Mysteriously vanishing posts

[TCampbell]

This message is regarding an issue with the community forums -- not Canon products.  So I wanted to direct this to the community leaders.  Unfortunately the website doesn't appear to have any way to directly contact a community leader/manager.  Also... sending a private message to the community manager appears to be blocked -- offering little alternative.

Here's the issue regarding vanishing posts:

A question would be posted in a forum, I'd provide a response... and the next time I'm on the forum I'd notice my response is missing.

At first I thought it was me... I thought possibly I had composed a response without actually clicking the button to post the reply.

But then I realized the forum software automatically "subscribes" users to any message thread in which they've posted a response... and I'm actually getting notifications for these things.  That wouldn't happen if I had not actually posted a reply.

Two recent examples (and there have been more):

1)  http://community.usa.canon.com/t5/EOS/AF-Point-keeps-jumping-back-to-the-centre/m-p/198488

2)  http://community.usa.canon.com/t5/EOS/AF-problems-EOS-5D-mk-III/m-p/198509

These are both threads in which I've posted a reply (both within the past few days)... but the reply is now missing.

So the mystery is... why have several of my posts simply vanished?  (Not edited... deleted.)   No notification.  

As there is no editing nor notification (the posts are simply gone), I have no idea why they are gone.  I do realize that a post might be either edited or deleted if a moderator felt it violated forum guidelines... but I cannot possibly imagine these posts violating any rules. 

The missing posts were simply straight-helpful reponses to forum questions regarding products.  Where appropriate the posts would have links to Canon information (actual links to CanonUSA videos or Canon learning documentation -- not 3rd parties).

It's frustrating to take the time to compose a reply -- which may also involve doing a bit of research, testing things with my own camera, finding the links, and assembling the response... only to see it's all just gone a day later with no apparent reason why and no message (private or otherwise) sent to me.

Is anyone else experiencing similar issues?

Do we have a new overly-ambitious moderator?

I would appreciate a reply from Canon community leaders if you can please research and tell me why within the past few weeks posts are simply being removed.

Kind Regards,

Tim

[Danny · Accepted solution]

Hi, Tim!

Color us puzzled!  We're not sure what might be happening here.  We rarely pull any posts, and we generally only do so if a post could be considered spam, if it's way off topic or inappropriate, if there's nothing in it, or if it's a verbatim duplicate of a previous post in the same thread.

We're able to see each user's post history, including any posts that would have been manually removed by a moderator.  We see no removed posts under your file within the dates covered by the threads you linked us to.

When you post a new reply, please make sure it goes up and then make a note of your post's unique URL.  You can do this by looking in the lower left corner of your post where it says "Message (x) of (y)," right-clicking on the number in the "x" position, and telling your browser to copy the URL.  You can post this into a notepad app and keep a running log.  If upon refreshing the page or on a later visit you notice that your post is gone, let us know your missing message's URL here in this thread and we'll see if we can track down what might be happening.

Thanks for calling this to our attention!

[Danny · Accepted solution]

Hi, Tim!

Color us puzzled!  We're not sure what might be happening here.  We rarely pull any posts, and we generally only do so if a post could be considered spam, if it's way off topic or inappropriate, if there's nothing in it, or if it's a verbatim duplicate of a previous post in the same thread.

We're able to see each user's post history, including any posts that would have been manually removed by a moderator.  We see no removed posts under your file within the dates covered by the threads you linked us to.

When you post a new reply, please make sure it goes up and then make a note of your post's unique URL.  You can do this by looking in the lower left corner of your post where it says "Message (x) of (y)," right-clicking on the number in the "x" position, and telling your browser to copy the URL.  You can post this into a notepad app and keep a running log.  If upon refreshing the page or on a later visit you notice that your post is gone, let us know your missing message's URL here in this thread and we'll see if we can track down what might be happening.

Thanks for calling this to our attention!

[TCampbell]

Thanks Danny!  That is odd.

One of the messages had a typo in it so I actually re-edited the message just a few minutes after posting (so it definitely was there at one point).  The following morning I had the usually handful of emails mentioning that new replies had been added to the thread, but when I visited the thread, my reply was missing (some threads have multiple pages so I would check all pages just to be sure.)

So far this has happened once in early January (that's when I tought I was crazy... and of course I could still be crazy) and then it happened a few more times and I put it together that I wouldn't be getting email that new posts were added to the thread unless I had "subscribed" to the thread (which typically happens becuase a person posts a reponse to that thread.)

I'll start keeping notes on the posts just in case any more go missing.

Kind Regards,

Tim

[diverhank]

---

@TCampbell wrote:

Is anyone else experiencing similar issues?

Do we have a new overly-ambitious moderator?

I would appreciate a reply from Canon community leaders if you can please research and tell me why within the past few weeks posts are simply being removed.

Kind Regards,

Tim

---

Same exact thing happened to me a couple days ago...I posted an answer and it kept disappearing...it might have to do with my including a couple of internet links (all Canon links).  After 5 disappearances, the 6th was a success because I didn't include a link...It's really nuts.  I do think there is an overzealous moderator (real person or machine) lurking around that was responsible for this.

[SamanthaW · Accepted solution]

Hello! 

We took a look at your posts and we don't have any that have been edited or removed by a moderator. If you could please follow the suggestion previously given we'd like to take a further look if you catch one you can link us to.

When you post a new reply, please make sure it goes up and then make a note of your post's unique URL.  You can do this by looking in the lower left corner of your post where it says "Message (x) of (y)," right-clicking on the number in the "x" position, and telling your browser to copy the URL.  You can post this into a notepad app and keep a running log.  If upon refreshing the page or on a later visit you notice that your post is gone, let us know your missing message's URL here in this thread and we'll see if we can track down what might be happening.

Thanks for letting us know you're having trouble too!

[TCampbell]

Thanks Samantha.  Per both your and Danny's suggestion, I've opened a note file on my local computer and I'm pasting the direct link to each post I create.  Hopefully we can catch it in the act and resolve the mystery.

I thought I was losing my mind at first... only imagining that I clicked the "post" link but navigating away without actually posting.  But then I realized that one of the posts was made, I caught a typo, I edited it to fix the typo, and I even get the emails when there are new posts to the thread.  But my post within the thread is gone.  (queue Twilight Zone music.)

Kind Regards,

Tim

[drtofu]

I have exactly this same problem.  

I wrote detailed repair instructions with links and photos and the reply don't appear in the thread.

It was a long post that took an hour to write and, to be honest, at this point, I'm not that interesting in writing it again.

If you can return that post to my drafts, I'd be happy to remove the links and repost, or feel free to do that yourself.

It should appear at the end of this thread but it's not there:

https://community.usa.canon.com/t5/Printer-Multifunction-Support/Won-t-scan-mp830/td-p/25695