Removal of "orphan" comments, reference to moved photos

Hi - I now have several "orphan" comments on photodb photos in

my list, and there doesn't appear to be any way to remove these.

<P>

When a contributer moves (re-submits?), disables viewing of or

deletes a photo, anyone who has commented on the photo is left

with comments which point to a "this photo has gone" page. Like this:

<A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo.tcl?photo_id=778456">a

comented-on photo</A>

<P>

Since the "delete this comment" link is on the photo page, not in

the commenting contributer's list, the comment becomes un-removeable

yet at the same time irrelevant and frustrating for other users,

who may be following comment links to find photos. In at least

one case with my own comments, the photo has just been re-submitted

with the same name but a different ID, and it was only by chance that

I followed another photographer's comment link to the new location.

<p>

How about a "delete this comment" link within the comment list itself?

Also, how about a link to the commented-on photographer, as well as

the photograph, as people often re-submit the same picture after

re-scanning, touching up, whatever, and it's nice to be able to go

back to a comment and see what it refers to, and/or check out any new

work by a contributer whose photos one has commented on before.

<p>

A minor niggle, perhaps, but my guess is that the increasing number of

broken comment links will start to erode the usefulness of checking

out a contributer's list of comments, something I find generally very

helpful at the moment.

<p>

Any thoughts?

<P>

Cheers,

<P>

      Carl Williams

Carl, I know about this problem. Actually a very high percentage of the comments on photos are dangling comments like this. I think The fix is to make sure the comments are deleted along with any deleted photo, rather than leaving it and letting the user try to reattach it to the deleted photo.

I deleted 40000+ orphaned comments this morning in the database.

The second part of the fix, which is making sure that more comments

don't get orphaned when photos are deleted, is on my list of thinkgs to do.

Hi Brian - that idea (delete the comments with the 'photo) sounds

fine to me, and has the virtue of simplicity.

<P>

I think it'd be very difficult to try to re-attach to a

new instance of the same 'photo (though perhaps it'd be handy to

have an option when

a photo is deleted to maintain an HTML placekeeper for the list

of comments, if extensive, which could link to related work, e.g. the

photo re-posted after applying suggestions etc?)

<P>

The other idea,

of having a "delete" link with the comment itself (only for the

owner, obviously) would, however, have the advantage of leaving

comments which may be part of some loose wider dialogue, or which

provide some kind of insight into the mood and attitude of the

commentator. And a link to the commented-on photographer would be

a handy luxury...

<P>

Regards,<P>

Carl Williams