Strange email that has link to nothing

[warbler]

I received a typical forum email telling me to go to a post which had not working link... here is the body of the text:

Hello,

You are receiving this email because you are watching the topic, "please check sewing forum for TLG Bag post" at SewForum.com. This topic has received a reply since your last visit. You can use the following link to view the replies made, no more notifications will be sent until you visit the topic.

viewtopic.php?p=344755#344755

When I click on the link there is no messege... have i been spammed?

[jujubee]

Maybe there was a spam message in the thread that was deleted before you could see it?

[thecatsmother]

That has also happened to me a couple of times
Does that mean someone else has my e-mail address


Marie

[CajunQuilter]

I have no idea-I will ask Static Jolt-he is my IT guru!

[StaticJolt]

If you are watching a thread the system will send you those e-mails. If a spammer adds to the thread the e-mail goes out, but it is linked directly to the spam post. That is what the "php?p=344755#344755 " part of that link does. If we catch the spam first and delete it the system will not find that exact post and you will get the "does not exist" page. The entire thread is still there, but that exact post is gone, so it goes no where. The system stores all posts in a huge database, each post is sequence numbered as it is created. Even if a post is deleted the database will not reuse that number ever again. Just for fun you could change the numbers in the link and see the first post that is still on SF viewtopic.php?p=4#4 Post 1, 2, and 3 apparently are not in the database so post 4 is the oldest post on SF. I assume that the first 3 posts were probably the admin folks testing SF.

I hope all that helps.

In His Service
Jim Snoke <><