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['thul]

hmm... must've been soemthing that was deleted... Perhaps the copy of the "what are you reading now" topic. It was 1000 at the time. But it most certainly is less now.

[Farseer]

Yes, it had certainly ticked over the 1000 mark at some stage because I'd checked. I knew it was coming up but was surprised at how quickly you beings had reached that milestone.

No posts were actually deleted at any stage during the split though, just the thread copied and then split, then the entire original post deleted, so I'm not sure what's happened there. The two parts should still equal the previous whole, otherwise posts would always be lost during a split. To have lost 70+ posts in your total count seems more than a little odd. My own post count is where it should be so not sure how you could lose so many out of the same thread if it were due to the original post being deleted, and yet mine appears unaffected? EDIT: Will double-check this though!

I did make a Word Doc copy of the thread though, just as an extra precaution, so can check through post-by-post and compare with those here on thePlenty. I'd hate to have done you out of all of those posts!!!

In the meantime, has anyone else lost posts from their count since the split?

[Farseer]

Hmm... post #7162 on the forums. How quaint. Especially since it is 'thul's 1000th post here.

Just posting this here as a marker for an extra check against the number of posts made since the one above. This will be post #7187, going on the current totals.

[Farseer]

Okay, so, here's what I've found. Apologies for 'thinking aloud' to those of you not interested but this needs to be sifted through so I can give Mervi all the info she needs to enable a fix, and I want to make sure that my thought processes are going in the right direction...

As far as I can see, the 'thul beings had counted 7162 posts at 8:04am yesterday. I then counted 7187 posts at 9:21am today. The difference between the two totals is 25.

I then went and checked this increase against all posts made between 8:04 and 9:21 and there were 25 posts made that I can find:

Fave Bookmark: 4
BoD: 3
CoD:4
What are you reading right now?: 5
Vampires and Vampirism: 9

This total post count of 7187 for the forum balances exactly then with the 25 posts that have been added to forum since the 'thul beings noted their count of 7162. The count has increased by the number of posts made, as it should have....

...however, in that time, the 'thul beings' personal count has decreased by 70+ since they noted they'd reached that milestone and 70+ since I saw their count (I think it was 1001 when I viewed it). The only reason I can see for this decrease, when the total post count for the forum has increased by the correct 25, is if there is a fault with the 'thul beings counter. I'm not sure how these things work (at all!) but possibly it was faulty but fixed itself and switched back to its proper count at midnight during a resetting process?

You computer-savvy members may be able to explain it with a less fanciful/more correct reasoning but I just can't see how the split (made in the pm of last night) would be the cause for the decrease of the 'thul beings' post count if the overall post count for the entire forum has increased by the correct number of posts made. If it were the splitting process which had prompted some posts to be deleted, the overall total should first have decreased the difference of the 70 posts that the 'thul beings' count had decreased by and then added the 25 posts made in that time eg 7162 - 70 (lost as per the 'thul being's decrease) + 25 (for the posts made during the time period) = 7117. Instead, the count reads 7187, as it should.

Am I am missing something or barking up the wrong tree here? Off to triple-check the above as I have no real idea what to make of it all.

[Farseer]

More findings!

I am hurriedly trying to get this sorted but the 'thul beings' posts, and others, seem to check out so don't appear to have been deleted anywhere. They still exist and can be read, responded to etc. There is something interesting that I noticed regarding the number of non-vampire/vamparism-related posts the 'thul beings had made in the 'What are you reading right now?' thread prior to the split though. I have counted 73, and this number cannot possibly be mere coincidence.

So, it appears (to my limited knowledge) that while no posts were actually deleted during the splitting process, somehow the number of non-vampire/vamparism-related posts made by the 'thul beings prior to the split have possibly been taken off their personal total but not that of the forum total. I'd not have thought such a thing was possible...it sounds mysteriously odd but there you have it. If any number should have been deleted, I'd have thought it would be the total of posts for the entire original thread. It's almost as though the two split threads are both being treated as new threads, and the 'What are you reding right now?' one has clicked back to begin from a zero count for everyone personally, though not as a forum.

Will keep digging, especially as it wasn't the first, or last, thread I'd ever split, and this has never happened before....

---

It appears likely that all non-vampire/vamparism-related post totals from that thread, prior to the split, have been taken off personal counts. I know for a fact that Nuytsia had reached 1008 posts by August 6th and only now has 1021 to her name...and she has made many more than 13 posts since then!!! This being the case, I can only surmise that we have all been shafted. Pft! So much for my own count being accurate...crikey!

Have PMed Mervi and hope she can find the cause/fix. Tsk! I just KNEW that something was going to happen when I decided to split the most popular thread on here...that's why I was so worried and made a copy prior to splitting. The irony is that it seems my making of the copy and then deleting the other thread that is the cause of the problem and not the splitting itself...so, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy that was fulfilled because I acted to prevent it!

My apologies to you all. And thanks to you, 'thul beings, for keeping such a close eye on your count. We'd never have known otherwise!

['thul]

These beings believe they know the cause of the error.

This theory is based on the following:
You copied that thread on what are you reading now, split the copy in half, then deleted the original (unsplit)

'thul know from experience with php-based forums that copied threads/posts do not count towards post counts. Thus copied/uncopied threads/posts have a difference in tag in the database behind the forums. When you deleted the original, the ones tagged as to count in post counts were removed. The total post count for forums is still correct, since that ignores the tag described above.

There's an easy and a complex solution.
The complex one is to go through the database and find all the posts in those two threads then retagging them correctly one by one.
The easy solution is to press a funky button in the ACP, probably on the main screen there, that resyncronizes post counts. That should perform a check on all posts to find posts with unique IDs and count them all towards post counts. When a post is copied, both versions have the same unique ID, and will thus only count once towards post count.

But if that theory is not quite correct and it would take a complex solution, then it probably is not worth the bother. It is only a post count error, not missing posts.

[Farseer]

I'll pass this on to Mervi. Thanks for your suggestions, 'thul, though it's a lesson in forums and life that I have hated to learn this way.

It is only a post count error, not missing posts.

Yes, but 1000 posts is a huge milestone (you have surpassed my level of 'obsessive', you know that, don't you?!). I hope it can be fixed, for you and everyone else, and I appreciate you all being such good sports about this aggravating error.

As for bookmarks, I have taken to using sticky notes nowadays, so that I can jot down extra notes that can no longer fit anywhere on the pages. Yes, I have utterly defiled my RotE books by not only turning down corners or folding entire pages, but I have scribbled in places where scribble should just never be allowed.

My husband has finally reached Fool's Fate, and is slowly reaching boiling point with having to unfold and refold pages at every turn (the more important the page, the more complex the fold!), and try to keep all of my sticky notes and bookmarks in their correct positions. I may even get a new set of the entire series out of it, he's getting that grumpy!

['thul]

These beings do not make such importance of that milestone due to their presence on another forum... There these beings have well over 24,000 posts...

The information above comes from experience moderating/administrating that much bigger forum, though there are slight differences, since this forum uses MyBB, where that one uses phpBB3

[fool-ish]

24,000!!

['thul]

These beings have been using that forum for well over 5 years.