David_Chong seeks help removing a .odt file containing personal information (phone number, email) from Google search results, which was archived from a Discourse forum post. He claims the site admins have repeatedly failed to resolve it despite promises. Community members clarify that Discourse doesn’t auto-archive posts as .odt files — likely a manual or plugin action. pfaffman explains the file can be deleted directly from the server path (e.g., /var/discourse/shared/...). zogstrip notes that any post — public or private — linking to the file prevents auto-deletion. Mage confirms even after removing public links, the file persisted due to private messages. zogstrip reiterates that all references must be removed. Mage asks about managing private messages and direct file deletion via admin UI; zogstrip suggests using the #plugin:data-explorer plugin to find referencing posts via SQL. Mage clarifies concern about privacy of private messages and confirms the file was manually deleted. They urge Discourse devs to add admin UI controls for file management, especially for complex integrations. pfaffman and pfaffman stress that file deletion is straightforward if the path is known — otherwise, professional help is advised.
My request is really special : I used a forum that use discourse, and included some personals infos (phone number, etc..) in a post.
After several years the message with my personal informations got archived (i guess it’s a function of discourse) in a .odt file.
This file is still in the google result, even if usually clicking on the google result make you download a file rather showing it in a browser.
Anyway, my phone number is on google and i don’t like it.
I contacted the team of the website several times, maybe 4 during several years. They never fixed it although they promess each time and excuse.
In my last email i say i’ll contact the “police” (i live in an european country where we have laws that protect our privacy, and the website is hosted in my country) if nothing is done.
But anyway, maybe it’s a bit smarter to ask here, how to do it.
In their last email they told me they’ll look into it, their problem is that they use discourse so it’s not easy for them to access the file (maybe they are affraid of damaging all, i don’t know).
So doy ou guys have any good ideas how they could either delete completely this .odt archive file or edit it with discourse without damaging anything?
I really want my phone number / email and name out of google results. It’s a safety problem, especially beause i threw the spam email that I use on 50+ forums so all people knowing my email can find my phone number and that’s really annoying.
Thanks.
And so, what kind of control could we have on private messages ?
Is there an other way through Discourse admin interface to delete at hand the incriminated file ?
Yes. The incriminated file has been handly deleted.
For discourse developpers, please note that for complex website than our, where forum is just a part with quite complicated integration on the whole site (SSO, API tuned,…), it should be easier if Discourse administrators, that have no rights (or competence) to deal with the database, could manage directly files hosted through Discourse. It is for us a critical issue, thinking how to manage quickly a file infringing laws and shared through private messages.
If you have the URL of the file in question, then it is in the uploads directory with the same path. It’s really not that hard. If it is, and it’s critical, then you need to hire someone who can help.
?