So I went to go sign in today and it gave me either 1 of 2 errors(see below). I dumped my cookies and tried a different browser and PC and still the same. Waited about 20mins and now I can login normally but all my posts are gone. Both my comments and my original posts. This was after my account was marked for spam. Did a moderator delete all my content? Why!? I have emailed Cox to follow up but would like a answer here.
@WiderMouthOpen, it should still be possible to restore all your posts. The functionality built into this website probably wouldn't delete them. It most likely just marks them as "deleted" and they're retained. If that's the case, permanently deleting your posts would have required someone with permission to add, change,or delete data in tables to access the database directly.
I agree about the red flags. Deleting all of a user's posts is an activity that should have been logged for review. But, this non-monetary application might not include that level of control. Apparently, deleting all of a user's posts, without removing the forum user's ID, isn't something that's normally done.
Admins able to mark posts as "deleted" would probably be able to "undelete" them too. Hopefully, Becky or TiffanyR will discover how to do that for all of your removed posts soon.
@Becky, if there's no forums admin function to restore selected user posts that were removed, it might be possible to do it on the backend. Do you have contact with a forums DBA for whom you could ask to verify if deleted posts are actually deleted or just marked as deleted and retained in the table? If the latter is true, Cox should consider having the DBA run an update query to reset the "deleted" settings on his posts back to active. I realize that's not a generally accepted practice and could undelete posts WiderMouthOpen deleted, too. But deleting all of a user's posts without cause is not a generally accepted practice either. If the table contains a "Deleted_Date" field, the update query could be limited to just his posts deleted the day they were all removed. It it's not available, the restore would be more complicated. If a "Deleted_By" field is available, it would be useful in your investigation to determine what happened.
actually deleted or just marked as deleted and retained in the table
I think the posts are just removed from the web table for display. If you review the Activity tab in Mouth's profile, you can see contributions and posts.
Thank you for your detailed input. What worries me is even if it is technically possible to retrieve posts marked for deletion, the work required on the backend to do so will be avoided. Also, even if the posts get retrieved, I don't think we will get a honest answer of what happened. Too much inside policy.
I don't think your posts are marked for deletion but perhaps review. You still have the points so something is being summed on the back end.
I wish I had an exact "from my experience" timeline for you but when I was being reviewed, audited, assessed...I didn't look for all my previous posts.
I got red-circle notifications for each of the specific flagged posts. Of course, I reviewed the posts with my flagged comments, but my posts were removed. The server asks you to submit an appeal but I didn't know what I had written in said posts. I searched cached servers and I didn't see anything worth flagging. Maybe.
Inside policy would be good but I think this delay is more about priority. Reviewing flagged accounts just isn't a priority at Cox. Your "questionable" posts are offline so what would be the urgency.
I wonder if Cox has a program to find violations or is it just a warm body looking?
If my input is credible, I've never read anything questionable or in violation of Cox policy. If somebody is being rude, you tell them to stop.
bruce Looks like some of your posts were deleted too. So far they haven't been helpful via email.
I can see your posts. I went to your profile, clicked Activity and scrolled for a few minutes. You seem complete.
My activity is intact, along with my profile. But try to find any of the posts or threads I made. Remember the one I did asking "Who is marking my posts as spam?" Try to find it.
If you go to Forum Home and click the filter under Recent Posts, can you see your posts and participation?
I bookmarked this post because you had created How To procedures for disabling your HotSpot. Now it's Bear12 and I.
So whoever pulled my posts did so to ALL of them. Not just the ones marked as spam/abuse, unless someone ran a script to mark ALL my posts as spam. So far they are researching via email. Fingers crossed.
Interesting, it does in fact show under activity those posts you have replied to, but all of your specific content is missing.
They even deleted other people entire threads just because I posted in them. This is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I hope I get a answer fast. So far the only reasons seems to be "we have been made aware of some concerns regarding our forums platform". Concerns?!
Don't have a bad taste in your mouth, Mouth. Reviewing flagged posts is probably an official process but not a priority process. Curt and I flagged a suspicious link the other day but the link remained for a few days.
When my account was under review, my flagged posts were from locked post dates years ago. it took a few days to clear me.
I don't know who has the responsibility to review accounts, but Tiffany did an initial look and surmised no violations. In addition, this was over the weekend, In addition, whoever does it probably does it in dribs and drabs during a shift and probably another does another drib and drab.
If there's a button to annoy you, people will push it.
tiffanyr, since this had happened, I've been checking the following two post for Cox to reinstate Mouth's previous contributions. No update or resolve. I've been checking these posts because I specifically remember Mouth's comments.
@WiderMouthOpen I think we may be overlooking a possibillity that's been right in front of us. When you signed in 8 days ago, you received an error message with a follow-up message that a new user might see. Something unexpected happened during sign in that may have caused you to lose the join relationship with your prior posts. (When unexpected stuff happens, results are unpredictable). Cox Social Media Support should create a ticket for the forums DBA to research and, if this is the case, repair the database to restore the join relationship to your lost posts. Preserving data integrity is part of a DBA's job responsibilities.
Something unexpected happened during sign in
I never went through with the "create your forum identity" section because I was afraid it would delete my account some how. Last time I emailed Cox they replied with a strong sense that they would be contacting me and I shouldn't email them any longer. I will give it another day for them to respond here before I email again.
