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Upcoming Data Cleaning 🧹
JustV
Community Manager Posts: 5,577 Part of The Furniture
Heeeey people! Just a heads up about some more housekeeping we're doing. 🧹
As we continue to work on our merger with Mental Health Innovations, we're doing some (long overdue!) data cleaning work on the discussion boards.
That means we're pruning accounts that haven't been used for at least three years and removing ancient posts that were made approximately 10 years ago or more.
Why are we deleting old accounts?
Part of our existing privacy policy is that, due to data regulations in the UK, we'll delete your account if it's unused for three years. So this is us doing routine admin that's already in our policies.
Why are we deleting old posts?
A couple of reasons.
First, there was an era in this community where moderation was minimal or non-existent. If you've ever taken a deep dive into the posts from over 10 years ago, you might have noticed that moderation back then looked VERY different, and we just don't know how safe or unsafe a lot of that content is.
Deleting those posts means all remaining posts will meet The Mix's standards of moderation and safety. We know that because some of us have been around that whole time (I'm old sssh 👴)
Secondly, as we transfer our data to new systems and join forces with Mental Health Innovations, it's a prime opportunity for us to have a reset and only take with us what we need.
Will this affect you?
If your account is less than roughly 10 years old, your posts won't be affected. The only exception here is if you replied to threads created over 10 years ago, your replies will be deleted along with those threads.
If your account is roughly 10 years old or more (which is probably only a couple of you!), any of your posts made before that period will be removed in the data cleaning process.
--
If you notice any slowness, page timeouts, etc in the next few days, it's nothing to worry about. All should be back to normal once the work has been completed.
You may even notice some things working a bit better than before - for example, searching the boards won't unhelpfully drag up posts from 2002... 😝
As we continue to work on our merger with Mental Health Innovations, we're doing some (long overdue!) data cleaning work on the discussion boards.
That means we're pruning accounts that haven't been used for at least three years and removing ancient posts that were made approximately 10 years ago or more.
Why are we deleting old accounts?
Part of our existing privacy policy is that, due to data regulations in the UK, we'll delete your account if it's unused for three years. So this is us doing routine admin that's already in our policies.
Why are we deleting old posts?
A couple of reasons.
First, there was an era in this community where moderation was minimal or non-existent. If you've ever taken a deep dive into the posts from over 10 years ago, you might have noticed that moderation back then looked VERY different, and we just don't know how safe or unsafe a lot of that content is.
Deleting those posts means all remaining posts will meet The Mix's standards of moderation and safety. We know that because some of us have been around that whole time (I'm old sssh 👴)
Secondly, as we transfer our data to new systems and join forces with Mental Health Innovations, it's a prime opportunity for us to have a reset and only take with us what we need.
Will this affect you?
If your account is less than roughly 10 years old, your posts won't be affected. The only exception here is if you replied to threads created over 10 years ago, your replies will be deleted along with those threads.
If your account is roughly 10 years old or more (which is probably only a couple of you!), any of your posts made before that period will be removed in the data cleaning process.
--
If you notice any slowness, page timeouts, etc in the next few days, it's nothing to worry about. All should be back to normal once the work has been completed.
You may even notice some things working a bit better than before - for example, searching the boards won't unhelpfully drag up posts from 2002... 😝
All behaviour is a need trying to be met.
The truth resists simplicity.
1
Comments
It will probably mean our longest serving and most consistently active member (I won’t tag but the staff will know who I’m on about) will lose a fair number of their posts, which is sad.
Wait, y...you weren't even born for some of them? 🫠🫠
And Tottenham
"The way that I have found the light in my life is through the expressive arts because I know that I will be accepted for the way I am." ~ Me
"I'm going to get strong again and see you soon. " ~ Anonymous
Good to know @JustV. I thought this might be the case to be honest, but suddenly realised my account is closer to 10 years old than I thought it was. I found this in late 2015 but it took me ages to register for the boards, so I have been here even longer than it says. Queue a quarterlife crisis…
I think forums were used very very differently back then, almost like facebook before facebook existed. So moderation would have been really different. Some of the old threads are rather funny for that reason. It was much busier with less staff
Some of the posts were indeed made before I was born too, I love finding one from 2002 and thinking fucking hell.. and I’m one of the older members now, so there will be potentially years of posts before some here now were even born.
Also, right there with you on the quaterlife crisis!
Yours was the post count I was referring to above... at the moment it looks the same, which is odd if threads have been deleted. I wonder if they're hidden?
I’ve never been too worried about post count. I’ve lost thousands due to previous deletions.
But losing 13 years of posts is a little bit sad. I joined when there were no smart phones, and social media wasn’t even a thing.
This was a place to seek advice but also a place to chill, hang out and chat shit. I dread to think how many hours I spent in front of my Mac looking at TheSite.
Lots of my life events have been recorded here, from legal issues and almost going to prison, to my mother’s death and the birth of my son.
I only pop back now and again to read old posts for nostalgia, or to see if I can provide some help in the drug forum or there’s something interesting in the politics forum.
But I’m too old for this place now. Nothing lasts forever, especially in IT. It’s progress. Happy that this place is still a very useful resource for young people.
That’s a really interesting perspective. It’s the same for me, I have spent countless hours here both on the boards and on chat. It is definitely still useful and I’m glad it helped you back in the day. I’ve got a lot documented here too
Definitely my friend! Some good memories on this place over the last 20 odd years, perhaps a lot of it deserves deleting mind...