this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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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.