The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[Pat]

-- Not required for recovery, but it would improve Alex's status. He does look a bit like a n00b right now.

Adam (not Alex) now is indeed 15727 (re'born)

-- but who can find the old number which was rep'nA ??

[Ruud]

I've updated the post. I also included a query that the administrator can use to retrieve the rep'nA user ID.

Ruud

[re'born]

To correct the post count for the new user account, the following query will do the trick:

Code: Select all

update `users` set `user_posts` = (select count(*) from `posts` where `poster_id` = 15727) where `user_id` = 15727

Not required for recovery, but it would improve Adam's status. He does look a bit like a n00b right now.

Ruud

Can you help me spot the next move in this puzzle?
*-----------*
|34.|.16|..8|
|..1|.87|54.|
|...|543|...|
|---+---+---|
|1..|..4|...|
|8..|321|..9|
|...|7.9|..2|
|---+---+---|
|...|6.5|...|
|.87|432|9..|
|...|198|.37|
*-----------*


But really, thank you Ruud for the excellent research. It would be amazing to have my old posts restored. Do you (as the new moderator) have contact with the board administrators?

[udosuk]

Do you (as the new moderator) have contact with the board administrators?

As another new moderator, I don't know any special way to contact the board administrators aside from PMing realsudoku, which is a method always available to everybody.

[Ruud]

I already sent the message.

As for your puzzle, you can read this article.

Ruud

[Pat]

I've updated the post.

I also included a query that the administrator can use to retrieve the rep'nA user ID.

thanks, but fast fingers are dangerous -- just a little typo --

Because we know for sure that rep'nA has started thread number 5378, the following query can retrieve his old user ID:

select `poster_id` from `topics` where `topic_id` = 5278

[Ruud]

Thanks again, Pat. I corrected the error.

We almost gave all posts by 999_Springs to re'born.

Ruud

[udosuk]

Unbelievable. All of rep'nA/re'born's lost posts have been recovered. Hail the technology!

Well done Ruud, you're surely THE master.

[Pat]

amazing!!
so can we now also recover Nick67,
whose posts vanished in 2006?

sorry i cannot indicate any Topic which he had launched,
but he was certainly a valued regular contributor to the forum

[Ruud]

Thanks to Ronk's reference here, we know that Nick67 had User ID 2377.

He made contributions in these topics which were subsequently quoted:

http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=1504
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=1630
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=1748
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2035
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2556
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2352

The last one is the famous BUG thread, which is still corrupted by a database error.
Most likely, he also made several unquoted contributions. Any threads which he started are also inaccessible unless a direct link was posted elsewhere in the forum.

Since Nick67 was not a spammer, his profile must have been deleted due to an error similar to rep'nA's. As Scott indicated, had his profile been removed upon request, all his posts would also be deleted. Currently, they are still present, but cannot be shown because of the missing user.
Nick never tried to rejoin the forum. In my opinion, the safest approach is create an inactive user Nick67-temp and reassign all posts and topics with poster ID 2377 to this new user.

I will pass this info to the administrator after our forum curator has checked this post for errors.

Ruud

PS: Any other alien abductions on this forum?

[daj95376]

So, how many User IDs exist that don't correspond to a known user? It the list isn't too long, then how about reactivating their posts by creating USER_9nnnnn for each of these User IDs. If USER_912345's posts turn out to be spam, then replace the contents of the posts with Administrative Deletion. This keeps the posts active and the thread count accurate. (Start with the User ID with the most number of posts!)

[Pat]

Thanks to ronk's reference,
we know that Nick67 had User ID 2377

hey Ruud, can you imagine whatever made ronk refer to Nick67's profile ?

anyway, that's a great find, and will hopefully solve the longstanding situation of the corrupt database

go for it!


add --

http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=992
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=1516
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=1698

http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=1721 -- topic which he had apparently launched
select poster_id from Topics where topic_id = 1721
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=1970
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2007
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2023
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2145
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2198
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2310
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2331
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2462
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2602
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2681
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2683
http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/viewtopic.php?t=2708

[999_Springs]

We almost gave all posts by 999_Springs to re'born.

How!!? I hope I don't lose my posts that quickly......

[Pat]

So, how many User IDs exist that don't correspond to a known user?

It the list isn't too long,
then how about reactivating their posts
by creating USER_9nnnnn for each of these User IDs

1. in the earliest days of the forum,
   it was possible to post without being logged in
   
2. this soon became impossible;
   yet consider this scenario --
   a new member registers and immediately starts posting,
   before the validation process has found that the e-mail address was mis-spelt
   and the membership is cancelled
   
3. more recently, this too has become impossible,
   the new registration is activated after some delay

Ruud, do you see my puzzlement?
we do have posts, even Topics ( e.g. t=37 and t=2316 in the above examples; and several more ), by non-members -- and there's no problem with those Topics, they show up just fine in the Table Of Contents for their Section --

[Ruud]

In the phpbb database, all anonymous posts have `poster_id`= -1. There is a predefined "Guest" with this ID in the user table. When you are posting anonymously, there's a "username" field in which you can enter your name. This name is saved in the `posts` table in the `poster_username` field.

By the way, the info needed to recover Nick67 has been given to the DB admin. This should be done in a few days.

Ruud