I've been curious: does anyone know what triggers that "Your comment is awaiting moderation" message in article comments? Certain words? Random spot-checks? Obscure anti-spam algorithms that must remain secret for our own good? It's not the link on the poster's name... because I never use a link. I've seen that sometimes on my posts, and then I check back in a bit and posts under me have been posted, while mine still awaits moderation. Which is not a problem, I'm just curious. My posts do always appear eventually. (And they almost never mention shady .ru sites where you can have your man-portions augmented.)
Cool--I figured it's some automatic thing. Just wondering (I never post links). I can see how revealing details of how to avoid it would be a BAD idea
Sounds like like how terrorists are caught while doing a weapon deal on a cell phone. That's pretty sweet. I've always wondered what would happen if I started screaming out the names of various bombs over the phone. "Your call is awaiting moderation. Please hold." "Ahh crap we gotta run again!"
Here's what I posted about the Mass Effect article, and my comment now required moderation: What "word combinations" caused it to go into the moderation queue?
I haven't seen anything suspicious in my own posts, either, but I don't think we can know the algorithm. If we knew, the spammers would too One guess I had was having a word in all-caps. But I saw comments below mine, which were not awaiting moderation, that also had that. (Maybe the word "buy" in your post? But in discussion of the App Store, I would think words like "buy," "store," "sale," "price," etc. would be commonplace and not filtered. I feel sure I've used them without triggering any moderation.)
I think Ive reached the point where the majority of my comments are flagged for moderation I dont mind muchthey get approved in the endbut I fear Im making all kinds of work for moderators! And I cant think of anything Im habitually doing my posts are fairly varied, and I never post links. Oh, well if theres something I can change in my behavior to save moderators time, Im happy to do it
Awww man, one of my comments I made first thing this morning is (still) "awaiting moderation". It contained a URL, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. But now it would appear subsequent comments I make won't be allowed until that one is approved, as I just made a really basic comment and that one too is now "awaiting moderation". The first comment was several hours ago, so it's not like I'm spam-commenting the articles.
I think just about every review I've made that had a link in it got removed. Sad, because they were all YouTube links of gameplay video (which are usually a big help) I did write about the most bizarre review I could for iDrop Dead: Flower Edition, and it got posted! (As did Sky06's classic A.S.S. review for Six Sides... )
FWIW, I have in the past successfully posted new comments even while old comments await moderation. Maybe your new messages just triggered the filters on their own in some way. (Or maybe there are different levels of moderation. Maybe a URL triggers extra flags or something.) They’re probably backlogged somewhat due to the holiday weekend, too.
FWIW, I’ll post a few article comments that got auto-flagged. Maybe people can help me figure out what I’m doing “wrong” I get many comments flagged, and I can’t seem to do anything to prevent it. Some auto-flagged messages from me: (I know the site’s PEOPLE don’t object—my comments always get approved in the end—but the automatic SYSTEM sees something “wrong” in a very high number of my article comments. And I almost never use links, words related to financial matters, or words related to private anatomy )
Not really related but also not worth a new topic... I've had the same captcha word about 10 times in a row now. TA needs some new ones, it can't be too hard to get a bot posting comments with the current setup.
Actually, I find the CAPTCHA system here is broken in Safari for “second chances.” If you get the word right the first time all is well, but if you don’t (or forget), then hit Back as instructed, it no longer works. You have to force reload (hold shift). It’s like the word being displayed and the word the server expects have gotten out of sync. (Maybe the CAPTCHA error-message page could be enhanced to revisit the original page with a forced reload? And a warning that you MUST copy your text for re-pasting. “Back” actually doesn’t lose my text, but a force reload will.) I haven’t noticed repeat words too much yet, though—nor much of a spam problem (a few here and there).
I don't suppose any moderators will read this, but I'm a bit confused about this issue in relation to some of my posts. Just two posts, actually. The first was a comment about the game "Trundle," under the article on that subject. That comment has been "awaiting moderation" for six days. Seems more to be awaiting a coat of dust. I don't even care about the comment or the subject anymore, but that's sort of the point. I posted another comment under the "'Ancient Frog' on the iPad" article which has been awaiting moderation for more than a day. Judging by history, I just wonder if it will be waiting for most of a week, if not forever. My comments aren't important, I just feel I'm being excluded from any participation in the conversation. As I said before, I no longer care about my comments or their subjects, but that's kind of the point. My comments lose any pertinence or relevence to the conversation, and thus any interest to me or others, if they are withheld from the conversation until the conversation is dead. Anyway, this isn't really a big deal (despite all this yapping). I'm just wondering what I might be doing wrong, or otherwise why these delays are happening. So.. If any mods read this, thanks for reading this.
I feel the same way—I lose enthusiasm for participating in a discussion if I know there’s a high chance my comment will be flagged and then posted after the conversation is long over. I too have comments that are approaching a week old, and it seems that the frequency of it happening is on the rise too (maybe just bad luck). And sometimes I’m asking a question—but there won’t be an answer if everyone has moved on. This long delay isn’t the norm, though. I think the moderators must be backlogged right now: normally comments get approved within a day. (Although that’s still long enough for a conversation to be basically over.) The root problem, I’m sure, is the automated system being overzealous. It’s even possible that the human operators don’t KNOW what sets it off! I certainly can’t tell. I posted some of my flagged comments above, and I’m stumped. I’ve had some theories, but they’ve all been disproven. The following are NOT the cause (because I’ve gotten away with all of them at times): * Mentioning pricing or money or “free.” But lots of people do that. * Curly quotes and long dashes (non-ASCII) which Snow Leopard does automatically * Links (I bet the wrong kind of link, or too many, could be a problem though; Anyway, I rarely post links) * Words or acronyms in all-caps None of those seem to be the issue. Maybe the world “game” itself is a no-no? I wish I could find out, even privately, so that I could contribute without making work for moderators.
