[reader50]

Back in 2002, we upgraded from UBB to vB. The import script messed up, leaving a great many older posts not linked to user accounts. The posts were still there, and had the right names on them. But they showed as being made by an unregistered guest.

This is an old problem that I'd long wanted to tackle, but didn't have access at the time. Kudos to Person Man for bringing it up, by asking about some old posts. It took only a couple hours to build a repair script, and a bit longer to run it across the database.

I've just finished linking 293K lost posts. This only affects members who registered under UBB.

Examples:

Cipher13 showed 11k yesterday. Today it is 18K.
reader50 got back 820.
ThinkInsane got back 793.
mindwaves got back 1,975.
Person Man got back 40.

The import script also missed some user accounts that hadn't been used in awhile. If you had to re-register under vB (the account was gone after the upgrade) then your old posts remain unlinked. I didn't allow the repair script to link posts made before user join date.

If you did have to reregister and have lost posts from before, let me know. I can manually do those fixes.

[Big Mac]

Thank you for the work, reader50.

I must have gotten some posts back because I just suddenly went CI without realizing it. I think I was at least 50 posts away when I last checked.

[turtle777]

Good job, thanks.

Is there a way of knowing how many posts where restored, or even if one was affected ?

-t

[reader50]

I fixed a few manually before writing the script. I've got those numbers. The script didn't output results per person. Pity, it would have been easy to do. I didn't think of it until afterwards. Your best bet is google cache of your profile page.

Big Mac: cache is one week old, shows 14,959 posts. Perhaps 150 restored.
turtle777: cache is one week old, shows 21,939 posts. Allowing for posting rate, few posts restored.

Edit: turtle made 61 posts in the past week. So 22,010 - 21,939 - 61 = 10 posts recovered.
Edit: Big Mac made 50 posts in the past week. 104 recovered.

[turtle777]

Thanks

Seems like I was pretty much able to stay clear of the original upgrade hickup

-t

[ThinkInsane]

I for one was glad to see those posts go, but thanks for the effort

[reader50]

Some of the post count gains have been lost overnight, courtesy of further maintenance. We had a bunch of orphaned threads, which map to invalid forums. Upon digging around, these turned out to be duplicates of valid threads.

It appears the vB migration was interrupted on the first attempt. And the database wasn't wiped before the 2nd attempt - they just started over with a higher initial forum number. For most people, the correction took back only a handful of the gained posts. Cipher13 lost about 1,500 this time, making him the biggest winner and the biggest loser after both data repairs. He's still ahead by 4K.

On average, members should still have 2/3 of their post gains.

Edit: this repair didn't cost any member gains after all. These duplicate posts were not being counted, because they were in invalid forums. The board was treating them as deleted threads.

[residentEvil]

MacNN reality TV - The biggest post loser/gainer!

[scaught]

Did I win anything?

(hmm. Maybe a couple-a-hundred)

[Brien]

I have no idea how many I might have gained, but thanks!

[reader50]

Think of it as a mystery gift. You don't know exactly what you got in advance. And you may not be sure even after.

[Big Mac]

Is this gorgias.macnn.com a backup server? He seems to be a bit slow. Interesting reference, btw - now I know the name of a Sophist - Gorgias was a major Sophist.

[reader50]

If anyone has lost posts from the early days, drop me a line. Say, if you posted before registering and want those posts linked to your account today. Or you came back after the vB migration; your account vanished; and you recreated it.

Provided the earlier posts had the same user name, I can give you back those posts.

[mindwaves]

wow, thanks.

I haven't been busy here lately, but will do more so from now on.

[reader50]

After noticing old thread listings had the same problem (user name present, but not linked) I did the same repair on the thread table. 33,906 threads were relinked to their creators. This time I made the script output detailed results. Selected samples:

andi*pandi regained 38 threads.
Anthony the PC lover regained 25 threads.
Bugs Bunny regained 42 threads.
- Ca$h regained 2 threads.
- Ca$h68 regained 85 threads.
- gorefan68 regained 69 threads.
Cipher13 regained 168 threads.
dark3lf regained 57 threads.
Fyre4ce regained 65 threads.
G4ME regained 60 threads.
gumby5647 regained 88 threads.
Indigo Boy regained 26 threads.
instigator regained 27 threads.
jeronimo regained 74 threads.
kennedy regained 67 threads.
mac freak regained 69 threads.
MikeD regained 86 threads.
mindwaves regained 133 threads.
PowerBookDude regained 55 threads.
reader50 regained 34 threads.
seanyepez regained 98 threads.
ThinkInsane regained 57 threads.
tz3gm regained 104 threads.
yoyo52 regained 126 threads.

Most people only got a few back. Cipher13 appears to have won again, but if all Ca$h names were counted together, he may well have won.