I Screwed Up: Comments Deleted

from the sorry dept

Wed, Aug 16th 2006 11:31am — Mike Masnick

Like plenty of other blogs, we get a fair amount of comment spam, averaging about 1,000 spam messages a day (and going as high as 4,000). We have a decent spam filter that manages to catch the vast majority of them, but a few get through every day. I was just going through today's comments in our comment admin tool, and was trying to delete the 10 or so spams that had gotten through this morning. In doing so, I clicked on the wrong button, and ended up deleting all of the legitimate comments since about 4am this morning. That was about 400 comments. Yes, it's ridiculous that our comment admin tool would let me do such thing. Yes, it's ridiculous that we don't have a way to go back and retrieve them once deleted. We're now in the process of changing the comment admin tool to make it so my fat fingers/slow brain won't be able to make the same mistake again. Apologies all around...

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37 Comments

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nunya_bidness, 16 Aug 2006 @ 11:38am

Thank you for reassuring me that I was not losing my mind!
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Anonymous of Course, 16 Aug 2006 @ 11:41am

Eh!
You'll have some of that.

It's unfortunate but thanks just the
same for Techdirt. We probably don't
say that often enough.
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Mark, 16 Aug 2006 @ 11:43am

whoops!
Didn't a UK ISP just do this to a few hundred gigs of email?
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- RJ, 16 Aug 2006 @ 1:56pm
  
  Re: whoops!
  I hope Mike from the Sorry dept was not working at that ISP when the gazillion gigs went AWOL!!!! I jest!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 11:51am

HA!
I apologize for inciting others to spam (see sirius/xm posting), and you apologize for deleting it!

That's wonderfully rich.
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Paul, 16 Aug 2006 @ 11:51am

Fat fingers
The fingers you have used to delete the comments are too fat. To order a special typing wand, please mash the keyboard with your palm now.
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Just Another Joe, 16 Aug 2006 @ 11:54am

Mike, It's completely unAmerican of you to simply admit your mistake. Nothing short of suing the manufacturer of the admin software will do, after all shouldn't they have created a "oops I F'd it up tool" to recover the lost data. Maybe you could go after the HD manufacturers as well since we all know the data is really there, just not there (awaiting over write). its all a big conspiracy and we have to get the bad guys.
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- ConceptJunkie (profile), 16 Aug 2006 @ 1:10pm
  
  Re:
  Bah! It's not worth suing unless you go for the deep pockets. I suggest Microsoft, Sony and Google. There's not a jury in the world that wouldn't deliver some serious kaching! to you. This is America, land of the lawsuit lottery.
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anna, 16 Aug 2006 @ 11:58am

Conspiracy? Damned right!
It's all George Bush's fault.
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- Name Withheld, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:16pm
  
  Re: Conspiracy? Damned right!
  Don't laugh. Bush's ineptitude is viral and may well have been a partial cause of the comments' loss.
  
  I'm convinced that Republican running our government is the root of 90% of the bad things that have happened since 2000.
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  - DittoBox, 16 Aug 2006 @ 1:05pm
    
    Re: Re: Conspiracy? Damned right!
    Please. And democrats could do better? Same s*** different a**hole if you ask me.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:02pm

You know...
If noone had stolen your magic sword of Typing +1 this wouldn't have happened...
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:04pm

Fired?
Where's Donald Trump when you need his catch phrase? :D
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:07pm

Database with no way to restore to a point in time
Wow sounds like someone needs to upgrade to SQL Server or something. Point in time restore learn, must you...
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 1:38pm
  
  Re: Database with no way to restore to a point in
  A Point In Time Restore of an entire database to undo the work of one transaction would not be the best approach. While SQL Server may be considered an "upgrade" of some sort, it wouldn't provide any outstanding recovery features. To get that, you need Oracle - then you can undo the effects of one transaction.
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  - Just Another Joe, 17 Aug 2006 @ 6:15am
    
    Re: Re: Database with no way to restore to a point
    That's it....should have been using Mac, then you could upgrade to Leopard and have Time Machine. (insert typical Mac fanboy cheesiness)
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Steve, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:12pm

Every application should have an un-do function...that should be a law!!! (Hmmm...I wonder if this comment will post....????)
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Philip, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:14pm

Never mind man!
It's ok man, at lease this site gets comments, i've just started up my site, not got one comment yet :(

If anyone wants to give my site a comment, go ahead, its http://www.philipaustin.co.uk

its a tech blog btw ;)
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:18pm
  
  Re: Never mind man!
  "If anyone wants to give my site a comment, go ahead, its http://www.phi...."
  
