Another Missing Thread: Tesla

[Tony Crocker]

After our first spring ski trip to Mammoth in our new Tesla, the car prompted some questions from readers. I split the topic out from the Mammoth ski report, but it has now disappeared. The only evidence remaining is the link in the Mammoth TR viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12123#p75953 which is now broken.

This is the third example of admin inadvertently deleting a thread, after the 2014-15 season recap and the Mt. Abrams solar energy project.

[Admin]

Quick to throw the blame around without any basis, aren't ya? According to the forum moderator logs, the last person to edit that topic was one "Tony Crocker".

[Tony Crocker]

Can you tell the difference in those logs between "edit" and "delete?" Not a facetious question. Is it restorable? Not a big deal if it's not, because the same discussion ensued on another forum and I'm going to post that link.

[Admin]

Normally, yes. However, the last logged activity is that edit. Restorable? No.

[Tony Crocker]

Since my last activity was "edit," there is no basis to say I deleted the thread. As in the Mt. Abrams case, its disappearance remains a mystery, and presumably admin does not have the resources to investigate further.

IIRC, the 2014-15 Season Recap log did show that admin deleted that thread.

[Admin]

Since my last activity was "edit," there is no basis to say I deleted the thread.

So, what basis did you have to state conclusively, "This is the third example of admin inadvertently deleting a thread"?

[Tony Crocker]

Admin did admit to deleting the 2014-15 recap thread inadvertently.

I assume admin would be very concerned if it were possible for a hacker to get into FTO and delete content. Since admin has shown little such concern, I'm guessing he agrees the Mt. Abrams and Tesla deletions were also likely due to careless error. He suggested that it was my careless error, and I inquired if my last log activity labelled "edit" could actually have been a deletion.

If not, I would assign a high probability that the inadvertent deletions were admin's, as who else had access? I'd be interested in any alternative explanations.

The content of this deleted thread is no big deal as the gist is accessible by the link I posted. Nonetheless this is the third occurrence, and I assume admin would not like to see these incidents recur.

[Marc_C]

From a database standpoint, splitting out a portion of a thread as a new topic in a different forum is one of the more complex things forum software can do. I would not be at all surprised if there are bugs that have obscure edge-case triggers. Consider that as recently as 6 months ago I encountered the new post collision bug (it's behavior suggests a race condition) and a recently rediscovered bug deep within Linux kernal code has rendered all Linux based systems currently (25 OCT 2016) highly vulnerable. This includes all Android phones BTW.

[Tony Crocker]

The Tesla thread was a split-out. The 2015 recap and Mt. Abrams threads were stand alone.