Yeah, bens method will work for deleting stuff - if it's really necessary. I edited your first post to contain the information of the second cause i hid it and actually i cant see a way to get it back. Unhiding discussions works as ben suggested (though you have to find them to begin with, which is a fun challenge), but unhiding comments is a little mysterious at first glance?
obviously, there would be some permissions attached to it, like the new applicant search. (I think there is speacial protection so the average user can't do that search... I would hope so).
there is now, yeah. I looked for a search like that but i couldnt find one.
What i would sorta like to see is the ability for users to run completely self made searches (i.e. just writing in the statement to run, perhaps with some sort of wysiwyg editor) - obviously the permissions on this would have to be uber high (master admin only, perhaps) but it could come in useful. There have been requests for extended search capabilities recently though.
I still feel it is important and relavent to the topic.
That advanced advanced-search fuction would be great. The wysisyg editor is not so important imo, but the ability to write search queries (even sql queries) right vanilla would be invaluable.
And it would potentially solve this problem of finding hiden comments. (pulled it back on track).
it also seems you can't unhide discussions without going back to the discussion page itself! it would be helpful to have a "hidden discussions" filter or something...
I think it should just be a list in the admin panel. Simple and easy. Login, go to settings, click a link on the left that says "Hidden Comments/Discussions". And then just have it make a list of em all. I think thats a lot simpler than an uber search that I would most likey have to make (type out the sql?) myself.
The block user/comment is usefull, for people that post annoying HTML, but if HTML posting is not enabled on the forum, these options should not show up, right?
Maybe the options should have a enable/disable function. I read that Mark was stripping out almost everything and making them extensions. So this is probably covered, along with a few others I would imagine.
Deleting comments and topics in some forums unfortunately is a necessity. If the main way people can delete topics is by hiding them first, then it goes without saying that you would need an easily accessible unhide option.
Many forums are set up by people who know what they're doing then handed over to less experienced users to maintain and moderate.
Without easily being able to hide and unhide easily I can see moderators gettin' frustrated!