Recover deleted posts,

[esquire]

6 minutes ago, ZakRhyno said:

There was a system in place that had this done already but it was taking out. Could be put back in and updated for IPB 4.

Because (a) it's no longer in the place where it was for easy reference, context and restoration; and (b) nobody wants to work this hard to create extra visible clutter and clicks when the perfect system was already a part of the core of IPS 3. Too much fixing in IPS 4 that wasn't broken.

[craigf136]

10 hours ago, ZakRhyno said:

There was a system in place that had this done already but it was taking out. Could be put back in and updated for IPB 4.

Where does the topic go back to if it is recovered? The system doesn't know where to put it, as you have essentially moved it to "The Grave Yard" - all you have done is moved it to another forum which isn't visible to members.

[ipbfuck]

Why don't make, simply, a new "Saved action" for delete (= move to trash forum)...

 

[craigf136]

@Kevin Carwile can you're rules application do this?

If someone deletes a post/topic it doesn't delete it but moves it to a grave yard for forum for example but also remembers where that post / topic came from?

[Kevin Carwile]

You can apply rules to saved actions with the forums expansion pack and move a topic while saving where it came from. But if you move a topic on the delete event with rules, it will be in the new location for only a fraction of a second before it is ultimately permanently deleted.

[Kevin Carwile]

So I just read through this whole topic to understand the concerns, and this problem can be solved quite simply with rules.

If you create a saved action called "Delete" and then create a rule for that saved action which hides the content, tags it as "deleted", and then schedules the actual deletion some time into the future. Then you can soft delete topics in a way that is different than just hiding them.

You could create a seperate saved action for "Undelete" which would unhide the topic, remove the tag, and remove the scheduled deletion action.

[esquire]

50 minutes ago, Kevin Carwile said:

If you create a saved action called "Delete" and then create a rule for that saved action which hides the content, tags it as "deleted", and then schedules the actual deletion some time into the future. Then you can soft delete topics in a way that is different than just hiding them.

You could create a seperate saved action for "Undelete" which would unhide the topic, remove the tag, and remove the scheduled deletion action.

Kevin - your app is amazing and worthwhile buying for a million reasons. But in this instance I think that a primary issue is soft deleting individual posts, not topics. And IMHO, I'd not want to have automated deletion (which doesn't have to be set) and it would be nice to have the process work seamlessly. Most of the time I see what appears to be a spammy post and I just hit delete and done. If a user writes to support that we didn't realize it was an erroneous deletion, we simply hit the link, recover the post and done. It's great to have an app as powerful as yours to deal with limitations that we'd like to overcome. Now that what used to be standard is taken out, it seems the question is whether (a) it's feasible to just put it back; or (b) a need to work differently using IPS 4. My concern with choice B is that I know I'll just delete out of a decade of habit and also concurrently using other software that still works the usual way.

[Kevin Carwile]

Posts could be automatically and seamlessly scheduled for future deletion after hiding also.

If we're not talking about automatic future deletion of content on demand (a.k.a soft delete), then what exactly is the problem here.

[maddog107_merged]

On 10/25/2015 at 9:01 AM, abetts said:

The simple solution to this is what I've just implemented in 5 mins. I've set up a saved action which is called 'moderator delete' which moves the content to a 'deleted content' forum I created as a sub forum of our moderator forum. I've removed the ability of mods to delete content now so they'll use the new saved action and I can purge that whenever I fancy.

So...

1. Create 'recycle bin' type forum visible to mods/admin
2. Create saved action to move content there
3. Remove moderators delete permission

Where does one see the new Saved Action? If I click on a post "Options" or the little checkbox at the top right, I dont see any action I created. Sorry for my stupidity but can you post some screenshots? thanks. 

[abetts]

Under 'moderator actions'

 

[JEFF MACK]

On 10/13/2015 at 2:45 PM, chilihead said:

Would be good to have an actual soft delete though so mods could soft delete mistake posts etc. that get purged later, and hide troublesome posts you are saving. Makes going through them easier in the mod cp. Like 3.4.  

Yes, based on my experience today with a huge thread being accidentally deleted, it would be great to have a recovery trash bin that you can set to purge after a few days.  You will know pretty quickly whether you need to save something.  Maybe have no more than a week to hold before a cron job permanently deletes.  If this can't be a product feature, I would be more than happy to pay a developer to work on this.  This is not confusing either.

[chilihead]

In 3.4 you set the purge # of days in acp. And hidden posts were not purged, only "deleted." Worked perfectly.

[maddog107_merged]

Anyone willing to make a plugin for a soft delete like in 3.4? I'll chip in $100 (or more if needed) to any dev thats interested. 

[GT_Bullitt]

Yep we just learned this the hard way as well.  You know those accidents that "don't" happen.  A very seasoned admin on my page accidentally deleted a founding members build thread.  He had no idea that he even deleted that thread until recently when the OP tried to access it and found it gone.  No matter which way you look at it if this happens from a mobile device or a PC this is what you see if a admin/mod use this method.

you get the trash can, which if no one knows that this is going to be a hard delete (which we didn't) then guess what its gone because when they click it this is all you get

This is hardly the "are you sure" message you want for something permanent.  What if this is done on mobile and he fat fingered the wrong box not realizing he chose the wrong thread?  Something of this nature sure be a message along the lines of "Are you sure you want to delete "This is a very important thread by UserName"? At least this way they have a small chance of realizing oh crap I clicked the wrong one.

