Topic: [Request] Permanently Deletes Post

Posted under Site Bug Reports & Feature Requests

whatismyname1234

Member

Just looking at the search bar and type status:deleted makes me a little annoyed, it's like looking at spoiled food and knowing that it'll never decompose entirely. I propose that any post that's been deleted for a very long time (say 5 or 10 years) it'll be removed from the server completely, freeing up spaces.

And if anyone wants to see those deleted images/videos/comments, maybe use a Wayback Machine instead.

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

Why would we do that? All of the existing posts will forever outweigh the size of all of the deleted posts combined[1], plus we don't get duplicate prevention if we just entirely remove posts forever
Pointing at the wayback machine as an alternative is also a horrible idea considering how much they struggle to stay afloat and how often they're either entirely down or running at a snail's pace


[1]: For reference, we have about 1,142GiB of deleted posts, and 10,595GiB of non-deleted posts (ignore the method being gigabyte, rails is dumb)

Notknow

Member

whatismyname1234 said:
freeing up spaces.

Well I think e621 hasn't been having problems with storage so this shouldn't be a huge concern...

Still things like description and source links this way are preserved so you can still have some context and it can help digging about an artist old work or something.

TheGreatWolfgang

Privileged

See e621 stats. The space saved from permanently deleting all "deleted" content is negligible and is outweighed by the benefits of keeping them around in the system.

"Deleted" posts are preserved to prevent people from reuploading them again.
It also helps to keep record of which post should remain deleted (e.g., artist/character owner takedowns) to prevent them from reappearing again.
In contrast, deleted posts may also be restored/undeleted easily should circumstances permit, such as when a takedown is reversed.

The actual "destruction" of posts are only done with content that have no business being on e621 at all, or in rare occasions, general housekeeping (such as from spam).

whatismyname1234

Member

donovan_dmc said:
Why would we do that? All of the existing posts will forever outweigh the size of all of the deleted posts combined[1]

[1]: For reference, we have about 1,142GiB of deleted posts, and 10,595GiB of non-deleted posts (ignore the method being gigabyte, rails is dumb)

Well at least it's pretty small, but I wonder, one the https://e926.net/stats there's also "destroyed" post, it's that like permanently deleted? or...

notknow said:
Well I think e621 hasn't been having problems with storage so this shouldn't be a huge concern...

I wonder what's causing the site to be slow to begin with (I'm currently using e926 because of it) sometimes it's 502 error, other times it's "main server not responding" and if it's not storage issue, what is it then? high traffic? cloudfare being bad again? aliens???

Notknow

Member

whatismyname1234 said:
I wonder what's causing the site to be slow to begin with (I'm currently using e926 because of it) sometimes it's 502 error, other times it's "main server not responding" and if it's not storage issue, what is it then? high traffic? cloudfare being bad again? aliens???

There are a few threads about this issue, I think TGW linked some.

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

whatismyname1234 said:
I wonder what's causing the site to be slow to begin with (I'm currently using e926 because of it) sometimes it's 502 error, other times it's "main server not responding" and if it's not storage issue, what is it then? high traffic? cloudfare being bad again? aliens???

Storage issues won't cause slow loading, it would cause at worst a partial request content to be returned, and realistically a 500 Internal Server Error, which would look nothing like a 502 from cloudflare
And even then I'm pretty sure full storage would be unlikely to cause really any issues with just reading, requests are served nearly entirely from memory else they would be agonizingly slow all the time
Proxy buffering might cause some interference, but that would again just be a 500 error and not a 502 cloudflare error
I'd also bet on the reverse proxy that requests first hit being on its own server entirely separate from the actual app instances, the reverse proxy doesn't need to do any writing beyond logs (which would just fail with a log line and move on), and there are several app servers a request can hit

Updated

skunkbitten

Member

I think this is a bad idea for archiving/evidence reasons and/or in the future if someone wants to know what the post presumably was. To my knowledge, posts currently are ONLY fully deleted and become inaccessible if they were used to upload really bad illegal content (such as CSEM). Which is understandable because it is a crime to distribute that sort of illegal content, and I think that's how it should really stay.
Some artists likely deliberately want you to see their takedown reasoning if for some reason you re-stumbled upon the page(not everyone hits the hide the reason button!!!), you purge a lot of contexts by completely destroying the post(s) even within a time limit. Plus for posts like troll posts & things like that that were bound to be deleted really just don't need to be purged since I don't think deleted posts effect e621's upper storage limit at all. Even with how much artists post art, it will take a loooooong time before the server fully runs out of space.
Not every post can be archived by archive sites too-espsically for artwork that is log in only. But, nevertheless I think the record for non-illegal deleted posts are definitely something that would be pointless to purge like that, and might cause protentional issues in the future (like what if an artist returns after 5 years and wants their art back up and changes their mind?)

Aacafah

Moderator

whatismyname1234 said:
Well at least it's pretty small, but I wonder, one the https://e926.net/stats there's also "destroyed" post, it's that like permanently deleted? or...

Yes, that's for true & irreversible deletions (hence destruction). As for why?

skunkbitten said:
To my knowledge, posts currently are ONLY fully deleted and become inaccessible if they were used to upload really bad illegal content (such as CSEM). Which is understandable because it is a crime to distribute that sort of illegal content, and I think that's how it should really stay.

post #5604856

Bingo.