Old Off Topic Thread Retrieval Help Needed!!!

[Jester]

I am hoping some of the CS members who have been here for a few years can help me out here.

I just discovered that the original Human Piñata thread (linked to here) has inadvertently been deleted from the archives as part of a cleaning process. These things happen. Obviously the link will no longer direct you to the thread, as the thread isn't there to be directed to. But I figured that might help with context.

But that thread was very personal to me, and I don't know if I have a copy of it anywhere in my files. I'm pretty certain I don't have it in my laptop, as I've only had that a few years, and my desktop is basically dead. I am going to have my roommate retrieve my files off of the desktop, but I'm not sure there is a backup of the original story there, and I know there is no copy of the whole thread, which tells the full story.

But as I said, that story was very personal for me, and I'm hoping against hope that someone from this site, for whatever reason mirrored or copied that thread. If so, I would desperately like a copy of it. It is probably one of the most meaningful and heartfelt things I've ever written here, and to find out it may be gone, today, a day I sent Tiny Dancer's sister some old pictures and flyers I found from her memorial, came as a bit of gut punch.

So if anyone can help me with this, it would be most appreciated.

I humbly thank you for your time.

[TheSHAD0W]

It'd help if you had the original URL to the article...

Edit: Durp, it was in the message. Here ya go.

http://web.archive.org/web/201210311...ad.php?t=20782

Edit #2: Double-durp, I'm afraid the entire thing wasn't saved.

[Jester]

It's a start. Thank you. Hopefully someone else will find more of it.

[Jester]

Not all the pages are accessible, but enough were that I made the mistake of starting to reread it.

Big mistake.

Another time, perhaps. But not tonight.

And for those of you that do remember this story, sadly, justice was never done. The fucker still walks free, and last I heard, does so down here. Only by not thinking too much about that have I managed to not end up in jail myself. But it still occasionally gnaws at me.

Suicide my ass.

[Tama]

The good part is that he was never arrested, right? So if evidence comes to light you don't have to worry about that pesky double jeopardy.

[Jester]

He was arrested for the initial assault. Never for the death. But as they were they only two people in the house that night, and as it was ruled by the ME as a suicide six years ago, and since the police stopped investigating it after the ME's ruling, it seems ridiculously unlikely that any new evidence would ever see the light of day.

[lupo pazzesco]

Hey Jester, PM Cooper, I think she said she was archiving CSers, and maybe some of yours were in there? I'm not sure, but I recall you discussing it via her thread.

[Gravekeeper]

Web Archive has more pages than it suggests Jester, it just has gaps. Digging through page by page it has:

Pages:
1-12
20
22
24
26
28
30-34

Still not all of them but more than you would think if you started from the beginning.

[EricKei]

We've got it passed on to Pederson, our site tech guru, to see if he can come up with something as well.

Signed, ze mod team

[PhiSigGirl1988]

Hope you feel better, Jester. I can't even imagine what you all went through with this. I remember that thread, and it actually helped me help a friend. I hope we can get it back.

[Pedersen]

Jester, I've got some news that I'm sure will be mixed news: Lupo asked me about this yesterday, and I was very lucky in that I found an old backup, and was able to extract that thread from it. That's not able to put it in a usable form for you, though (not unless you like reading database dumps).

Some slight technical details about the site/forum software: Posts can have a whole bunch of things done to them over time. Some of them get done by mods, some don't. I'm not positive of the condition of this thread at this point in time. I might have to get more data that I don't know about yet.

The upshot of this is that I'm going to coordinate with the mods so that, when I upload this thread, it will be visible for a few moments before they mark it as hidden. They then will have to review it (in particular, looking for posts that were marked as deleted, but actually aren't due to the backup/restore process being incomplete), then once they've got that done it will be visible again. Considering that there's a little over 330 posts, it's going to take a bit. I won't speak for them as to the length of time it will take, though.

ETA: The data has been restored now, and it looks like in full. The mods are checking things over to make sure that everything displays the way it should.

[Shpepper]

You are all incredible. That was one hell of a thread to read, and I know it was even harder for Jester to live through it. Thank you all so much for the great work you do and your work to restore this for him.

[Jester]

Let me also express my appreciation to Pedersen and the whole mod team. It's not just that this is an important thread to me. I often reference it and/or link to it for various reasons, including as an example of how an abusive relationship can get completely out of hand.

[EricKei]

http://customerssuck.com/board/showthread.php?t=20782

The thread is back up. It was from before my time, so I went through it for the first time and O_O

[Jester]

To the entire mod team, and especially to Pedersen, thank you very much.

And I hope my friend's story can, despite it's horror and tragedy, help some people who may find themselves in similar situations, either to Tiny Dancer or myself.

And yes, Eric....it sucked. But I do believe that telling such stories can sometimes help prevent other such stories from happening. Knowledge and education are weapons against such things, and weapons we must wield, not only on this site, but in our lives.