I had hundreds (if not thousands) more posts than I have now. My profile only counts "active" posts now? What about my stars? I know it doesn't matter, but I'd still like to know the answer.

You are disappearing from time

probably lost in a forum pruning

They did a post recount, which caused the post totals to reflect the number of posts that currently exist instead of counting deleted posts.

A few months ago there was a pruning recount (whatever it's called ) Admins never commented on it, but it happened during one of the maintenance sessions.

It happened when they brought the Fallout 4 forum online in early June, 2015. As deaths_soul says, it was a recount. Our post counts are accurate going back to September 2009, which is when they last pruned inactive threads. So anyone who posted before 2009 has seen their displayed post count drop; anyone who joined after 2009 has not seen their displayed post count drop.

Yup. I went from an Arch-Patriarch to Diviner and from 5 stars to 3.

Now I'm just a nobody. (Do note a facetious "tone"!)

As you can see my profile is much older than that. I was incredibly active when these forums were dedicated to pretty much just morrowind. I'm deeply saddened that the-powers-that-be hold their oldest users in such low standing. I feel like they just kicked me in the [spotted owl] (a reference that only older forumites would understand ).

All your post history are belong to us.

My question is: why did they need to recount at all? They've operated forums for 16 years. During that time they've purged threads multiple times and moved us from the old "green forum" to our present forum. Through it all our post count has always remained intact. Why do this now?

I can't help but feel this was a massive screw-up.

The answer is obvious. Someone is screwing with the past and your beginning to fade from existence.

That occasionally happens; might've been something to do with an attempt to migrate something to the new forums (planned or unplanned) or someone might've just thought it seemed like a good idea at the time (er, yeah, guilty as charged when it comes to that sort of thing).

Nah, this is something that happens every now and again. Beth purges older posts, and folks that have been here for a while see their post count drop. Mine was over 40K not so very long ago...... Basically, I think they are just freeing up server space.... maybe it makes the forums faster. Who knows....

This one was different: although they purged old posts periodically (some subforums more often than others), users' post-counts remained the same. Even if their post history had changed, the overall post count is just a number that's normally only ever changed when they make a new post, at which point it's incremented. So, for instance, if a user makes 1,000 posts, then a purge clears 500 of them because they're old, their profile will still say 1,000. And if they make another 1,000, their profile will say they've made 2,000 even though at this point there's only 1,500 in existence, because the old 500 were deleted, an action which doesn't affect the individual post counts.

Unless someone does a recount, at which point it recalculates everybody's post count based on how many posts there are currently in the database. So that user will have suddenly "lost" the 500 posts that were actually deleted years ago. Purges happen a lot more often than recounts.

I'm just miffed because I could point at my old account and say "lol I are teh Patriarch!!1" but now it just says I was some smeggy old newbie with 3? posts to my name.

I would guess that things changed with an update to the forums at some point..... In the last purge, I lost 90% of my post count. (a few years back)

Sometime just before they migrated to Bethesda.net a pruning was completed that wiped out 2 of my stars and several thousand posts. It is kind of weird, it does feel like sort of a lost part of my life.

As you're in the area, you could go and harangue them in person until they provide a satisfactory explanation. Bring eggs. And squishy tomatoes.

Make sure they've sat out on the counter for at least a month in advanced please. (And think of how terrible Bethesda.net is while you throw at least one, even if just for me please.)

Seems Bethesda just can't get things right when it comes to forum stuff over the last while. Breaking here, and the mess that is Bethesda.net. You make me Bethesda.

This is very strange. I'm not sure how that happened. As I mentioned earlier I've never lost any of my post count, until last year. It has remained unaffected by pruning or forum moves from 2002 to 2015. I've not heard of it happening to anybody else, either.

There was no pruning. There was a recount. And it was probably an accident.

When they added the Fallout 4 forum last June some intern leaned on the control panel and accidentally pushed the big red Recount Button - the one surrounded by flashing lights and a sign that says "DO NOT TOUCH," resetting the count for all of the people who posted before 2009. He immediately pointed at the person standing next to him and said, "He did it! It's his fault!"

Lol. Sounds about right.

It's hard to do a recount by accident. The tool is in its own section in the control panel and actually contains big bold print under it stating "THERE IS NO UNDO". There's also a button you need to press along with selecting the recount option. They probably just figured it was time to perform one as they hadn't done so in a while.


Personally, I like to perform a recount periodically (every few months) on the forums I help manage to ensure that the statistics are as accurate as possible but that's just me.

My post count is down, too. No biggie.

Indeed. I log on for the first in four years to find that I am now a "Curate."

I've never felt so metaphorically naked on a forum before.

I feel you on that one.