The topic containing glittalogic's question about applications and the subsequent replies seems to have gotten trashed somehow. I was able to repair the mess that was showing up on the main bulletin board page but apparently the file containing the topic data has been mysteriously emptied. Guess I will have to start backing up these files.
One thing to note is that if the originator of the topic deletes his original (first) post, the whole topic goes away. If someone else happened to be in the process of posting at the same time the topic is deleted by the original poster, it can create a mess... This may be what happened.