Sciencemadness Discussion Board

How to delete many U2U messages very quickly

Texium - 28-6-2016 at 10:13

I recently returned from a two week long vacation during which I did not visit the forum at all. When I logged in, I was greeted with

"You have 507 new U2U messages. Would you like to view them now?"

I entered my inbox, and found that 506/507 of them were reported posts. Can't say I was surprised. Due to this, I have no desire to read any of them, and wish to delete all of them. However, I do not wish to click 507 check boxes (and the total is now up to 552). I have thought of checking everything else (about 200 messages) and then doing invert selection, but I was wondering if there is any other way to do it, or if an admin could somehow mass delete these messages for me.

Edit: Well... I just went through with checking the ones not to delete, and choosing some more to prune while I was at it, yet after I did this, inverted the selection, selected delete, and attempted to delete them as usual, it told me "No action chosen" and returned me to my still full inbox. So frustrating.

[Edited on 6-28-2016 by zts16]

aga - 28-6-2016 at 10:40

Delete this

[Edited on 28-6-2016 by aga]

Texium - 28-6-2016 at 10:52

No need for any cheek there aga. I had considered that but thought that if there was another way then other people might be happy to know about it too.

Texium - 28-6-2016 at 11:05

Quote: Originally posted by aga  
sigh.

Not being cheeky at all, just that it might have been better for 'other' people Not to know.
Hm, I suppose that I didn't interpret it that way as my mind doesn't work in the confounding way that yours does. Why it would be harmful for people to know that I am having trouble deleting U2U messages is beyond me.

The Volatile Chemist - 28-6-2016 at 13:21

Well, you could place your cursor in the propper spot, do Ctrl-F find:reported, then click, enter, click, enter, etc. that work with your browser?

Texium - 28-6-2016 at 18:05

Unfortunately it did not, though I will try with other browsers tomorrow and see if I get a better result. Good idea!

woelen - 29-6-2016 at 01:03

I think what you report is a bug in the forum software. I notified Polverone about this in the moderator section. In the past this method of selecting U2U's and then deleting all of them at once did work.

Marvin - 29-6-2016 at 04:39

I was under the impression that when the script that deletes reported spammers is triggered it's also supposed to automatically delete the report notification PMs. Are these the type of PMs that are remaining?

Texium - 29-6-2016 at 07:25

It does not automatically delete the reported post U2U messages, and I wasn't under the impression that it was supposed to. It would be nice if it did though.

Marvin - 29-6-2016 at 08:21

I may have interpreted it incorrectly or the way the script works may have changed, but at the time I took this to mean they were supposed to auto-delete.
Quote: Originally posted by Polverone  
If two trusted users report a post as spam, the spammer, all his posts, and the reports are all automatically eliminated.

Polverone - 29-6-2016 at 09:44

It should have deleted the reported U2Us. Let me check why it didn't.

Also, the reason you can't delete a bunch of U2Us at once by manual selection is that a PHP setting reverted when I did the recent server upgrade. I'll try to fix that tonight.

The Volatile Chemist - 29-6-2016 at 10:05

Quote: Originally posted by Marvin  
I may have interpreted it incorrectly or the way the script works may have changed, but at the time I took this to mean they were supposed to auto-delete.

Quote: Originally posted by Polverone  
If two trusted users report a post as spam, the spammer, all his posts, and the reports are all automatically eliminated.

What constitutes a user as trusted, and what counts as reporting 'as spam'? Do I have to report it with the text 'spam' in the report? That's what I've been doing. Or does any report count as tagging as spam, even if it's not calling it spam?

Marvin - 29-6-2016 at 10:41

That part has changed, now something like 1 trusted and 1 semi-trusted will produce a wipe, or a single report from a mod or above. Trusted means you are on the list, semi trusted means you have more than 50 posts and have been a member at least 60 days. A report with just 'spam' in the body is the right thing.

Texium - 29-6-2016 at 13:26

Quote: Originally posted by Polverone  
It should have deleted the reported U2Us. Let me check why it didn't.

Also, the reason you can't delete a bunch of U2Us at once by manual selection is that a PHP setting reverted when I did the recent server upgrade. I'll try to fix that tonight.
Does it delete them for you? Because it never has for me. It isn't a new problem, I'm just normally more active and delete them as they come in.
Once that manual deletion bug is fixed though, I'll go ahead and slog through them again, it didn't take incredibly long when I tried it the other day.

Polverone - 29-6-2016 at 19:04

Sorry zts16 -- I hadn't actually added you to the moderators list in the spam slayer script until just now. In the future you should get the report U2Us auto-deleted like the rest of the mods.

I have also fixed the setting so that you, and anyone else with a large U2U inbox, should once again be able to delete messages en masse.

Texium - 30-6-2016 at 04:25

Aha, thank you very much. It appears to have killed a couple hundred of them for me, so it's much more manageable now.