Forum posts requiring moderation

[zevin]

Well this is new...

I don't post much so I don't know when this started but my replies are now requiring moderation before they are visible.

I don't think I misbehaved... or did I?

[tritch]

I saw this too the other day.......my reply never showed up either.

[usa2k]

Maybe its based on a minimum number of posts?

[zevin]

Well it's something new as I have been able to post in the past.

[zevin]

That time it worked just fine...

[VOIPoTim]

Shouldn't be happening. I think it's possible something with the group permissions got changed when trying to deal with the spam.

I'll look into this tomorrow and make sure they're all correct.

[tritch]

Shouldn't be happening. I think it's possible something with the group permissions got changed when trying to deal with the spam.

I'll look into this tomorrow and make sure they're all correct.

Tim, this is still happening erratically. Some posts never showing up due to a "moderation" message.

[burris]

I made a post this afternoon and simply mentioned a site with user manual that might have helped the person trying to set up his ATA.

A screen came up indicating that it would be moderated before allowing it to post.

It never did post..although subsequent posts did.

[Russell]

I made a post this afternoon and simply mentioned a site with user manual that might have helped the person trying to set up his ATA.

A screen came up indicating that it would be moderated before allowing it to post.

It never did post..although subsequent posts did.

Wonder if it is basic SPAM protection - minimal text and a URL could be a pointer to a site selling something. Not saying it's good - just speculating on an explanation.

[zevin]

Wonder if it is basic SPAM protection - minimal text and a URL could be a pointer to a site selling something. Not saying it's good - just speculating on an explanation.

No, the post I made some time ago was basically chit chat. It had no links.

The issue is sporadic...

[zevin]

It's frustrating when you spent several minutes banging out a reply only to have the post end up in moderation never-land.

Perhaps I should first write the post in MS Word...

[VOIPoTim]

I believe all the legit posts are now approved (and the thousands of pending spam posts are gone).

We've also blocked all non-US IPs from the forums since we don't offer service outside of the US anyway. If someone legit is traveling, they can always contact support to have their IP "whitelisted". Overall this should cut way down on spam since almost all of it was from non-US IPs.

[usa2k]

I started a new Off Topic thread and it is held in moderation.
This reply to this thread was immediate.

[usa2k]

I guess me new post will never appear?

[patoka]

I posted a FCC report on VOIP penetration a few days ago and was told it had to be approved, it hasn't shown up yet.

[usa2k]

My permissions got fixed and I suspect I can make new posts (have not tried.) The previous attempts seem to have been lost as near as I can tell.

[genxweb]

looks like it is happening again

genxweb
Thank you for posting! Your post will not be visible until a moderator has approved it for posting.

[chpalmer]

This is nuts!

Mods- has anyone approached vBulletin about this yet?

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/371688-Hi-New-boy-here-PM-problem-guidance-needed.?highlight=post+visible+moderator+approved+ posting.

Also

"Go to:

admincp > usergroups > usergroup manager > registered users

scroll to the bottom of the permissions page and you'll see "Groups Permissions"

Select "Yes" where it reads: Follow Group Message Moderation Rules
If no, messages are always placed into moderation queue "

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/344221-Member-groups-messages-being-moderated?highlight=post+visible+moderator+approve d+posting.

[chpalmer]

"Go to:

admincp > usergroups > usergroup manager > registered users

scroll to the bottom of the permissions page and you'll see "Groups Permissions"

Select "Yes" where it reads: Follow Group Message Moderation Rules
If no, messages are always placed into moderation queue "

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/344221-Member-groups-messages-being-moderated?highlight=post+visible+moderator+approve d+posting.

[chpalmer]

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/344221-Member-groups-messages-being-moderated?highlight=post+visible+moderator+approve d+posting.

"Go to:

admincp > usergroups > usergroup manager > registered users

scroll to the bottom of the permissions page and you'll see "Groups Permissions"

Select "Yes" where it reads: Follow Group Message Moderation Rules
If no, messages are always placed into moderation queue "

[usa2k]

looks like it is happening again

genxweb
Thank you for posting! Your post will not be visible until a moderator has approved it for posting.

Happened just now to me.

[VOIPoTim]

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/344221-Member-groups-messages-being-moderated?highlight=post+visible+moderator+approve d+posting.

"Go to:

admincp > usergroups > usergroup manager > registered users

scroll to the bottom of the permissions page and you'll see "Groups Permissions"

Select "Yes" where it reads: Follow Group Message Moderation Rules
If no, messages are always placed into moderation queue "

That's already set to yes. I've checked over things several times and really am not sure why some posts keep getting moderated and some don't.

We'll keep looking at the options.

[usa2k]

I see my post did make it to the site though :)

[VOIPoTim]

I see my post did make it to the site though :)

Yes, any that are "moderated" just means they're queued up for us to approve. The trick is figuring out why so many are being flagged.

[tylerscell1]

Tim,

Have you looked at User Group permissions?

[holmes4]

Do you use a spam filtering addon to VBulletin? These can flag posts based on the IP used.

[tritch]

This continues to be a problem on this forum. The settings are too restrictive. I had another post moderated.

[VOIPoTim]

This continues to be a problem on this forum. The settings are too restrictive. I had another post moderated.

We're trying to find the good balance.

It got to a point where the forum was virtually unusable for us due to all the spam. It would take hours every day to clean up.

Blocking foreign IPs has helped alot but we're still trying to cut it down to a reasonable level.

[chpalmer]

This weekend was especially bad for spammers over on a forum I help admin...

We finally just disabled new registrations for a while to keep it down...

One thing you could do is not allow the page to load from someone using its IP address. Make the use of the dns name mandatory. Use vhosts and send the ip to blank page. Im pushing my forum group to do this also...