The database would have already been corrupted when you got the second message. You were right not to complete the “create your forum identity”.
I no longer think someone deleted your posts. Do what you think is right, but it’s been over a week. You didn’t do anything wrong. The "we'll contact you when we have more information" thing never seems to happen.
We may have fixated on posts marked as spam being the cause of this issue and ignored all other possibilities. When I read your original post, that's what I did. But...
As far as I can tell, your user profile has not been marked flagged for abuse.
@Bruce, has anything been posted that confirms or even indicates WiderMouthOpen is being reviewed for spam or abuse? If there was, I missed it. If he didn't get the same type of red-circle notifications you received when you were flagged, that would be another reason to believe he isn't being reviewed.
So far the only reasons seems to be "we have been made aware of some concerns regarding our forums platform".
@WiderMouthOpen, what was the source of that quote? Could it have referred to a website or database issue that had nothing to do with you?
Were all of your posts available before the error signing in? The aforementioned "concerns regarding our forums platform" could have been the cause of your sign in error which may have caused your lost posts. You may have just had the bad luck to sign in at the wrong time.
anything been posted that confirms or even indicates WiderMouthOpen is being reviewed for spam or abuse?
Only Mouth and Cox would know if Mouth's account is flagged. I logged in one day and had about seven red-circle notifications. Wow...lots of replies! However, the red-circles were for various posts having been flagged by...I assume...another user.
I started going to each conversation to review what I had written but my posts were removed. (What did I write?) All the red-circles were like this: go to convo, my post removed, should I submit an appeal because I can't appeal what I don't know what I had written? All these red-circles were the same albeit a different title, which is the specific name of the conversation.
The last red-circle I clicked...the one at the top or the latest...looked the same but was different. It was simply titled "Your Account has been Flagged for Review" (as best as I can remember).
I went into my profile to see what a flagged account looks like, but I hadn't seen anything different. Everything looked the same. However, I noticed the points were in the single-digit thousands.
I don't track points or watch my points because I don't know what points do. However, I remember when Mouth first joined we were chatting about points and I think he cited I had ~8K points. This chat was years prior but at the time of my review, I was less than 8K. I had lost a bunch of points during this review process. The point loss seemed almost immediate.
Finally, just as a reference to the extent of Mouth's history, I tried to find our long-forgotten chat because I specifically remember writing, "...and Kudos to you [Mouth]..." but the search for "kudos" returned no results for said chat.
My answer to your question is Mouth would have received a red-circle notification about an account review; however, being mixed with all the other red-circles about each flagged comment...Mouth may have missed it.
what was the source of that quote?
From a email I got from Cox. Not sure what it referred to.
Were all of your posts available before the error signing in?
I believe so but I can't remember specifically checking.
You may have just had the bad luck to sign in at the wrong time.
Nahh, I don't think so. Too many things line up to make me feel someone is messing with me. First the email from Cox about the change to the email on my profile. Then the notifications in forum about being marked for spam (my profile) and finally being unable to login and having my posts deleted.
BTW, here is the email I got about a month ago. Looks legit to me but Cox said it was a scam but I don't think they researched it that well. Keep in mind I don't actually have a active Cox account so I don't know how someone changed the email notification on a inactive account. The reason it looks legit to me is the spelling and grammar look good and it tells you to check your bill for a number. A scammer would tell you to go to a website or call a certain phone number I would think. I have modified the account holders name and email address for privacy reasons.
| Subject: | Important account information from Cox Communications |
|---|---|
| From: | COX COMMUNICATIONS <COXCOM.SERVICE@COX.COM> |
| To: | XXXXXXXXXXXX |
DEAR <Account holder>;
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL AS IT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED
This is a courtesy notification to you that the following information for your Cox Communications
account was changed through our online system:
*A change occurred to the email address you have selected for these
notifications.
If you did not authorize the change(s) to your account, please contact your local Cox Communications
office immediately. A phone number can be obtained from your bill.
Please have your four-digit Cox Personal Identification Number (PIN) ready to discuss questions
regarding your account with a Customer Service Representative. Your personal identification number
can be found on the first page of your monthly Cox billing statement above the "Account Summary"
section.
If this is correct, please maintain this correspondence for your records.
Thank you,
Cox Communications
Silly question but has Cox provided an update?
Nope, not yet. I will update the forum if/when they do.
I'm getting a vibe of caginess from Cox.
I noticed your post was missing from the front page. It should be on the front page because we commented on it yesterday (3 Nov). However, the last comment on this post was 29 days ago? Somebody deleted about 11 days of our conversation.
All the moderators' comments since the beginning have been removed except one. Even Leland.T got removed.
::sigh:: Paging leland.t Could you comment on why comments, especially moderator comments, were removed?
Something happened in the Forums early this morning. Threads were slow to load. The last post in the Internet Forum was a couple of days ago, i.e. a day of posts were missing. The last post in this thread was 28 days ago. I emailed cox.help@cox.com and they replied that it was a reported issue. It's unclear whether the reported issue they mentioned was referring to the overall Forum issue or they interpreted the last 28 days of missing posts in this thread as the issue we've been reporting.
