Forum is inaccessible. Is there any way we can recover it?

Technical Details

Forum version : #phpBB2
Position : Founder
Concerned browser(s) : Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Other
Screenshot of problem : https://i.servimg.com/u/f11/17/04/80/29/bakuga10.jpg
Who the problem concerns : All members
Forum link : http://www.bakuganhyperspace.forummotion.com

Description of problem

Hello everyone,

My name is James, and I've been managing an RPG forum for about 7 years now. I kept moving on to bigger and better forums that served as "sequels" to the original web site so that we could prevent clutter.

The sequel forum still exists here: www.bakugannewhyperspace.forummotion.com

... however, its predecessor now acts as if it no longer exists: www.bakuganhyperspace.forummotion.com

I do know that the predecessor forum was using PHPBB2 and that the sequel forum uses PHPBB3, in case that would shed some light. A quick search on the WayBackMachine reveals that the forum DID in fact exist once before, as displayed in the provided screenshot. I believe I locked up the forum to prevent other users from posting any defamatory content before I proceeded to the next one... but the forum is still missing and I was the only one with administrative rights once I locked up the forum and all of its threads.

Is there any way we could perhaps track what happened? I still have the creation email address and perhaps even the creation password. As hard as it is to believe, many character-building, life-defining moments took place on this web site for a lot of people and I know it would mean a lot to them and countless others if we could reclaim the web page.

I even checked OnlineGuardian.net and the forum is not listed in their database, nor did my creation email receive any warnings from them that anything would be banned or deleted for any reason. The forum truly just vanished into thin air...

Any help at all would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.

It was ban and then deleted.

SLGray wrote:It was ban and then deleted.

Thanks for your swift reply.

Is there any explanation listed for its deletion? It seems there was a misunderstanding. Also, is there any way to recover the forums as they appeared without allowing new users to join or new posts to be made?

I'd just like to see it as it was, I don't need to enable it to show new content.

Sexual Content and/or Porn Content

Since it has been deleted, there is no way to restore it.

I figured as much.... I locked the forums up and checked for new posts, but there's always the chance that someone simply edited their own existing posts anywhere on the forum prior my locking them, and then reported the site for abuse with the click of a button. Unless I'm missing something, there's no way in the control panel to see when a user has merely edited their post on the forum...

To think that I went to all the trouble of creating the most extensive word censoring parameters known to man, and some errant user got the forum deleted by editing inappropriate content into their previous posts like needles in haystacks and then reporting the forum for abuse. Seems like an inherent design flaw if you ask me. But I'm not here to argue, so thanks for the information... displeasing as it is.

There is no way for us to know exactly what happened.  So members could still log into the forum?

I do believe users were still able to log into the forum. However, since I locked up every forum, there was no way to post any new topics or revise any posts. This really does seem like it was caused by someone editing various posts buried in the forums prior to the moment I locked everything.

Well then, you had it already on the forum before you locked it.

This is most likely the case, however since editing a message in any way does not resurface the topic at the top of the page (and is untraceable in the security section of the control panel), it is borderline impossible to know when such a change had been made without combing through every post in every forum. If the topic is cited by whomever reported the forum for abuse, then OnlineGuardian.net can find it immediately whereas the founder of the forum has no indication as to where this topic/post can be found, or if it even exists at all.