WobblyWombat
Member
Hi folks,
for some reason I have lost the ability to post comments on the software at GAOTD. I understand about the "Your comment is awaiting moderation..." message, but I'm not even getting that. When I submit a comment the page reloads but there is no hint of my comment at all, not even the Awaiting Moderation message.
I can vote, on the software and the usefulness of other comments.
Any ideas?
P4 3.2GHz XPpro sp3 & Firefox
Just checked and the comment was sitting in the Spam Queue (where bad comments go to die). Sometimes the criteria is a little grey what ticks the spam bot off, just looking at it, seems fine to me. I manually approved it for you.
The spam bot is due for a spankin' tonight :(
WobblyWombat
Member
Many thanks Bubby, the spam filter must hate me - I've had the same trouble many times in the last month or so. At least now I know that's the problem I can try re-wording and re-submitting it.
Cheers :0)
watcher13
Member
Wobbly, I didn't think getting kicked into the spam cue would prevent you from getting the moderation message, but I may be wrong. The other thing you can try to test it is to copy your comment before you send it and then resubmit it after the page reloads. The system will kick out an identical comment with this message:
It seems you've already said that.
If it doesn't, then you may have a bigger problem that might take more looking into.
If there is no message in the moderation queue - you won't see a message telling you "Your comment is awaiting moderation". But don't start reposting like a frenzied spammer - or your details might get sent off to "spam central" which means your future posts might get automatically classified as spam (due to your shady history).
Give it some time, and if still no luck (or message) come and post in the forums and someone (probably me) will have a look.
The other alternative - more than one poster has begun a forum post with the words - "tried to post a comment, but it vanished - so here are my comments". Just be careful you adhere to the forum rules (there might be a reason you comment disappeared).
watcher13
Member
Thanks, Bubby, that clears up an issue. Now that we know that a comment going to the spam cue does not trigger the moderation message we'll know to suspect the spam cue as a possible reason we're not seeing posts. Also, now we know though that there is something of a blacklist, even if it may be a semi-automatic one that's not always intentional - if I read you right - we can try and avoid it. Honestly, I think we need more input like that. We'd probably have less bad advice - sometimes coming from me - if we could lift more of the fog that sometimes settles around GOTD.
The culprit = http://akismet.com/
Does a fine job most of the time - and a lot of Wordpress based sites use it to make life a little easier for the admins/moderators.
Bet even the Akismet developers have never claimed it is perfect (I'm sure it beats the heck out of whatever is in second place).
watcher13
Member
Thanks again, Bubby. That helps clarify even more. Looked at their website. I guess it depends, too, whether GOTDs moderators give Askimet feedback when they find a false hit. Also, I wonder whether the days when we get some junk sneaking through the Askimet system is having problems. Although, that may not happen often, if it all. They're not going to talk about outages on their public portal so as not to tip off the spammers. Also, unfortunately, they can't spell out their criteria on the website, either, for the same reason. So, like you say, folks will just have to deal with the once in a while incorrectly screened messages when they occur.
Thanks, Bubby, for being conscientious enough to check the spam cue when someone posts about it.
Art Kns
Member
So I just went through this frustration. I spent a lot of time generating an extensive review of the software of the day and when I went to post it - nothing! I did not see any message "waiting for moderation" but I did get the "duplicate post" message. Even if there was a "waiting for moderation" message and I didn't see it, the post should have cleared moderation by now, hours after the first post. These post are time critical as they refer to the software of the day.
If posts are subject to moderation then there should be a disclosure of posting criteria. If, for some reason, the post was rejected then I should have been notified - the address was in the post. This seems to be a very sloppy way of running a web site.
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