[SOLVED] Help Index Thread Down?

[daddydave]

For some reason, and this is all of a sudden because I was getting to the links before, if I click on any link in the Help Index thread, I get "The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you." On the page with that message, it still shows me as logged in with my username.

[rick.ca]

Thanks. It's not you—the links are broken. I thought it might be an indexing problem, but now I see the messages in this forum only go back to June 2009. Maybe this is the result of old messages being archived. Nostra?

In case it helps, the messages that are inaccessible from the Help Index topic are...

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843; 846; 846; 881; 924; 933; 942; 953; 960; 993; 1004; 1007; 1014; 1021; 1084; 1084; 1113; 1136; 1147; 1153; 1178; 1179; 1182; 1184; 1187

[daddydave]

Thanks. Glad to know it's not just me and thanks for the message numbers.

[nostra]

Yes, I have made some automatic forum optimizing and it could that the topics were removed in process. I could check the backups, but it is probably too time consuming to restore single topics

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[rick.ca]

I've done what I can to repair the Help Index—by reposting my own messages from an archive of my message history I happened to have.

Nostra, that "optimizing" had a rather devastating effect on this particular topic. I suppose that may because all of the messages lost were rather old. The archive I restored them from created in December 2008. But I'm concerned about what else may be gone. Is there a way you can describe what messages were removed? It's obviously not everything before a certain date—my message history still goes back to day 1.

Oh, but wait. We do have an indicator of the impact of whatever this is. According to my stats, I've posted 2,230 messages—but there are only 1,689 in my history. So it would seem I've lost over 500 messages (a handful were deleted by me). Your situation looks even worse—646 of 2,128 missing. It seems only members who have been around since before the middle of last year are affected. So maybe there is some connection with the fact the Support and Feature Suggestion forum messages only go back to June 2009?

BTW, I'm not expecting you to recover lost messages. But it would be helpful to understand what's gone so I don't waste time looking for it.

[nostra]

Yeah, it removed messages not posted into for a long period of time, but I do not know exactly how old the messages were and it was too long ago to recover the log or smth. I will pay a better attention to what is to be done next time I do optimizing.

[rick.ca]

I suppose the topic purge rule is something like "topics not replied to in previous year." If that's the case, then we need a policy for what to do with topics we really don't want to be purged. That might be to make such topics sticky (I'm guessing those can be excluded from the purge) or moving them to an archive board which is not included in the purge. I'm not sure I want the job of deciding what should be kept, but if the policy and it's consequences were well known, I'm sure others would help.

Does SMF include some kind of internal backlink checker? Knowing an old topic is linked to from other topics would allow us to fix those links before purging, or to move the topic so it's not purged.

[nostra]

Does SMF include some kind of internal backlink checker? Knowing an old topic is linked to from other topics would allow us to fix those links before purging, or to move the topic so it's not purged.

No, I could not find any backlink checking, but there is indeed an option for sticky topics. I think I will just skip removing any topics automatically and will do this manually time after time.

[rick.ca]

I think I will just skip removing any topics automatically and will do this manually time after time.

The purge routine apparently removes topics without affecting members' statistics. Are you able to do that manually? If so, anything linked from something like the Help Index could have a tag like "[HELP]" or "[FAQ]" added to the title—so you would know not to remove it.

In some situations, I might repost an edited version of a topic (e.g., as an answer to a FAQ). I discovered I can do this by selecting the topic command PRINT, and copying the result. It requires a little editing and formatting, but topics usually need to be "cleaned-up" anyway—if they are to be useful for this purpose. And, of course, it won't matter if the original topic is purged. Here's an example I've just added to the Help Index.

[nostra]

The purge routine apparently removes topics without affecting members' statistics. Are you able to do that manually?

Yes

the Help Index could have a tag like "[HELP]" or "[FAQ]" added to the title—so you would know not to remove it.

A good idea