Trolling 101 for Moderators

Today's lesson:  How to delete a reply from a topic where the troll has posted the code body style="display:none;" to create the appearance of a completely blank page.

This is particularly annoying, because the cause of the issue isn't immediately obvious. While you can still delete the topic, you will also lose whatever productive posts preceded the trolling. This can be resolved by pulling the correct code from the "view source" option.

HOW TO:

1) Use FireFox or any other browser that can execute javascript from the address bar (AKA the blank space where the "http:// . . ." normally lives). You must be logged in under your moderator account for this to work.

2) Go to the problem page. Even if you see nothing, there is still stuff there! To access the stuff, go to the "View" menu pulldown and select "Page Source." This will open another window full of code.

3) Skim through it all until you can identify the reply that is posted by the troll. If you know your troll's display name, you can use that to search him/her out. It will usually be a "." or some junk code like "­" that would make it difficult to see or click. It will be in a chunk of code that looks like this:

<a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=142504090"> [USERNAME] < /a>

4) Once you find that intial bit of identifying code, skim down line by line until you hit this line:

<a href="#" class="deletereply" onClick="return deleteReply(REPLYNUMBER);">Delete Reply < / a>

5) Copy the "REPLYNUMBER" and paste it into this line of code:

jxxavascripxxt:deleteReply(REPLYNUMBER);

6) Type that whole line into your address bar without the 'xx's and hit "Enter."

7) A javascript prompt will appear asking you if you 'really want to delete this reply.' Select 'yes' and it will delete it.

8) Ta-da!

10:54 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment