Is the recycle bin enabled on this SMF?

[MrPete]

I spent significant time creating my first post, and it was deleted, not approved.

The SMF software offers a feature, a recycle bin, that would enable undoing such things.

Suggestion: if not already enabled, it would be good to set that up.

* Create a (hidden) Board for recycled topics
* Admin -> Forum -> Boards and Categories -> Settings -> Enable recycling of deleted topics

* Below that, select the Board for recycled topics.

[Mario]

I spent significant time creating my first post, and it was deleted, not approved.

I have not deleted any of your posts.
Unless a moderator did it, which I doubt, I would count this as a computer error.
Ne moderation log entries for your account, and only one post recorded in your stats.

I see no recent post deletes in the moderation log.
Recycle bin is off and was never needed, for the past about 10 years.
When a topic is deleted, it is deleted for good reasons.

We don't have to delete topics very often, since IMatch community users are sensible and friendly people.
The only case I actually delete posts is when I delete yet another SPAM bot account who posted links to shady web sites.

The last time a topic was removed (as part of deleting a SPAM account) was on August 12.

[MrPete]

Thanks for looking into this!

Yes, quite strange. I wrote, posted, saw the pink "unapproved"... and then it was gone. Perhaps that accidentally coincided with something else. Oh well, non-repeatable things are incredibly hard to diagnose! Let's just move on

[Mario]

All new members are unapproved until a moderator has approved their first couple of posts.

This keeps out all the SPAM bots and other riff-raff just joining to post links to scam web sites and whatnot.

The more intelligent Spammers learn quickly that it is a waste of their time if nobody sees their posts before a moderator explicitly approves them. Which we don't. Instead we just delete their account. And so they move elsewhere.