this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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API limits, need to use a tool that waits 5s between each call otherwise it gets limited and doesn't actually edit/delete everything!
The second time I tried, I used a forked PDS that had a 5s timeout modification, edit only, no deletes. It edited my comments, but only up to two months. The rest don't even show on my own profile, but I still find 10 and 11 months old comments if I search online.
I used the 5s delay PDS fork and while it took several hours to overwrite thousands of comments, several days later they all show my protest message, even older ones.
That was my experience as well! I guess editing is no problem, while deleting is. I found a comment I made 2y ago via websearch and it indeed got edited correctly, while the oldest comment I can find via reddit is only 9 months old; which means that comment I made 2y ago has to be way over the 1000 comments limit (which happens at the 9 months mark for me) that reddit has, but the updated script manages to scrape and edit comments beyond the 1k limit; while other people are reporting issues with deletion
edit: after further research I came across some comments that didn't get edited by the script. No idea why, as their parent comment and one of the replies to it, also mine, did get edited. But further down the chain some survived
How do you find those unedited comments? Anyway, I ran it overnight and it said to have processed all 2k+ comments and I did check many pages (not all) including the last page which had almost 2y old comments, and all of them were edited. I had to make a second pass only because some subs were closed for the blackout and those comments couldn't be touched
Google searching. How do you see your oldest comments in your own profile? Mine just disappear after the 2 month mark or so. There is nothing. But if I look under saved posts for example, there are old comments still hanging there. I specified to edit everything- gilded, saved, everything
old.reddit allows you to go further back than that. IIRC there's a setting about how many links to show, that by default is 25 but you can also choose 100. After that, you go to your comments and manually go back and that should allow you to view much older comments.
So you just search "your username + reddit"? I'd like to check if any comments were left untouched!
reddit limits your profile menus (New, Top, Hot & Controversial) to 1,000 comments each. If you have older comments that aren't popular nor controversial, then these won't appear on your profile. In particular, if you have an old Top comment, you might find it deleted but low but positive karma replies left in.
You need to do a GDPR request and feed that into shreddit (the github version, the website charges for the feature). Alternatively, you can get the Pushshift backup of all of reddit from 2022 and run a script to filter out your comments, then feed that into another script. However, shreddit uses the API, so time is limited for that option, and I've also found it panics a lot so you have to keep cutting out the comments and running it again.
Hopefully someone will make a new version that works post 1 July.
This explains it then. I could do a GDPR request but I don't see myself paying for deleting comments, and I'm not that tech savy so- I guess this is as far as I'll ever get. Thanks for shedding light into it though :)
Yeah I saw someone talking about the Pushshift method if you don't have a GDPR request (which reddit have been stalling on for the last month anyway, so you won't get it in time). The method was messy, you get this script from one github, edit the script to scrape out your comments, then edit another script to get it to work with your scraped links. That just seems like way too much hassle.
Even shreddit has been a pain for me. It panics every so many comments (sometimes a few thousand, sometimes just 1) and then I have to find the comment it stopped at, delete all the comments up to that point (backing them up in another text file) then run the script again. I've been at it for ages now, I've got 96 comment files so far and still have 24,000 lines left (out of 75,000) in the main comment file. But I'm determined to get it done before the deadline.
Then afterwards when reddit inevitably restores them I'll have a record of everything being deleted, so hopefully I can get the ICO to give them a hefty GDPR fine for retaining and restoring my personal information.
The PowerDeleteSuit fork I used had no problems editing 2y old comments. I did a websearch for my username and chose a custom time for the results, which I set to between one day before I created my account and two weeks later. The oldest comment I found by doing so is from ten days after I created my account, and it is edited like I instructed the script to do. Wasn't a popular comment either, with just 3 upvotes. I think I'm in the clear!
Could you point me in the direction of your fork version please?
Sure, sorry for not linking it earlier. I used this
https://github.com/pkolyvas/PowerDeleteSuite
I just tried it for myself, it only made 63 requests to delete 12 comments. These were in my profile, they're ones that have reappeared after being deleted previously.
Meanwhile, if I look in my GDPR files up to where I've got so far with shreddit, the comments are still there, completely untouched.
Maybe you don't have too many comments, so you're within the 1,000 comment limit across your different lists? It's impossible to be sure without having the direct links, either from a GDPR request or the Pushshift backup.
No idea, to be honest! Could it be because I only edited my comments?
I doubt it, they're still looking at the same comment lists.
You could always do a GDPR or CCPA request anyway. Then you should be able to check, even if it comes through after 1 July.
Alright, thanks! I guess I'll do that, and the other thing you mentioned, so I can edit everything to the last comment just out of spite lol
Thanks. That's the same version I used. :( Glad it worked for you... I'll try again tomorrow and see how it goes. My old comments are still hanging out there.
Yes, username + reddit and if you remember a keyword from any old posts, that helps too.
I'm pretty sure I was looking through old.reddit, but being a 3rd party app user I'm not too familiar with the desktop interface. I'll check the settings and my comments again next, time, thank you!
I just did a websearch for my username + reddit. Found a comment I made just 10 days after I created the account, arpund 2 years ago, and it now shows the new text I instructed the script to edit all my comments with.
I can therefore higly recommend this fork of PowerDeleteSuite
https://github.com/pkolyvas/PowerDeleteSuite
As it seems no comments were left untouched! I checked old.reddit and it indeed stops much earlier (I think around 1000 comments like the other user said) which for me is just 9 months ago (so I may have not noticed this the first time and assumed the last page included the very first comments), but since I found a 2y old comment like I said above and it was edited correctly by the script, I can say it works lol