Hi
All of this was compounded by Chatterbox seemingly not working for me. I wasn't seeing the messages telling me I was posting duplicate posts, or that new replies had been posted, etc.
When I pressed refresh to update Chatterbox, I didn't see that I had any replies. I now know that pressing refresh inadvertently generated duplicate posts. When people quite rightly complained about the duplicate posts, I couldn't see those messages either. I resorted to SuperSearch to finding replies. This appears to be because my message inbox was full.
I have only just found the message inbox and cleared out some old messages. I note there is no link to a message inbox on the top right of the web pages, so it wasn't obvious to me that I had an inbox, and if I did, that there would be anything in it, so I had no reason to click the "Settings Nodelet>Message" link. Now Chatterbox is working I can see what's been happening.
It was only after reading the messages that I figured out what a node reaper means and does. A reaper is a harvester so a message that says my node has been "harvested" doesn't tell me anything. NodeKiller I would have understood immediately.
So if you have sensed a high level of frustration on my part, you'd be right. It's the reason visiting this website is the option of last resort for me. The information available from expert contributors here is fantastic. The website itself is not.

Thank you for your tolerance and good information. I will try and stay away for as long as I can.