Where Did All My Comments Go?
from the that-would-be-a-big-oops dept
So…. some of you may have posted some comments on Techdirt this morning and are now noticing that those comments are gone. Kaput. Missing. This is especially ironic, considering the story this morning getting the most comments was about Amazon’s “glitch” in deleting reviews. Well, we’re not going to blame a glitch. We’re going to blame ourselves for screwing up, royally. While doing some ordinary maintenance work, we accidentally blew up the entire comment database. That was fun. And, not only that, but our backup plan didn’t quite work as planned, and we were only able to restore comments up through midnight last night. That means, basically, all the comments from the first 11 hours this morning are gone. Yes. This sucks. Yes, all of us here feel completely awful about it. And, yes, guess what we’re doing today? That’s right: building a better backup system. So, our sincerest, deepest apologies for screwing this one up. But, if you commented earlier, and feel like taking a second chance at saying what you said, get to it. Update: BackType, a comment search engine, actually rescued our comments. So almost all (or perhaps all) of the missing comments are now back! Huge thank you to BackType.
Filed Under: comments
Comments on “Where Did All My Comments Go?”
If you can read this....
If you can read this….they must have it fixed. LOL!
Shit Happens
Kudos for the zero-BS explanation, and don’t feel too bad; what last-desperate-resort backup plan ever works out as well as you hope it would, particularly when you can’t easily test it?
The timing of it is perfect! Loves it.
Kudos for zero-BS. Who can get upset with that
Thanks for reminding me to back up my OWN site :).
brazenly speaking for others
If only all companies would be so honest with their mea culpas. Stuff happens, and I think everybody in tech has had a moment or two like this. So, to all y’all up there, know that a bunch of us out here completely understand.
Fine by me...
… most of the comments on this site should be flushed away regularly…
(yes, including all of mine too).
Only if I could say this to my boss when the backups finally die in a horrible way and he’d be so accepting and understanding to my plight… I do try my best at making sure such things never happen but it’s always the thing you never planned for is what bites you in the ass.
well i’m not going to bother with that so let it be a mystery.
Fast Recovery
I’m impressed with the speed of recovery. I clicked on ‘reply to this comment’ in an earlier article, input my comment – ok, it was a long and rambling comment – by the time I’d clicked submit, there was this article already here explaining why the comment I was replying to wasn’t there anymore and what was recoverable of the comments database had been recovered.
props for owning up to it and no BS.
Good Thing It's an Inifinite Good
I am glad that digital stuff is an inifinite good, otherwise we might have lost something valuable.
Re: Good Thing It's an Inifinite Good
Wow Lonnie.
Even in an apologetic post by Mike, you manage to not understand how things work.
Our comments are technically infinite, yes.
However, that doesn’t mean they are not valuable.
Price != Value.
It is VERY simple really.
Our comments do have value as they add to discussion.
However, they are priceless. (har har har, couldn’t resist)
But, in short, you are still wrong.
Re: Re: Good Thing It's an Inifinite Good
Personally I found his comment hilarious, whether he was joking or not. 🙂
Re: Re: Re: Good Thing It's an Inifinite Good
Well, at least one person recognizes a joke when they see it.
Re: Re: Good Thing It's an Inifinite Good
Our comments do have value as they add to discussion.
Except, of course, when they subtract from the discussion, then deletion of the comments actually gains value.
Re: Re: Re: Good Thing It's an Inifinite Good
Maybe there could be a “glitch” that would remove everything “angry dude” ever posted.
Re: Re: Re:2 Good Thing It's an Inifinite Good
Angry Dude, are you going to just lay down and take this or are you going to fight like an infinite good – or is that scarce good? Whatever! Looking for a snappy comeback.
Incipidious Drivelings of a State-of-the-Art Circumvision of the way the WORLD used to be
This message will self-destruct in 3………2………1……Gotcha!!!
Better luck next time suckas…
Well, at least it wasn’t an rm -rf / type of mistake.
Re: Re:
One of my favorites is “chown -R root.root /” While not entirely destructive, will cause you endless grief as you sort out access problems.
Re: Re: Re:
My personal favorite:
cd/usr/bin && chmod 000 *
Headaches.
Backups are important
I told my parents they should back up their computer – they pushed it out the window….needless to say, it crashed.
aha! a glitch!
So, it wasn’t a glitch in your comment database, it was a glitch in your backup process.
Still a glitch! (yes, that was a bad joke, if you don’t get it, don’t worry)
It's no big thing.
But what I want to know is did any comments
by Dorpus get caught in the glitch?
Re: It's no big thing.
Yes.
I insist on a refund. I want my money back.
Oh, right. I haven’t spent any money commenting here.
First!
No way!
No way, dude. My comment earlier was pure gold. You can’t just duplicate a masterpiece. Shame on you.
Re: No way!
I do not see another comment by you earlier.
If it's a big deal...
for someone to have a few of their comments accidentally deleted from a blog, they need to get some new priorities.
As for you, Techdirt, way to own up to your mistake. Though I think some of your writers are just plain crazy sometimes, your admission bought you tons of credibility with me.
Somebody must have said something bad about techdirt in the comments.
oh noes!!!1!
the amazon glitch is spreading, oh shit son!
I'm just sayin'...
PEBKAC
LMAO!
BACKUPS!!!!
……………WEEE DOH NEEED NO STEENKIN BACKUPS!!!!!”
What a Maroon….
This comment deleted by NSA: America’s cryptologic organization.
Re: Re:
NSA? I thought they were part of the Gestapo.
To everyone screaming “backups” it’s pretty clear you don’t understand how servers work. They backup on a schedule, usually middle of the night. Anything that would happen in the morning (after the backup) wouldn’t be saved. It would have to wait for that night.
Re: Re:
Trevlac…it would appear that you don’t understand how Techdirt backups work…
two types of IT admins
I posted this in the follow-up story but it bears repeating:
There are two types of IT guys.
Those with comprehensive, tested, validated back-up solutions, and those whose systems haven’t crashed yet.
I actually went into Yahoo Cache and stored comments on some stuff I wanted before they were gone.
Re: Re:
Oh wait, this was an older thread. I thought it was newer. N/M.