Sorry guys: a very slight dig at mods re journals
 

Now first off I KNOW you guys do tremendous work, particularly on my many journal entries and I do NOT want to complain, but I have to ask one question: is there a reason why stupid, one-word comments are getting into journals? One in mine a while back read "haha" and I see one in a journal that hasn't been updated since 2010 with a comment "lol". Oh yeah, and from someone with the princely sum of one post.

How can that happen?

Again, I know you're all busy and things slip through, and I'm also sure there are tons of stupid, pointless entries that aren't getting approved, but can I just ask, if the idea of having our journal entries sent for approval is, mostly, to make sure they're ok and to keep the spam out, how is it getting in? Of course everyone can make a mistake, and I don't know how the system works --- do you just click on a link, checkbox or other, or do you have to read to the end of the entry and then hit "Post" or something? --- but it seems to me that a one-word post like "lol" would or should automatically get rejected. It's just annoying to see these things making their way into journals. It's a bit of an insult to the author from the poster, and a bit of a disappointment that our "first line of defence" is in some cases failing.

Once again, please do not think I'm getting at anyone, trying to tell you how to do your jobs (which you all do so well anyway) and I'm sure you'll take into account I've never criticised the system this way before, so I hope this thread will be taken in the spirit it's intended. I just wanted to point out that these annoying little spam-posts are getting in, and as they can't unless they're approved, someone is approving them, presumably by mistake or maybe a little carelessness/tiredness/apathy at repetition. Maybe someone thought they were deleting spam but were in the approval section? Again, I don't know how it works.

I'm just asking that this problem -- small as it is and relatively isolated -- be perhaps just looked at a little more closely. There can be few things as annoying as a journal writer than seeing a new comment in your journal, only to find it's a bloody idiot posting spam or a one liner.

Man, I suppose I'll get into a real firestorm over this, but I think it needed to be said. I hope nobody takes offence; it's just me pointing out something which I think should be addressed.

Thanks for all the hard work guys and please don't permaban me for this, Urban! :shycouch:

TH

It comes down to quality control, obviously.

What happens is this: a regular member makes a post in Editor's Pick or Member's Journal, and they'll get a message saying the post will appear after a moderator has approved it (you all know this already, of course). When I (and every mod) go into my User CP or into the Mod CP, there is a link to the post approval queue. Basically, every post that has not been approved shows up there, and I will see a little preview of the post. What I do usually is just skim over them to see who's posted and if it's an appropriate post for whatever thread it's in.

Now, each post needs to be checked off before it can be approved or deleted. So if the posts are good, I can check them all with one click (there is a main check box at the top), and then go to a drop down menu and approve them. If there's a spam post or just a troll post, then I'll have to comb through and check those ones and delete them, and then go back and check the good posts to approve them.

The problem is when I or other mods don't look properly or carefully at the queue, and just approve everything at once. It's happened that posts in the avatar request thread have been accidentally approved (we just hard delete them after changing the member's avatar), and yes, some spammy posts have gotten through, usually because they are buried in the queue somewhere and we don't see them.

EDIT: Another way for me to approve a post is to go into a journal or a thread in Editor's Pick and I will see the post you made in line with all the other posts, but it will just have a symbol indicating that it has yet to be approved. That's kind of like taking the "scenic route" when approving/disapproving posts, in my opinion, because I won't see every single post that needs to be approved or whatever.

EDIT #2: I should say that each mod has his/her own way of dealing with the approval queue and how they approve posts. So that's usually where things slip through.

Thanks BD that really helps explain it. I knew it would be something like that.
I just can't understand though why a spammer went right back to a journal that hasn't been updated for three years! Why not choose a more recent one? Ah, who knows with spammers?

Anyway, thanks for the explanation. Feel free to close the thread now if you want.

Thanks again!
TH

No need to
I've never approved any of those posts

:pimp:

Some spammers are spam bots, so they just post wherever, whenever. Anyways they are here to get their annoying ads across in any fashion so bumping a thread that's older than time doesn't matter to them.

Yeah my darling Burning Down explained exactly how we approve posts. I mainly approve posts in the thread themselves but occasionally look at the queue and validate, delete or leave the posts in the queue.

Going to speak for myself for a minute here - I often visit MB using an iPad or my phone, so if I'm not using Tapatalk (a great mobile forum app), it's real hard to approve posts on them because the check boxes are always tiny. So it's difficult to comb through the posts to weed out the bad ones without accidentally approving them, haha.

Urban Dictionary: Fat Finger Disease

:laughing:

I'm going to close this now upon Trollheart's request.