Hey how do you delete hidden comments?

jrbrownusa

I can't find how to delete the hidden comments on my forum site. Or even how to unhide them. Jonah

Mav

Unhiding should be possible, link is at the same place where 'hide' is at. But deleting comments I have yet to find also... I'm wondering if it even is possible, without installing that extension that deletes posts directly from the database.

Wanderer

 Quote: Mav  ...deleting comments... I'm wondering if it even is possible, without installing that extension that deletes posts directly from the database.
I am currently running phpBB which I would dearly love to ditch for Vanilla but I cannot run a forum without a quick and simple way of deleting comments. That extension (Comment Removal) is not compatible with the version of MySQL on my server.

I understand Vanilla is a core application which relies on extensions to... well extend its functionality, however the ability to delete comments (not simply hide them) seems fundamental to me and should be a solid and integral part of the core.

Think what MS Word would be if we were unable to delete redundant paragraphs. I respect Mark's view on this matter however it simply does not make sense to me.

giginger

I personally think that hiding is much better. Imagine if you had a mod go mad and started deleting posts and theads willy nilly. You'd then have a pretty bad situation on a forum. I've seen it happen and it's absolutely killed a forum because some "legendary" threads were lost. Now, if the worst they could do it hide a thread (assuming you haven't given them database access) then it's a lot easier to just unhide a thread than to try and restore it. That's my viewpoint anyway.

Wanderer

Yes but I am the ultimate mod! I don't want to keep every post forever, legendary or not!
I also want to purge comments older than say, a year.
There are many uses for forums, not all are suited to keeping every comment forever.
The size of the database is another consideration, I don't have uncapped storage!
How the feature is used is besides the point don't you think?
In any case, Vanilla seems incomplete without such a basic function.

giginger

So ideally you'd want an extension that purges the database of discussions older than 52 weeks? There was an extension for 0.9.2 which deleted comments which had been hidden. To my knowledge that hasn't been updated for 1.0. If you find a copy of it you could update it to work with 1.0. I can't code so I can't do it.

Wanderer

Thanks giginger (Chris) but I'm not up to that level of coding either, maybe someone more capable will step up?

Actually an extension that purges hidden comments would be ideal.

Blueshark

The database storage of merely text, should not be a problem for discussion forums.

However a delete function would be useful.

bjrn

Well, as long as you have a MySQL version of 4.1 or above you can just use the Comment Removal extension. I wonder how hard it would be to make a comment removal extension that works with versions 3.23-4.0...

Wanderer

My current MySQL version is 3.23.58, I too wonder if the Comment Removal extension can be made to work with older versions.

Blueshark

I just had a look at the ajax.php file. It uses dynamic SQL to delete and update the database tables.

This all seems rather standard to me.

I would suspect it would be down to settings, I don't see why someone who knows MySQL couldn't alter it.

Dinoboff

@jrbrownusa: to unhide a post you need to turn on the option to see the hidden posts (account > forum preference) - you also need to have the permission to see hidden post (setting > Role&permission). When you go back to thediscussionb, the hidden post will appear with a link to "show" it. If it is a all discussion that you want to unhide, this option will appear on left side under "options".

To ‘hard’ delete a post or a discussion you need to install the Comment Removal 1.4 addon (this addon need mysql 4.1 or higher).

Minisweeper

I really really really dont see what everyones big issue is with not being able to delete comments. How many of you would seriously have realised it wasnt actually deleting them if the button was called delete not hide? In other news, anyone got any idea why the font's gone green all over the place?

Dinoboff

just use the "block user" command on Wanderer to get the nice grey color back. Or ask him to close his green font tag.

Ben

He used </green> instead of </font>

Wanderer

Of course I would realise Hide is not Delete, I can still see the hidden comments as admin, they show up in search results and the discussion list and they are still taking up space in the database.

As for the green font, it's a greemlin!

Minisweeper

Turn off the ability to see hidden comments as admin then. I'm still just gonna ignore the 'taking up space' argument because it's complete tosh.

Ben

Could we grey out hidden comments? So when a user has the ability to see hidden comments, they appear in grey instead of black. Just to identify that they're not there for anyone else.

Wanderer

 Quote: Minisweeper  Turn off the ability to see hidden comments as admin then.
Did that, they still show up in discussions list, although empty when clicked and still show up in searches.

Minisweeper

In that case it's a bug in the hiding system which needs fixing.

Dinoboff

• When ability to see hidden discussions and comments is on, but turned off in my forum preference, the hidden post doesn't show in the list or in the search.
• If I turn it on in my forum preferences, the hidden post show in the list and in the search.
• If I turn it off the in the role&permission (without turning it off first in forum preference), they doesn't show in the list, but show in the search.