Bitcoin Forum

I am currently working on a thread where I am collecting the best discussions about the Lightning Network in one place. I reserved the OP and one post underneath it for the tables that link to all other threads.

The problem is that I am running out of space and reaching maximum character counts in both OP and the 2nd post. I would hate to abandon it because it's almost finished, so I am asking a question where I am already 100% certain that it isn't possible, but who knows. Maybe it can be done with some admin magic.

Would it be possible for the admins to add a new post in my thread and give it to me just below the #2 post, and kind of push all other posts one step lower? This sounds stupid even while I am writing it. ::)   

I don't know how much old your post is. Now, if mod wants to add a post in #2, all the post-id which has been made later has to be changed. Because, you can't generate a post in June and use the latest post-id but old date. There are restrictions I guess.
Instead, you can link in the OP with bold characters. That would be the best solution IMO.

I don't know why it matters when the thread was created, but just for reference, it's from June 24, 2021. It's this one btw > All Lightning Network Threads In One Place. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5345664.0)  

The new empty post should actually be #3, #2 is already mine. If the post IDs is something that can be changed automatically, I don't think anyone would care or mind which ID their post has.

I have considered adding a piece of text that says the table continues here and a link that goes to a new post in my thread, but I would prefer to have the discussions neatly organized by dates one below the other, and not forcing the readers to jump to post #10, #20, etc. to check the rest of the table.

I don't think RapTarX meant those numbers. Posts IDs are unique numbers allocated to forum posts. If they change, then all the links to the posts should change too.
For example, the post ID for the post number 2 is 57307364.

The only thing that comes to my mind is ask Charles-Tim to edit his post and add the content you want.
Since the post number 4 is yours, the other solution is ask Charles-Tim to delete his post.

Yes, it's possible; IIRC, Lauda had a similar problem on "this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1702409.0)" thread, and one of the admins inserted a few posts on his/her behalf...

Post #5 = December 03, 2016, 09:47:44 AM
Post #6 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1702409.msg17067620#msg17067620) = November 18, 2017, 10:23:09 PM ^{[was added after ten and a half months]}
Post #7 = December 03, 2016, 10:05:45 AM

@Pmalek, I will delete my post, hosseinimr93 has a nice suggestion that I can help delete my post so you can edit your third post. If that okay by you, it will solve the issue.

Edit: already removed.

Thanks for doing that, but I really wished it could have been solved in a different way without causing inconveniences where other users have to delete their posts. Especially after what SFR10 wrote about Lauda's thread.

So it is possible to do. Let's see if someone from the mod/admin team will respond. Since Charles-Tim already deleted his post, things are OK now in my thread, but this could be interesting for other users who might find themselves in a similar situation. I didn't judge well enough how much space those tables would take and thought there wasn't so much LN content.

Yes, I'm following your topic since I`m also having a similar problem. In our German "Translation Spam found, here you can report it" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4415262.0), my second post is also limited and I can't add more data because I've reached the maximum number of characters.
I was planning to create a second part of it called "Translation Spam found, here you can report it, part II", like "Known Alt Accounts III" where old parts will still be linked but adding a new post #3 to my first part would be a better option.

Nice to see adding an extra post in an existing topic has been done before.  :)

I can’t imagine the administration would want to start wasting their time handling requests like this. I can only imagine the door they’d be opening to unleash a wave of nonsense on themselves. I would think the preferred method of handling something like this would be to create a new thread and lock the old thread. That way you could handle the issue yourself without admin help.

Locking an old thread could lead to so many quality replies being buried along with the old thread.
It might be too much work for the admins to start entertaining requests like these, but they do not have to make it a habit, they can evaluate the situation and choose not to take any action; just as theymos does with display name change requests.

Thread starters should also try to be pro active to avoid situations like these one by creating enough reserve slots for future edits.

You are exactly in the same spot as I was. You could maybe ask eneloop to delete his post, which is #3 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4415262.msg39319102#msg39319102) in your thread. Since posts #4-7 are all yours, maybe you can make some changes and merge two of them together so you can continue with your table from post #2 in post #3.

Try PMing theymos and ask him directly, why not!? You can use SFR10's post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5347334.msg57374292#msg57374292) and Lauda's thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1702409.0) as example that it has been done before. You have a valid request and I feel I did as well.

Exactly

Yes, I was considering it but I don't want anyone to delete his post(s) and if there's a solution, it would be much better if a new post can be added.
I believe I'm not the only one who would like to add some more "reserved" posts later. I've another topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5100349.0) where I'm running into the same problem but I can edit my next post there whenever I need more space.


I will wait for now for an official response here about how it was done for the example from SFR10.
My guess is, it was done by a global moderator, maybe the permission can be given to all moderators.
Should not be much of an issue.

(This is not an official response)
I would be very surprised if GMs have the possibility to insert a post into a topic. I've never heard of this option and Theymos has disabled the option to merge two topics (we can split a topic in two though). I had a quick look at the SMF wiki (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Posts_and_Topics) and didn't see the option to insert a post into a topic. For Lauda's post, it looks like an edit directly in the DB (but I could be wrong), so don't expect anything.

