Chalk this one up to user error.
You should never try and de-spam your blog after a night out on the town. I was a bit frisky on the controls and the AJAX-y WordPress UI flipped from showing comments awaiting moderation to comments approved before I could stop myself from clicking, Delete All. I think I lost about 14 comments
I tried to get a back up but it’s turning to be more of a pain than it’s worth and I need to move on. To those that got wiped - Sorry!