Of coarse you can check this by changing the ip address of the forum and see if the spam subsides for a bit till the bots find it again...

[zevin]

Well this is just wrong... I spent 2+ hours writing out some 'how to guides' only to have them go into moderation hell.

I tried to post a guide on how to wire your whole house to your VoIP adapter... after I got the moderation message I decided not to post my other how to guides.

The others were on twisted pair wiring and their color code, VoIP and security systems, and VoIP and 911.

I can't get a 'how to guide' posted but every spamer in Russia can open a new thread. :mad:

[VOIPoTim]

Well this is just wrong... I spent 2+ hours writing out some 'how to guides' only to have them go into moderation hell.

I tried to post a guide on how to wire your whole house to your VoIP adapter... after I got the moderation message I decided not to post my other how to guides.

The others were on twisted pair wiring and their color code, VoIP and security systems, and VoIP and 911.

I can't get a 'how to guide' posted but every spamer in Russia can open a new thread. :mad:

The forum software does the detection.

I just cleared out the queue approving everything legit.

I'm going to be contacting people who offered to help moderate in the next week or so and kick that off.

[MisterEd]

A message I posted yesterday got the "moderation" message and never got posted yet another (in the same thread) posted fine.

[VOIPoTim]

A message I posted yesterday got the "moderation" message and never got posted yet another (in the same thread) posted fine.

Each message is analyzed by the software/spam service individually and flagged or not flagged so in that case it didn't like something in one of your messages, but did the other. The one it didn't like is pending for us to approve.

I know the posting delay is a hassle sometimes when it gets a false positive but you'd be amazed how much legit spam it does pick up. We could have several full-time employees deleting SPAM all day if we didn't use it.

[MisterEd]

This was the message that was flagged (and it had a quote of VoipoBrandon's message in it): "Hmmm, I wonder: My FALLOVER number is my cell phone. I wonder if there is any connection there?"

Look at this message (#11 which was flagged): http://forums.voipo.com/showthread.php/4777-Got-a-call-from-quot-HOSTGATOR-quot-on-my-CELL-phone-at-10AM-today?p=25596#post25596

And then look at the next message #12 which was not flagged.








Each message is analyzed by the software/spam service individually and flagged or not flagged so in that case it didn't like something in one of your messages, but did the other. The one it didn't like is pending for us to approve.

I know the posting delay is a hassle sometimes when it gets a false positive but you'd be amazed how much legit spam it does pick up. We could have several full-time employees deleting SPAM all day if we didn't use it.

[MisterEd]

My reply to you (previous message) was "tagged for moderation" ... it's still hidden as I type this one. But will this be tagged ... let's see.

No it wasn't. It seems every message I post with a "quote" in it is flagged,

[MisterEd]

My reply to you (previous message) was "tagged for moderation" ... it's still hidden as I type this one. But will this be tagged ... let's see.

No it wasn't. It seems every message I post with a "quote" in it is flagged,

Test ... this message is quoting myself .... will it be flagged?

Nope ... I give up! :)

[chpalmer]

Thank you for posting! Your post will not be visible until a moderator has approved it for posting.

This is getting old! Maybe consider countryblock or something similar on the server?? There are addons to other forums that make signups by these bots close to impossible. Im curious if they exist for these guys also...

[dtrose]

I had one posted to the BYOD forum about a week ago still waiting to be "approved". I guess its lost in Digital Disneyland.


***Update 12/26 - I see it now but it did take several days before it was moderated and allowed to be posted.

[ymhee_bcex]

just FYI... I just wrote a fairly lengthy post that went into moderation... :(

[holmes4]

And I just had a short post with no URLs go into moderation. Strange.

[tritch]

Same here.....short posts with no URL's with no valid reason are getting moderated. Ridiculous. If the settings are not going to be changed, then at least assign a person to routinely screen the moderated posts once a day. How long would it take, 5-10 minutes??

[christcorp]

Same here. All of my recent posts say that it needs to be moderated prior to viewing online. mike...

(Except for this post. It posted immediately). I think it's just in the home forum or when replying. mike......\

[VOIPoTim]

It seems like this SPAM filter is out of control. I did some research and was able to tweak it some:

1) I switched to a new SPAM service. This one seems to get way too many false positives. We're now checking against https://akismet.com/ instead of the http://antispam.typepad.com/ service we were using.

2) I found a way to set a limit on it so that it can skip scanning posts from users with a post count over the threshold. Before this was not being factored in.

Let me know if this helps.

[christcorp]

Tim; seems to be working fine. Because of business and a lot of out of town traveling; I haven't visited the forums lately, so I'm not sure if this has been a chronic problem or not. But yesterday and today has been fine. thanks. mike.....

[tritch]

This issue is back again. No sound reason for my posts to need moderator approvals.

[VOIPoTim]

This issue is back again. No sound reason for my posts to need moderator approvals.

We recently upgraded to a more robust SPAM solution that is a lot more aggressive. We had somewhere around 3K messages a day hitting and a lot were still getting through so we had to up it. The new software uses a ton of different things to determine what to flag in addition to the SPAM filtering service we had been using. It may pick up a few more false positives that'll be flagged, but ultimately the SPAM was so out of control it's a necessary evil to have to have it be overly aggressive in flagging.

The good news is that we can "whitelist" known users so I will whitelist you and any other long-time/verified users that request it so that it ignores your posts and won't flag them. This is taken care of for you now and all your posts will be ignored by the spam filter. If any other long-time users run into issues and want to be whitelisted, just reply and let me know and I'll whitelist you as long as you've been a long-time/familiar member.

[draymondchm]

Looks like the new system is working well. Just a good job with the team into putting up all the efforts on making this a clean community. https://imagicon.info/cat/6-4/1.gif