That's subjective to censorship  :D I guess. Maybe I'm going off topic. Who has access to DB? Is it only theymos and/or cyrus too? Or any other global moderator?
If theymos has access to it, I doubt he would change anything now as this is not a MUST doing, IMO; Lauda was something else though  ;D

I doubt global moderators have access to the database. We know from some old posts that theymos has access to it. Someone else has access to an old database of Bitcointalk as well. Whoever hacked the forum back in the day.

Here is one post where theymos talks about who owns and has access to what:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3284381.msg34255007#msg34255007

I don't know of any references that mention that Cyrus has access to the database, but I find it unlikely that he wouldn't have. Based on forum hierarchy, he is next in line and if something happened to theymos I am sure Cyrus has everything he needs to resume the work.   

Done.

Posts are ordered in threads by message ID. What we do in these cases is that we repurpose the ID of a deleted post which lies in the appropriate range.


An ID isn't available right at the top. I added one as far up as possible.

So, we need to find a spam post created later, after the first post but before the next post where we want to have it added, getting the spam post deleted and we can re-use its ID?  :D

Many thanks, that'll help to re-arrange it a bit.
If the above is true, I'll also try to chase a spam post.  :D

Does this mean that you do not keep track of the content of deleted posts? If not, that sounds risky. What did you do with the database entry for the old post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5345665.msg57307359#msg57307359)?

Thank theymos, that will come in handy!

I think you guys misunderstood. I don't think theymos meant that he deletes a random post (spam or not) somewhere on the forum to re-use its message ID and make room for an additional post like he did in my thread or in 1miau's.

He used the term "repurpose". I believe he checks the database of already deleted posts (posts deleted at one point in the past) and just reallocates the message ID of a matching post to a different forum member.   

Posts are deleted for a reason, storing their content would seem redundant. All posts are essentially records in the database, so removing a post also deletes its record from the database.
I think you're confusing deleting posts with archiving (threads) which is kind of like sending it to trash.

It looks like it :o This is going to mess up some of the forum scraping.
Your new msgID (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5345664.msg57307359#msg57307359) was originally created by skillscreating (https://loyce.club/archive/posts/5730/57307359.html).

As far as I know the forum keeps all deleted posts, all edits made (after at least 10 minutes), and only Admins have access to this data.

Really? I didn't know that. Damn, that must be one hell of a database.
I can see how reallocating the message IDs presents problems for scraping forum posts. Good luck with dealing with that mess. ;D However, theymos' solution is quite elegant for this situation. I can't think of any simpler way to do this.
 

Globals can't do it, but I suppose you could maybe get around it with some trickery by splitting the threads and then merging them with another you created. Probably much easier to get an admin to do it though  ;D.


It's happened a few times before and I think if it's necessary on a important or substantial thread then it should be done. It's provably rare that people run into this issue anyway.

I think it is more likely that when a post is "deleted" that a field in a table in a record associated with the post is updated to reflect that the post is no longer publically available, so it will not be displayed when someone views a thread. However, the record is kept in the database. Occasionally posts will be removed in error, and when this happens, the admins may restore deleted posts.
The "trash" for most forums is actually a board that is unavailable to the public but is still available to the moderators and/or admins (depending on the forum). It is very rare for threads to be removed from a forum database.

Just to add to LoyceV's reply:
I think when a post is deleted, it's actually moved to a topic which is visible only to admins.
If you go to your report history and click on a deleted post, you will see that the topic ID has been changed.

For example, this post (http://loyce.club/archive/posts/5733/57337713.html) had been made on topic number 5346386 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5346386.msg57337713#msg57337713). When I click on it in my report history, I go to topic number 5346379 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5346379.msg57337713#msg57337713) which is not visible to us.

Luckily, it's not something that happens that often. In whole of Bitcointalk's history, I would be surprised if more than 10 people asked the administration to add a new post in their threads. Maybe those numbers will increase following this discussion. LoyceV's scrapper picks up only new posts. It doesn't register changes made to already existing posts. That's also why if you mentioned a user's name in an edited post, that user wouldn't be notified of the mention even if he is using LoyceV's bot.

But that would also require the assistance of admins and global mods. Ordinary users can't merge two threads, can they ???

How would that merging go exactly? If I have a thread where there has been 20 replies and I create a new thread to merge it with my first two posts, what goes where exactly? Can the forum staff merge it in a way that the OP of my new thread becomes the 3rd post in my old thread? Please explain the process a bit?

Deleted posts are at first just hidden from public view. To steal the ID from such a post, the deleted post is given a new ID. The deleted spam post in this case now has ID 57394364.

After about a year, deleted posts are moved off of the live database and into an archive database, and no longer occupy their original message ID in the live database. After about another year, deleted posts are deleted from the archive database as well, though they will probably still exist in offline backups.