tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Vanishing comments)

HJRW comments on "Vanishing comments" (3730)

HJRW — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:22:49 -0800

The bugs I have been experiencing seem to have spontaneously fixed themselves! If they reappear, I'll try your test. Thanks for all your help.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Vanishing comments" (3688)

Anton Geraschenko — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:38:59 -0800

Okay, here's a test you can do to see if the tiny changes I made to the comments function are causing the problem (I think). Load a page on Math Overflow. After the page is fully loaded, paste the following into your location bar and hit enter:

javascript:var e = document.createElement("script"); e.src = "/content/js/question.js"; e.type="text/javascript"; document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(e);

This will load the original comments function (I notice it works properly in Chrome for me, but screws up in Firefox ... maybe it will work for you). Then paste the following into your location bar and hit enter:

javascript:comments.init();

This will bind all the right functions to all the right places. Now try

clicking the "add / show 4 more comments" link. The math shouldn't render, but does it work properly aside from that?
submitting a comment.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Vanishing comments" (3687)

Anton Geraschenko — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:16:59 -0800

Well, I did recently modify the comments function to render math in comments, so it could be that, but the difference between the two is tiny, and it shouldn't in any way interfere with the submission process. Let me see if there's an easy way for you to load the old comments function and see if it works.

HJRW comments on "Vanishing comments" (3685)

HJRW — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:08:13 -0800

Thanks for the advice, Anton. I was able to post comments at faketestsite in my usual browser (Firefox), and I found that I was able to post comments at MO using Safari. Should I nevertheless post a bug report, or should I just put it down to the vicissitudes of Firefox?

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Vanishing comments" (3684)

Anton Geraschenko — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:30:04 -0800

@wilton: I've confirmed that none of your recent comments made it into the database. Would you mind posting a bug report on meta.SE? (If yes, I can do it for you, but you're better equipped to provide details.) Here are some things to check:

Do you have this problem on all computers? Does it happen in all browsers? If not, your browser is probably doing something weird with javascript.
Does it happen from all locations? If you get this behavior in your office, but not at home, Fog Creek may be doing some improper throttling.
Does it happen on other SE sites? You can test this by asking a question on the dummy site http://faketestsite.stackexchange.com/ and then leaving a comment on it.

Scott Morrison comments on "Vanishing comments" (3683)

Scott Morrison — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:51:39 -0800

Nope, not me, at least this time! :-)

HJRW comments on "Vanishing comments" (3680)

HJRW — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:38:44 -0800

Further problems:

1. My setting to ignore soft questions spontaneously unset itself.

2. When I click on a link saying something like 'add / show 4 more comments', I get multiple comment boxes and no more actual comments.

Something's definitely wrong with my account.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Vanishing comments" (3678)

Anton Geraschenko — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:46:45 -0800

It doesn't sound like the same thing, especially given that the conclusion of the other thread is that we shouldn't ever delete comments without an explanation. I'll have a look at the database to see if your comments appear there (unfortunately, it's still a bit of a slow process for me to get a database dump).

HJRW comments on "Vanishing comments" (3677)

HJRW — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:38:59 -0800

Also, I just had the same problem on this question: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/17221/can-a-quotient-of-a-group-by-two-different-subgroups-be-isomorphic . It seems that my comments just don't appear.

HJRW comments on "Vanishing comments" (3676)

HJRW — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:06:55 -0800

This was instantaneous, and my comments were technical. I'm pretty sure it was a software problem, rather than moderator intervention.

David Speyer comments on "Vanishing comments" (3674)

David Speyer — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:07:06 -0800

I'm not sure that is the same thing. Could our moderators please confirm whether you are vanishing comments from the decidability discussion?

Grétar Amazeen comments on "Vanishing comments" (3672)

Grétar Amazeen — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:22:27 -0800

This is being discussed here
http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/183/comments-that-vanish/#Item_32

HJRW comments on "Vanishing comments" (3671)

HJRW — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:11:11 -0800

I've now tried to comment twice on this question: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/17157/which-finitely-presented-groups-can-be-distinguished-by-decidable-properties .

Both times, my comment vanished immediately. What's going on?