IPB 3.X suggestion - add delete all posts to the warn panel

[TSP]

Hi, in IPB 3 you added the possibillity to approve/unapprove either all replies/topics or all replies/topics within the last X days/hours by a member when giving the member a warn. I'll show you what I mean in the picture:




I think you should add the choice "Delete" aswell, so the members replies and/or topics is sent to the trash can.

[Ryan H.]

That could have a dangerous potential for abuse.

[TSP]

Okay? I dont see how it could be more dangerous than the fact that moderators that have access to the trash can, can delete all the posts there aswell. In my opinion this should also include an if check to check if there: 1) Is a trash can 2) If the posts are in the trash can. Probarbly, a better way of saying what I want is to suggest the possibillity to "move to trash can" instead. :)

[CalendarOfUpdates]

[quote name='TSP' date='01 June 2009 - 05:12 PM' timestamp='1243890779' post='1806876']
Okay? I dont see how it could be more dangerous than the fact that moderators that have access to the trash can, can delete all the posts there aswell. In my opinion this should also include an if check to check if there: 1) Is a trash can 2) If the posts are in the trash can. Probarbly, a better way of saying what I want is to suggest the possibillity to "move to trash can" instead. :)

Mods don't have access to the trashcan unless you allow them access.

[TSP]

I know that. But sometimes you want moderators to have access to the trash can. I believe IPB has too few options when it comes to the trash can, but I probarbly should start another topic about that.

[Michael]

Deleting all posts is a fairly resource intensive action, particularly if the member has made a lot of posts. For each post you delete, you may need to rebuild the topic it was in (in case that post was the first or last post in the topic), and then you need to rebuild all forum data for all forums they posted in (so that the number of topics and posts in each is accurate), and then you need to rebuild the forum stats (so the total number of posts is accurate). When you delete all members' posts from the ACP, it does it in cycles of 50 posts, and redirects to a new page automatically where it does the next 50. You'd have to program something into the warn panel to be able to replicate this, as deleting all posts from someone who made 5,000 posts on the forums could not be done all in one shot.

I would say that for the frequency of how often most folks need to do this, and this is just going off my experience here, it's enough that an Admin can do this option in the ACP as it comes up. Whenever I have needed to delete all posts from one member, I wasn't doing it when I was just warning them, I was doing it when I was banning them via the ACP, where I would have the ability to delete all of their posts right there anyway. Just my 2 cents.

[Matt]

What Michael said. Deleting posts is incredibly expensive. Each post has to be examined for attachments, etc then the topic and forum then board stats updating. It's just not possible without refreshes or an ajax style interface (and even then the possibility of the user navigating away or losing their connection could lead to unpredictable results). Something for the future maybe.

[dr. Jekyll]

Actually I am against to delete posts, because quite often the threads became "nonsense" after removing them. <_<

[TSP]

[quote name='dr. Jekyll' date='02 June 2009 - 10:36 AM' timestamp='1243935385' post='1807016']
Actually I am against to delete posts, because quite often the threads became "nonsense" after removing them. <_<


But I see your point Matt and Miachael. But I didn't know that the stat resets, I thought you had to do that manually from the ACP. Is the automatically resetting something you've added to IPB 3? And does it reset even though it gets deleted/moved to the trash can?

[Michael]

[quote name='TSP' date='02 June 2009 - 07:34 AM' timestamp='1243942481' post='1807030']
So you dont delete all the posts to spam users that've posted 50 posts with content like "Buy Viagra Here!!"?

But I see your point Matt and Miachael. But I didn't know that the stat resets, I thought you had to do that manually from the ACP. Is the automatically resetting something you've added to IPB 3? And does it reset even though it gets deleted/moved to the trash can?

I believe if they are moved to the trash can, they still count as being there on your board, and thus included in your stats. But if they are just deleted, they will no longer show up in the count. And yes, I'm pretty sure that this recounting is done automatically upon completion of this action.

The number of total posts in your stats always represents how many posts you actually have on your site at that point, not posts that were made and were then deleted. Those posts are 'gone' and there's no reliable way to track how many of them there were. Say you stored somewhere the number of posts you actually deleted completely, so that you could add that number into the number of posts still in your database in order to get the total number of posts ever made. If something should happen to that data about the number of deleted posts, there would be no reliable way to recover that number. You can always recount the number of rows in the posts table to get the number of posts still on your site, so that's what's used to build this stat.