Can my posting history be purged?

[Trout]

I sympathise, partly because I also would like to be deleted. How about we delete everything before a certain date?

[TordelBack]

As a sub-class of Historian (requirements: Maximum Wis of 6), I have to put on my stern face here.  And keep the backup disc running 24-7. Who you were is who you are, only less so.  And I speak as a man who started a thread about getting a vasectomy.

[Tiplodocus]

I'll trade you the time I had mumps over the primary school October holiday and my mum bought me a Snowtrooper because she felt sorry for me.

Now I already have a similar memory of that myself - except it was a Death Star Commander and I was in secondary school. Never did figure out what was wrong with me but that week also includes one of my favourtie food memories; I was brought a big slice of homemade brown bread, thick with butter and a fantastic slice of ham from a joint on it.  Though of course, these days,  I have to tut-tut at the fact it was ham.

The clubbing memories from Manchistoh (sorted, stab ya!) will have to remain in my head, I'm afraid.

Anybody want the memory of the time I ended up participating (no, not like that) in a live sex show in a Curry House in Stoke?  Or the time I just about shat my pants walking down the Champs Elysee at New Year?

They really are jolly good (despite the titles).

[Tiplodocus]

Oh and 2 days on the road in the North of England with Simon Pegg when he was a stand-up. I only ever use that memory for name-dropping purposes now - you lot are all bored with it and Mrs Tips doesn't care. So that one is going cheap.

[shaolin_monkey]

  And I speak as a man who started a thread about getting a vasectomy.

I'm so glad it's not just me that needed to post about just such a traumatic event on a forum as a means of catharsis.  Plus I just like making grown men wince.

Wait til I tell you about my kidney stone removal - that was even worse!

[I, Cosh]

As a sub-class of Historian (requirements: Maximum Wis of 6), I have to put on my stern face here.  And keep the backup disc running 24-7. Who you were is who you are, only less so.  And I speak as a man who started a thread about getting a vasectomy.

I was composing an overlong serious reply to this question while out cycling earlier but this pretty much captures it.

Thinking about it does make you question the way we construct communities, both online and in the real world. I'd be happy if people didn't know I was a drunken twat at Glasgow Comic con last year (except the people I'd already met who were prepared) but c'est la vie. I realise there's more of an element of choice and self-selection but, if you meet someone new in real life, there's probably just as much chance that you or a mutual friend is going to tell them a story about the time you nearly shat yourself as there is that someone is going to go digging through your past posts on here.

When I was ploughing through all the Progs I missed in my absence I really enjoyed being able to look back at the threads on here to see what the thoughts had been about stories as they were running. Selfishly, I think it would be a great loss to find massive gaps in those archives. It may not be social history but it's interesting seeing how these things change. A bit like letters pages. I mean, did you know they used to have this annual readers poll in the Meg and, for four years running, Childhood's End was voted best ever Meg story?

A cycling forum I used to frequent had a pretty good thing whereby threads in the social/off-topic/nonsense section were automatically deleted if they hadn't been posted in for a certain amount of time. Around three days, I think. Anyway, this had the great advantage of making those sort of topics just as ephemeral as they deserve. If you were there and reading when somebody told you about the time they spooned with Vladimir Karpets you remembered it, otherwise you wouldn't know.

Apologies if I've taken anything too seriously or misinterpreted. I've just dumped a lot of vaguely related crap into this one.

And I speak as a man who started a thread about the best thing to put on toast.

[Proudhuff]

[Dark Jimbo]

When I was ploughing through all the Progs I missed in my absence I really enjoyed being able to look back at the threads on here to see what the thoughts had been about stories as they were running. Selfishly, I think it would be a great loss to find massive gaps in those archives. It may not be social history but it's interesting seeing how these things change.

Aye, it's bad enough when all the old picture links are broken.

[I, Cosh]

When I was ploughing through all the Progs I missed in my absence I really enjoyed being able to look back at the threads on here to see what the thoughts had been about stories as they were running. Selfishly, I think it would be a great loss to find massive gaps in those archives. It may not be social history but it's interesting seeing how these things change.

Aye, it's bad enough when all the old picture links are broken.

Ooh, that really gets my goat too. Good one. Obviously some of these are down to the standard internet archaeology problems of sites no longer existing or having internal reorganisation but am I right in thinking some of them are down to changes in the forum code over the years?

[Tiplodocus]

Nice points.

And actually, the stories and the anecdotes I probably don't mind being available (except the Wendy James one). Most of those stem from being stupid which oddly, I find acceptable.

It's just all those posts where I was being a dick about stories and/or writers and/or other forum users. These stem from some malicious thing.

I can't use the excuse that I wasn't grown up but I really regret posting things like that now - would never do it.

If somebody can figure out when I decided to be nice, and delete all posts before that time, that might be a nice compormise.

[Bolt-01]

Think some of the issues with pictures is to do with when Rebellion actually took over the board. Remember, this all started out as a fan board- but over the years it was absorbed into Rebellions actual website.

[I, Cosh]

Think some of the issues with pictures is to do with when Rebellion actually took over the board. Remember, this all started out as a fan board- but over the years it was absorbed into Rebellions actual website.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. That the tags used to denote images had changed so importing the post data as text killed those but then a subsequent upgrade automatically identified them as links but not images or something.

[Dandontdare]

The clubbing memories from Manchistoh (sorted, stab ya!) will have to remain in my head, I'm afraid.

Damn, I could've done with some of those 'cos my own are a little bit patchy.

[Tiplodocus]

I can give you one from Liverpool clubbing. I was at Cream with the voluptuous Syria and her hippy chicken pal Skye throwing shapes when the gorgeous, pouting Patric Berger bumped into me. He looked me up and down, smiled and then gave me his bottle of water. "Here mate, you can have this mate. You need it more than me.".

That's yours now.

[I, Cosh]

Wish I knew some hippy chickens.