rule that has always existed and is only just being enforced but a game I'm in has just lost a full decade of OOC chatter without any warning. I'm extremely sad about that, that's a community with my friends that I used to reread quite a lot, that's just vanished - not to mention an extremely useful set of resources. I wish we'd been given some warning. GiantITP doesn't feel like a stable or safe place to host a game right now.

[Rawhide]

I suppose they're gone then... thanks for the reply Rawhide.

While we can definitely empathise with how you feel, the forum descriptions do warn that older threads will expire. It is important to back up anything you want to keep before it expires.

[LeSwordfish]

While we can definitely empathise with how you feel, the forum descriptions do warn that older threads will expire. It is important to back up anything you want to keep before it expires.

How were we meant to know that this rule that has been ignored for literally a decade would suddenly be enforced?

[Bohandas]

I learned long ago that you need to save local copies of anything you're invested in reading. Not here specifically, but anywhere on the internet.

[Rawhide]

How were we meant to know that this rule that has been ignored for literally a decade would suddenly be enforced?

It most certainly has not been ignored. The notification of thread expiry, including timeframe, is shown in the forum description. It is your responsibility to ensure that everything you want to keep is backed up before it vanishes. You have a full year from the last post (plus a bit, as the scripts don't delete everything immediately after it crosses the threshold and, if they don't run to completion, may not delete everything) to do so. Complaining that you got extra time to backup your threads really isn't helping your case. In the event that expired threads still appear a year after their expiry (i.e. threads not replied to for two years in OOC), please report it to me in a PM.

As the thread topic has previously been answered in full, this thread will now be closed.