editing forums

[monzer]

I know we've a few coding savvy people here so I was wondering.... (and this isn't about MHF) If someone wanted to delete a load of posts from a long running thread, could they do it without leaving any tell tale clues?

A couple of posters have been having a right tit for tat for months now on a forum I frequent and it has culminated on one of them accusing the other of deleting a long list of posts from a year or two ago. I had a look and it does appear to be missing a few months worth of posts but all the post numbers seem to be in order. I'm sure I read on here that you can't change post numbers.

Any thoughts?

 

[Yorick]

If you have access to the database and relevant SQL skills, then it's easy.

But not for a normal user.

 

[Yorick]

Ah, thinking about it, the post number won't be a static number. It will just be a real time counter.

Can't delete posts on here to test my theory.

 

[monzer]

Ah, thinking about it, the post number won't be a static number. It will just be a real time counter.

Can't delete posts on here to test my theory.

Yeah I wasn't sure about the post numbers. I think it was maybe to do with folk being 'ignored' that I remember it being mentioned on here rather than posts being totally deleted.

 

[Kannon Fodda]

Admins of forums, and even moderators depending on the assigned rights, through the interface can do all sorts of things. Depending on how it is set up there would normally be a log of their actions, but those logs will be accessible only to admins, and may only be held for limited time.

As above the Web owners could edit the sql database which would leave even less trace.

But whatever the database would show gaps where stuff was removed, even if who did it was deleted. Each post would have had a unique sequential number to allow the site to link and reference the post.

Users would only be able to delete if specific rights allocated. Most sites are setup to only allow limited editing and deletion for hours rather than days or months.

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[Yorick]

Admins of forums, and even moderators depending on the assigned rights, through the interface can do all sorts of things. Depending on how it is set up there would normally be a log of their actions, but those logs will be accessible only to admins, and may only be held for limited time.

As above the Web owners could edit the sql database which would leave even less trace.

But whatever the database would show gaps where stuff was removed, even if who did it was deleted. Each post would have had a unique sequential number to allow the site to link and reference the post.

Users would only be able to delete if specific rights allocated. Most sites are setup to only allow limited editing and deletion for hours rather than days or months.

Memories. I was a DBA 15 years