I was just clicking on links to subscribed BLF email notifications, and it seems an entire thread has disappeared. How can this happen? I know you can delete posts, but how does an entire thread disappear? I even did a manual search; "New Deal Alert: TangsFire C8 8W XM-L2 U3 1300LM only US$12.99+free shipping", and it is nowhere to be found.
This is my the message in my mailbox.
I clicked on the link as normal and this is what I got.
I am logged in, and it's not there. I even pasted the header into the search box, but the thread is gone.
I can’t remember who posted it, but you can’t delete a thread. Other members may have posted important information, tips and statistics in that thread, you can’t just make them null and void.
If it gets enough 'mark as spam' flags it does indeed disappear completely. Mr. Admin can restore it, or restore it and move it to where it should have been in the first place, if he so chooses. Spam threads are removed from the board but get sent to a queue where they can be reviewed before they're actually gone.
No matter how good the deal is or how nice the light they still have to be put in the right place or else they are at risk of going away.
Really! So is it possible for a member for some reason, to delete all his threads along with thousands of members posts in those threads. That would like looting and plundering, removing important facts and data from the site.
I had opened that walkie talkie thread and browser crashed and the thread was gone, i wanted to ask some questions, but i don’t remember who started the thread or who had expertise so i was SOL
the walkie talkie thread got its title changed to i think something like "not type approved"
saw it, got interested, and noticed the OP said something like not type approved, and later down I noticed it had to do with 2 way radios or something of the like
Usually SB is fairly strict about sellers not following policy. The threads often get removed. I think he does a good job at controlling them. louis huang has never gotten the hang of it. Sorry...
Other threads, if they disappear, are usually because they were removed by SB, due to some content that pushed the limits somehow. There are a few times I have seen threads and PM him letting him know that they are going south and I am sure others here do that too, but in the end, it's his call, not ours.
As far as spam, I thought SB tried to tell members not to use the spam button unless it really was spam, but with so many newer members, maybe that needs to be addressed again, so everyone knows again.
So it was a legitimate entry in a misplaced category.
Some members may have missed out on a deal alert while a commercial seller missed out on a few sales (due to not adhering policy) but more importantly on introducing his company.
I hope Louis and future Louises posts in the right sub-forum. I just got my order in time.
This is apparently what happened. A user who starts a thread can not delete it, only later posters in a thread can delete their own posts.
In the case of commercial posts made outside of the Commercial Sellers’ Spot, they should be marked as spam. It’s not fair to our other users to have commercial sellers dominating the non-commercial categories, which is what would happen if we allowed it. It would often be hard to distinguish between a user posting links to a product he wants information about (which is encouraged here) and a seller who is thinly disguised as a user posting links to his own products (which is strictly prohibited). This would create doubt and suspicion toward new users, which we don’t want around here. BLF does have an extremely lenient and generous policy toward commercial sellers, but if they simply don’t care about respecting users or can’t take the trouble to read the clearly stated rules , their posts will disappear and they’ll probably end up being canned.
As for a few other threads mentioned here, most of them were specifically requested to be deleted by the user who started the thread, who had also changed the titles and deleted the content of his first posts in those threads. I don’t have a firm policy on deleting threads when the thread starter requests me to do so. If there appears to be something valuable in the thread, I usually leave it online for the common good, especially if some user has obviously made a lot of effort to convey some bit of information in any one of the posts. But I can make mistakes, so even if I do “delete” the thread, it’s not truly deleted and I can still access it indefinitely. So just PM me and explain why and I can put them back online.
The only threads started by legitimate users that I arbitrarily take down are the ones that turn into a fight or contain lewd conversations. Again, if there appears to be something of important value in those threads I usually go through post by post and clean up the sludge. If not, I just leave the whole thing offline. So please let PM me if you miss something or if I’ve missed something.
