What's the deal with "unapproved" posts?

[Moderator_1]

@Dawn JL

At least I have a new problem now!

I turned off my login assist program (Norton) to make sure I was logging in to the original account. (I had selected the old account, but was ending up in the new account somehow.) When I logged in that way, my profile showed the original username (Dawn J-L), but I got this message when I came to the forums:

Welcome to the Chronicle Forums.
Your forum sign-up is not complete, you must add an Alias/Screen Name before you can post to the forums. Your name and email is not exposed to Forum users, only the Screen Name is accessible or viewable. The forums and the rest of www.chronofhorse.com has single sign-in, so your log in information for one will automatically work for the other. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Chronicle of the Horse.
Complete Profile

[If I clicked on the hotlinks it brought me back to my profile with no option to edit or add the username]

Let me contact someone in the main office this morning to manually unlink your original username from your old account in our main database. I’ll let you know when it’s ready to test again!

[DawnJL]

Testing…

[DawnJL]

Back to unapproved…

[SCM1959]

I just had an Unapproved notification for a long, long post with tour, hotel, activity recommendations in the Off Topic “Visiting South Carolina” thread.

I did include links to the various places I was recommending. I did not know that would trigger “Unapproved” because I read posts every day that have links in them ???

Is my entire post gone? It took a long time to compose!

I will check back tomorrow. It is too late to re-write the entire thing.

SCM1959

[Bluey]

@SCM1959

I just had an Unapproved notification for a long, long post with tour, hotel, activity recommendations in the Off Topic “Visiting South Carolina” thread.

I did include links to the various places I was recommending. I did not know that would trigger “Unapproved” because I read posts every day that have links in them ???

Is my entire post gone? It took a long time to compose!

I will check back tomorrow. It is too late to re-write the entire thing.

SCM1959

Some times, this site’s filters get a little overzealous sorting spam from true posts.
Unaproved posts go to a queue in the Moderator’s computer.
Moderator goes thru them and approves those that are not spam.
Then your post will show up, so don’t despair.
It’s Monday, I expect it will be there shortly?

It is annoying when a word or link triggers the filters, is it.
Better the ocassional unaproved post than a bunch of spam all over.

[sascha]

Back to unapproved here too, and I can’t even send a message to the mod.

[sascha]

@sascha

Back to unapproved here too, and I can’t even send a message to the mod.

[Simkie]

@SCM1959

I just had an Unapproved notification for a long, long post with tour, hotel, activity recommendations in the Off Topic “Visiting South Carolina” thread.

I did include links to the various places I was recommending. I did not know that would trigger “Unapproved” because I read posts every day that have links in them ???

Is my entire post gone? It took a long time to compose!

I will check back tomorrow. It is too late to re-write the entire thing.

SCM1959

Mod 1 explains what’s happening in the second post in this thread. Here it is for you.

@Moderator 1

Though we obviously still get spammers that get through, the software does sometimes corral suspect posts into a moderation queue for review before they go live. I’m not sure what the software keys in on that marks it as spam, though almost all the posts it sequesters include links.

The old version of the software also performed this action. I’m seeing more posts affected with the new software, though I’m not sure if it relates to the algorithm used or the fact that there may be more links being included with the new software.

I’ll try to see if I can figure out any trends and keep you folks updated.

They are approved when I check and see that they exist! They don’t generate email notifications to moderators, so I check for them when I’m in my message center. Feel free to give a PM prod if something important has gotten gummed up in the works.

Thanks!
Mod 1

[SCM1959]

Thank you. I wasn’t sure if this fix was still in effect. I sent Mod 1 a PM.

[js]

I take it the techs cleaned house to get rid of all the spam since now my posts are disapproved again. Was doing so good too.

[pony_grandma]

I just had a post go unapproved Pony Grandma for the Sport Horse Breeding thread. I found it on my posting history and tried to repost now it says invalid character at position one. What is this?

[Simkie]

@pony grandma

I just had a post go unapproved Pony Grandma for the Sport Horse Breeding thread. I found it on my posting history and tried to repost now it says invalid character at position one. What is this?

The second post on this thread explains. Here, I’ll copy it here for you.

@Moderator 1

Though we obviously still get spammers that get through, the software does sometimes corral suspect posts into a moderation queue for review before they go live. I’m not sure what the software keys in on that marks it as spam, though almost all the posts it sequesters include links.

The old version of the software also performed this action. I’m seeing more posts affected with the new software, though I’m not sure if it relates to the algorithm used or the fact that there may be more links being included with the new software.

I’ll try to see if I can figure out any trends and keep you folks updated.

They are approved when I check and see that they exist! They don’t generate email notifications to moderators, so I check for them when I’m in my message center. Feel free to give a PM prod if something important has gotten gummed up in the works.

Thanks!
Mod 1

[pony_grandma]

I did see that. It went beyond the ‘unapproved post’ thing because I had found the post in my ‘posting history’ (before I emailed the moderator) and I had tried to repost using copy/paste. And that didn’t send also. That was when it showed up with the notice that there was an ‘invalid character in the first position’ and even the moderator does not know what that means.

[Moderator_1]

pony grandma and I have been PMing about the situation, but her original post had been approved after being hung up in the spam filters…and then her subsequent attempts to repost had been hung up as well due to the filters not liking the links.

She’s all set now.

[Moderator_1]

We haven’t had to approve js’s recent posts, so I believe whatever was hanging her up has been resolved as well.

[js]

Unapproved again. Seems every time the techs go thru and clean out the spam, I’m back to being unapproved to post.

[js]

@Moderator 1

We haven’t had to approve js’s recent posts, so I believe whatever was hanging her up has been resolved as well.

Issue has not been resolved

[js]

My posts are no longer approved again, some don’t even post as unapproved, they just disappear

[js]

I having issues again !!!

[js]

Still having problems