Does anyone know what's going on here?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Unrelated comment: over the last ten or twenty entries in your journal, I'm seeing a disturbing frequency (low, but nonzero) of comments from regular posters that are just totally blank. A few with 'edited at' italic lines, but most not. Posters that I do not recall having a history of posting blank comments.

For example, on this post they are, in order:
realinterrobang's second followup to martianmooncrab's comment
kithrup's followup to neowolf2's comment
realinterrobang's followup to xiphias' comment, and to jhetley's comment
beamjockey's comment (so it's not just followups to comments)

Comments

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

My comment wasn't empty when I wrote it -- it was "Run to the patent office!" or somesuch.

I never edited it.

Looks like data loss?

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

That is very weird - there is nothing there now but the unrelated comment thread - and I remember there being quite a lot of interesting banter (well, hijacking and deaking off on one's own interest, but banter is a tidier way of referring to that, as you can see).

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

If you click on "Read 36 Comments" many of them do show up, but there are a lot of empty ones. I randomly picked a few other of James' posts from that week and didn't see anything similar happening on those. Very strange.

ETA: Found another post from Sept 20th where it happens:

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4580538.html#comments (David Wilford, pixel39 and thesaucernews all have blank replies)

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

And another from the 20th:

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4580643.html#comments (kithrup's comment)

Still have not found another example that isn't from Sept 20th.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Does this coincide with a DDoS attack on LJ?

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

might be, it seems to only affects comments between 08:30 and 08:49 on the 20th.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. Looking at Twitter, there is a brief mention of one on the 23rd, and the LJ maintenance boards mention one on the 9th. Nothing for the 20th that I can find.

ETA: I went back after reading Fridgepunk's comment, and they're right. On this post:

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4580538.html#comments

the earliest missing comment is 8:19, next earliest 8:20 with an "edited on" comment showing it was edited at the same time it was originally written.

[jwgh]

I see the same thing, now that you mention it. Some of these blank comments have replies, so it appears that they either were not blank earlier, or don't display as blank to everyone. I tried in a couple of different browsers and it made no difference.

Since some of them are edited that might be a partial answer; except I was under the impression that it's not allowed to edit replies after someone responds to them, and the edits to the entries appear generally to have been made an hour or more before the replies to the entries.

So I'm guessing some sort of LJ glitch. Weird.

I don't see anything obvious on http://status.livejournal.com/ or http://www.livejournal.com/support/ .

[david wilford (from livejournal.com)]

Mine was a self-deleted comment that evidently got caught in some sort of LJ limbo.

[fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com]

There is an issue currently under investigation where comments seem to be randomly disappearing from entries. Some comments reappear later and others are still missing. Typically, the comment is entirely gone instead of leaving a blank space as you have seen. It would be extremely helpful to the investigation if you could open up a support request listing the URLs of several entries with blank comments. If you'd rather not, just provide the links here and I'll submit a report later.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

data worms.

or, its just replicating human memory as the AI evolves.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I have a data worm in my brain. Maybe two.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

but, are they friendly?

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

Censorship! Suppression! Imminent creeping nanny-journaling!

Help, help, I'm being oppressed!

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I recall that these remarks were clearly visible on 20 September, but I can't see them now either.

Google at present has 34 of the 36 comments cached.

For example, on this post they are, in order:
realinterrobang's second followup to martianmooncrab's comment

That is a problem for me... Since the internet at large (not just this thread) seems intent on throwing this particular flaw into my face, I'll come right out and say it: I'M A SLOB, OKAY?

My bed nearly always has at least one book and at least one cat on it, and is very rarely made up.

kithrup's followup to neowolf2's comment

Run, do not walk, to the Patent Office!

realinterrobang's followup to xiphias' comment,

In my case, not so much "didn't know" as "am crappy at figuring out things that require sequences of movements" (see also dyscalculia) and never managed to learn. I very much doubt I'll ever be able to get a fitted sheet and a flat sheet inside a pillowcase. Folding is not my forte.

and to jhetley's comment

You must be much better at getting laundry done than I am. I have three sets of sheets for normal usage (plus one set of flanelette sheets for really cold spells), and at least one set is nearly inevitably in the wash.

beamjockey's comment (so it's not just followups to comments)

This week? This year!!

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Thank you for investigating, James!

--Dave, still disturbed, but I had a head start