Quarantined Threads?

[sternface]

There's a thread in Relationships I've been posting on, but it has disappeared from the board itself tonight, yet it comes up in 'Threads I'm On' and the last post was after 9p.m. I noticed this happened a few months ago with a couple of other threads I was on too. The thread doesn't appear to have been deleted, so is there a reason for this?

OOOOoo interesting.

Do you have a link to the thread sternface? This shouldn't happen.
Are you able to read the thread?

Thanks Rebecca, it was this one but by this morning, it had been restored to the main board and had further posts. I think at least one other thread was quarantined as well as I happened to notice that an hour seemed to have elapsed without any posts at all on that board which would be strange in itself and yet sure enough, this morning another thread with posts within that hour seems to be back on the board.

Any update on this?

This isn't about a particular thread you see, because it's happened before. I'm just interested to know why it happens.

It's happened again today. On the Relationships board tonight, there is a gap where apparantly no-one posted between 14.58 and 18.18 and there is at least one thread that was there earlier that isn't showing up on the board and it hasn't been deleted (I remembered the name of the OP and the thread comes up in advanced search).

I'm surprised the OPs themselves don't query this with you, unless of course the threads are started by Mumsnet employees?

Is there any update on this mystery yet please?

Hi Sternface,

No mystery. We just think that folks aren't posting on certain threads for a while or could you have accidentally hidden them?

We do not quarantine threads or stop folks from posting on threads unless they are maxed out at 1000 posts or deleted.

Do you know how to unhide threads?

No that can't be the explanation, but thanks for getting back.

As I've said upthread, on the occasions when this has happened, there were big time gaps between threads shown next to eachother on the Relationships board and yet when those 'missing' threads have reappeared, there were posts made at times during those intervals, until they disappeared from view. The only reason people stopped posting on those threads for long periods is because they were hidden from the main board. In some cases as soon as they've re-appeared, people have started posting on them again. I've also never yet hidden a thread on Mumsnet, deliberately or accidentally (I've checked that). Could you look into this again please?

Just to reiterate we absolutely do not hide threads
Could it be the way that you're browsing? Sorry if we're sounding thick but what do you mean by hidden "from the main boards?"
Thanks
MNHQ

'Hidden' meaning that they temporarily disappear from the (in this case Relationships) board and therefore no-one posts on them, only for them to re-appear again after a few hours/overnight. As soon as they re-appear, posters start posting again on them. As I've said, this has happened to threads I've posted on and threads which I haven't. The former therefore still appear in 'Threads I'm On' (but aren't visible on the board itself) but others I've lurked on or haven't clicked on at all have on about 5 occasions now, temporarily disappeared from the board. I don't think this is personal to me or the way I'm browsing, because of the absence of other posts during the long intervals when they disappear. This might be understandable on a 'slow' thread, but not one that has attracted lots of posts.

Whenever this has happened, there is a large time gap showing between threads e.g. the gap I referred to in my earlier post. However when those threads re-appear, there are posts that have been made during this 'time gap' (and therefore obviously before they disappeared from view) but on the chronology of the board itself, it looks like no-one has made a post on any Relationships thread for several hours.

In the past I've thought that it was possible you quarantined contentious threads in order to take the heat out of the situation for a few hours, but this seems to have happened to all sorts of threads from all sorts of posters and of course you've now confirmed that doesn't happen. Therefore I've assumed there is a technical glitch somewhere.

I genuinely don't think this is me accidentally hiding and unhiding threads - mainly because of the gaps in anyone posting.

Hope that explains the problem!

But, if there are posts made during the time period you can't see the threads then surely other people can still see them and post on them.

This is something that for some reason is really difficult to explain written down (my fault not anyone else's!) but it's probably best to explain it like this in relation to the thread I linked above which is a typical example.

This was a thread with lots of posts which was regularly in active convos. I posted on it in the early afternoon of 14 June and then did stuff in RL. I popped back on to Mumsnet just before going to bed, but didn't log on as it was late and I wasn't going to post. This thread and a couple of others I'd remembered, seemed to have disappeared. There was a strange time gap on the Relationships board which looked as though a few threads were 'missing'. There was about an hour time-frame between 21.00 and 22.00 when no-one had posted anything at all. I then did log on and the linked thread came up in 'threads I'm on' and there had been a few more posts during the evening, the last one at 21.51. But according to the Relationships board, no-one had posted anything at 21.51.

My guess is that shortly after this last post, this thread and others disappeared from view to everyone but by the following morning, the thread was back and the first post was at 6.12 in the morning.

Because I was away doing other things, I've got no idea when the thread actually disappeared from the board (or when it re-appeared in the night), but obviously at some point after the last posts on it that evening.

A few days later, the same thing happened again with a gap of 3 hours 20 minutes on the Relationships board where apparently no-one had posted anything at all on that board - a very unlikely occurrence on an average Monday! I recognised at least one thread was missing that I'd seen earlier but hadn't posted on. I remembered the OP's name and did an advanced search and it hadn't been deleted, but had attracted no posts for ages. It did attract further posts when it re-appeared on the boards and was visible to all.

One of the reasons why I don't think it's me hiding and unhiding threads (apart from the fact it's something I've never done) is that presumably you have to log on for Mumsnet to hide the threads you've chosen to hide? I didn't log on when I went looking for that initial thread and it was still hidden from view.

Hi Sternface, We'll look into this. It's a bit of a head-scratcher, because it's hard to see how it might have happened, but we'll have a look.

Many thanks.

Hi there. I'd hoped there'd be an update by now, but I thought I'd let you know that posters on two recent threads have reported the same problem.

Thread this week

Thread from fortnight ago

It's a bit of a relief that it isn't just me noticing it and I'd be interested to know why this is happening.

Hi Sternface,
Apologies for the lack of update - we will nudge Tech, although I will say that the Tech team are a bit thin this week due to holidays so it may take a little while for them to get back to you on this one.

Many thanks.

I don't expect a quick reply to this post, but there are further reports of this today with several people commenting that their threads went missing today - one of these I'd noticed too.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/1521708-where-did-my-thread-go

Glad I persevered with this now.

@RebeccaMumsnet

Hi Sternface, Apologies for the lack of update - we will nudge Tech, although I will say that the Tech team are a bit thin this week due to holidays so it may take a little while for them to get back to you on this one.

Are you implying that they're fat other weeks, Rebeca?

I had the same thing happen to one of my threads on the primary ed board this week too. It was invisible for a while too even though it was showing on threads I am and the board showed for a while that nobody had posted for about six hours whereas using advanced search for a poster who was on my thread I could see that posters had been posting in that time as usual.