I deleted Members - How do I delete their posts ?

[Dave-user]

Hi,
I am running 2.0.6.

I deleted a load of members and expected that all the posts belonging to them would
also get deleted, but they remain.

Is their a way to to get all POSTS that do not have members deleted ?

I was hoping to find it in maintenance - but no I couldn't see anything like that.
There are loads of spam posts.

Thanks

[Sir Osis of Liver]

When you delete the member, you have to set 'Remove posts made by this member:' to 'All Posts'.

[Arantor]

Since that's already happened, I'd suggest going to your profile, to look and layout, and setting quick moderation to be checkboxes, then you can at least delete posts and topics in bulk rather than one at a time.

[Dave-user]

Thanks.

BTW I just updated to 2.0.8

[Sir Osis of Liver]

You should still be able to mass delete the spam posts you left behind.  IIRC, when you delete an account without deleting posts, the posts are attributed to the deleted member's username, marked as guest.  You can create a new member account (i.e., 'Spammer'), then reattribute the spam posts to that member in Admin -> Forum Maintenance -> Members, then delete the new account and remove all posts.

[Dave-user]

OK

Thanks for your suggestion.

I created Mr Spammer account

You say ...
"the posts are attributed to the deleted member's username, marked as guest"


But the I don't know the deleted member's username . because i deleted it. Actually not "it" but hundreds
of accounts.

Also - I was deleting by using the Admin->Members->Search for members
and there is no "delete posts as well" option, or I would have checked it.

Any ideas as to what I can do ?

[Gwenwyfar]

You'd need to find their posts (that are now as guest instead of an account) and see what name they have. Use that name to attribute posts to your Mr. Spammer account.

Not sure on this one, but maybe the accounts you deleted also appear on the admin log, you could use that as well if so.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

You'll have to scroll through topics and find the usernames associated with the remaining spam posts.  They're not listed as members, and there is no guest membergroup.  Don't believe there's any other way to do it.

[Arantor]

There is one way and that's direct in the database, which is strongly not recommended.

Still reckon quick moderation is the fastest solution at this point.

[Gwenwyfar]

I just confirmed and deleted accounts do appear on the admin log, with their name

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I suppose that would depend on how many posts each deleted member left behind.  If it's just 2 or 3, quick moderation would be easier, but if it's 20 or 30, would be less work to reattribute the posts.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I just confirmed and deleted accounts do appear on the admin log, with their name

Yes, that's correct.  Would save a lot of searching through topics.

[Dav999]

If quick moderation checkboxes are still too cumbersome (that is, if we're not talking about a few pages of recognizable spam topics here, but individual messages scattered anywhere across many different topics), and you really want all posts by deleted members (and otherwise guests) gone, I think it would be pretty safe to bulk-change the username on all posts with 0 as their member ID (with a query like UPDATE {prefix}members SET poster_name='Deleted' WHERE id_member='0'), and then to re-attribute all posts with that username to one account (so you can delete that one account along with all these posts). I really wouldn't directly delete the posts from the database, but I think changing usernames on posts isn't going to cause any trouble. Unless anyone knows a relation that would get messed up (like the username on the "last post" in topics and boards?)

[Steve]

Once you've got this problem corrected, you need to continue to upgrade. You're still 6 versions behind.

[Dave-user]

Can I do these updates from the Admin->Maintenance ?

I am on 2.0.8 what is the latest version ?

BTW - I am not talking about a few post hear and there - I am talking about close to 500,000 posts, these were attached to
about 6000 spam users that I just deleted.

I did that yesterday and overnight I now have another 18 users and 52 spam posts.
I looked for the tick box to delete the posts with the account and can not see it.

It's here:  http://www.support-focus.com/forum/index.php [nofollow]


Would you mind telling which section that is in by using the format like:
  Admin->Members->Search for members
Then it will be clear just where it is.

Many thanks for your help.

[Dave-user]

Maybe I should just uninstall the whole thing
and reinstall SMF 2.0.14.

I just did not want to re-create all my sub forums again.
But a new install might be better.

[Steve]

Do it this way:

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/How_to_upload_a_fresh_set_of_files

[Illori]

Do it this way:

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/How_to_upload_a_fresh_set_of_files

that will not remove the posts/messages/members, i dont think that is what the op wants.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Your forum is basically useless as is.  You either have to manually remove or reattribute all the spam posts, or restore a database backup from before the spam attack (assuming, of course, that you or your host do regular backups).  Your only other option is to start from scratch, and lose all your forum content - members, posts, etc.

Obviously, you need to take some immediate steps to protect your forum from spammers -

https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Spam_-_my_forum_is_flooded_with_spam,_what_can_I_do
 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

On second thought, you could retain members, pms, settings, anything not directly involving posts, by deleting or archiving all spammed topics in Forum Maintenance -> Topics.  You'd still have your boards, and once you have some anti-spam measures in place, you can finish cleaning up members.