Also making an action as I did for this example just gives you the icon next to the trash can which doesn't help much as it just opens up a drop down.  In the end mistakes happen at least in our world and if I could count how many times I made a mistake in life on one hand I'd damn near be perfect but that isn't the case.  I also get this is your baby, your blood sweat and tears that you guys put into this software, but if your paying customers are asking for a feature that is widely used and wanted then shouldn't you take that as a sign that those paying for the work are getting what they want for their money? 

Honestly delete should move it to a trash bin unless designated by the admin to go to an area that most of us have "the graveyard" so that we can review what was deleted an make sure it wasn't by mistake or if it is actually something that needs to be removed for good.

[Florent Cadet]

Agree with all who are arguing for a soft delete feature.

I'm in this case, a moderator has deleted a topic by mistake, unable to recover it, members are naturally cring, very very bad user/customer experience.

[Kit_L]

One of my mods, interacting with our forum for the first time after we upgraded to v. 4, accidentally deleted an important thread. Is there any way of getting it back? I will open a support ticket on this, too; seems like a basic functionality.

[Elena-Viorica]

IPS, we seriously need to get the soft delete feature back. Pretty much everyone except your staff members says that it was a very useful feature and that the new hide feature is not only confusing, but also aesthetically unpleasing because it leaves the threads visible for the staff members who can view hidden content.

Someone bring back the soft delete feature from IPS 3. If not IPS, at least a third party developer.

[esquire]

My understanding is that IPS 4 is perfect capable of soft deleting and permanently deleting. However IPS decided that the terminology needed changing - so the functionality to soft delete is there but IPS has renamed this "hide" (which means soft delete) and "delete" (which means hard delete.) Windows, Wordpress, Mac OS, most other forum software and IPS 3 (if i recall), etc. follow the convention that "delete" is the terminology for soft delete. While I agree with lindy that "hide" really does describe what soft delete does, I don't think a Word processor is a go it's a good idea to mess with convention - especially where confusing "delete" means "hard delete" instead of "soft delete" that most are used to seeing.

In short - soft delete is in there. But if you deleted in IPS 4 thinking delete was "soft delete" as it has been and in other equivalent software, your remedy is to do the same thing as hard deleting. Find the topics in your backup and then run a query to insert them back into the appropriate tables in order to restore.

[Elena-Viorica]

5 minutes ago, esquire said:

In short - soft delete is in there. But if you deleted in IPS 4 thinking delete was "soft delete" as it has been and in other equivalent software, your remedy is to do the same thing as hard deleting. Find the topics in your backup and then run a query to insert them back into the appropriate tables in order to restore.

Oh really? If that's so easy, are you willing to do it for the rest of us who have no idea how to work with databases? 

[esquire]

On 5/24/2016 at 9:39 AM, Elena-Viorica said:

Oh really? If that's so easy, are you willing to do it for the rest of us who have no idea how to work with databases? 

If you know how to administrate IPS you won't have to bother with databases. To make it easy to understand, I said that IPS 3 = IPS 4 except soft delete is now called "hide" and "hard delete" is now "delete." If you screwed up, the process to restore is exactly the same.

[dbkbye]

I deleted the double in a double post, and they BOTH vanished.

That was exciting.

Posts were only 10 minutes old, no backup.

That isn't even my error! board hiccup. Sorry for the ten minutes you spent on that thoughtful post, forum member.

[Lindy]

You'll be happy to know that we're introducing a delayed deletes system in 4.2. More information will be forthcoming soon.

[GlenP]

Will it replicate this?

 

[clearvision]

On 3/8/2017 at 2:14 PM, Lindy said:

You'll be happy to know that we're introducing a delayed deletes system in 4.2. More information will be forthcoming soon.

Hope this is true. 

Just started using 4 after upgrading and was moderating some posts (click boxes) then either missed the black pop up box or got distracted with a notification popping up on same screen and clicked on "moderate actions" (note it does not say topic or post).  Clicked delete....Are you sure? (did it say topic or posts.. don't know if I looked)...Yes.  Boom 4 day topic gone.  Go to find it in the moderator "trash bin".  No bin.  Search here.  Find out that feature was removed and post is gone for good. 

Members are already grumpy with change and now I delete their community chit chat topic....

I've css hidden the moderator action button at top and bottom of topic view.  Much clearer to moderate only posts when viewing topic and moderate topics when viewing forum.

Can't turn off deletion for content as that stops even posts from being deleted as my mods still need to delete things and hiding would just bring up more management issues.

 

[Ryan Ashbrook]

6 minutes ago, clearvision said:

Hope this is true. 

Just started using 4 after upgrading and was moderating some posts (click boxes) then either missed the black pop up box or got distracted with a notification popping up on same screen and clicked on "moderate actions" (note it does not say topic or post).  Clicked delete....Are you sure? (did it say topic or posts.. don't know if I looked)...Yes.  Boom 4 day topic gone.  Go to find it in the moderator "trash bin".  No bin.  Search here.  Find out that feature was removed and post is gone for good. 

Members are already grumpy with change and now I delete their community chit chat topic....

I've css hidden the moderator action button at top and bottom of posts.  Much clearer to moderate only posts when viewing topic and moderate topics when viewing forum.

Can't turn off deletion for content as that stops even posts from being deleted as my mods still need to delete things and hiding would just bring up more management issues.

 

Actually, at the moderator level, if you go to your Admin CP > Members > Moderators, edit the moderator group there, and under "Content" set "Can delete all content" to No. Then under Forums, you should see "Can delete all topics/questions?" and "Can delete all posts/answers?" separately, which should let you allow your moderators to delete posts but not entire topics.

And yes, it is true, and it is also expanded to every application rather than just the forums (including third party, provided their content can be hidden).