  Hey Mike, does your tool let you delete "part" of a post? I suppose its a good thing when you competition starts spamming your comments section, right? Thats an indication that you are doing better than them... right?
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Meredith, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:16pm

c'est la vie
I can't imagine that this hasn't happened to all bloggers at least once in their blogging career. It's certainly happened to me. You're working quickly, are thinking about ten thousand other things you need to do, you hit the wrong button and "boom!" Thanks for admitting your mistake. :)
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Jake, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:16pm

Wow...
I commend you for telling the truth! If only the rest of the companies in America could do that same thing.

So some posts got deleted, mildly irritating but not the end of the world.

THANK YOU FOR ADMITTING IT! Other companies should take note!
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CodeGator, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:18pm

Re: Conspiracy? Damned right!
George Bush hates fat fingers!
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Dan, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:27pm

Bummer
Eh, I write mostly pointless crap anyway.

But I will say that I wrote a fairly pointless (as usual) post once, and it was flagged as SPAM... system said it would be reviewed and posted (if it wasn't completely pointless)... but my comment never showed up! So there's a fairly fine line between offhand comments and SPAM.

Wait... what was my point, again?
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ROFLMAO, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:33pm

Isn't that an act of terrorism now days?
Don't let Dubya (W) find out or he will put you up for accommodations in a resort he owns in Cuba. I think its called “Wan-to-no-more” Cuba.
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Saboteur, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:35pm

Wrong button
Heh Heh I pushed the wrong button heh Fat fingers heh But I can tell you we are not looking for Osama in Iran any more
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Spam King, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:40pm

Here's the solution...
Hi Mike,

Just wanted to swing by and let you know about a new solution from Sanders Enterprises called Comment Save. All you do is load our software on your machine and you'll be able to backtrack and save data in the unfortunate event of lost comments on your board. We can discuss pricing offline if you prefer, but I wanted you to know I am prepared to offer you a significant discount - along the line of 25 percent - should you decide to purchase our products.

Thanks
Steve Sanders
CEO
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:44pm

i was gonna say, what happened to the comments on several of the pages i was keeping up to date on.

thanks for the post!
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Sanguine Dream, 16 Aug 2006 @ 12:49pm

Damn...
Damn dude! I know you want to get rid of the childish insults, immature arguing, and those foresaken "first" posts but this was a touch of overkill. LOL. We all make mistakes. I'm just glad you're un-American enough to admit it.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 1:02pm

Glad someone...
can admit that they made a mistake. We need more of that. Instead of this pointing fingures bullshit
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charlie potatoes, 16 Aug 2006 @ 1:02pm

Damn
fuck you, towel head.
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 1:32pm
  
  Re: Damn
  Towel head? Where?
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Alan MadLeese, 16 Aug 2006 @ 1:08pm

Transparency has a lovely shine to it ...
What is most remarkable about Mike's all-too human error is his admission, no bullshit, no alibis, no evasions, just, well, I screwed up. That, to me, a recent arrival in the world of bloggers, although I am not a blogger, is the magic of the Internet, the thing that will make it bigger and better and more empowering. Yeah, we all fuck up, and you do not have to demand a retraction, clarification or admission. Wow. holyfuckingwow, almacleese from hallowell, maine, where life is as it oughta be.
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jsaltz, 16 Aug 2006 @ 7:11pm

This is an abomination.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2006 @ 8:18pm

Jesus. Reading this cracked me up.

Thanks for the heads-up Mike.
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DV Henkel-Wallace, 16 Aug 2006 @ 9:19pm

You'll be hearing from my lawyers
I am shocked and disappointed that you have infringed my human rights. Help, I'm being repressed! My attorneys will be sending you a demand letter for $2,048,000 and if you do not make good within 24 hours I will go to the feds!

You have been warned. After the feds are done with you I will dig up the landscaping around your (by then former) offices for the platinum bars.
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rijit (profile), 16 Aug 2006 @ 11:59pm

oi
Well, there goes all those educated discussions everyone was having, such a great day for intelligent conversation on TechDirt too. All the FU's and up yours, I do not know what I will read now. The last conversation had something to do with Captain Patent....
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oh no!, 17 Aug 2006 @ 5:45am

The wisdom
of dorpus is now gone!
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