Anti-spam measures (New Users / Denied Posts)

[jestingrabbit]

I'm not sure why my link to the SCP foundation was rejected.

All links are rejected until you get a few posts approved.

[apricity]

Reference FAQ#8.

[bug sniper]

Ok. Thanks for explaining, and giving me the chance to get 2 of those posts here.

[dgbrt]

Can I do a post here?
Other attempts did not work.

So, this is just test and it should deleted after success.

[dgbrt]

Can I do a reply???

[poxic]

Your first two posts (outside of the Site/Forum Issues board) have to be approved by a moderator so they can verify that you aren't a spambot. Once they're approved, they'll show up and you'll be able to post at will. Except spambotishly, of course.

[jestingrabbit]

Yeah, there are anti spam measures... that's the way it goes.

[allanfieldhouse]

I tried to post in another thread and was denied because I'm a new user, and I linked to the wikipedia page of a commercial product to reference my post's info.

It would be nice if some major sites like wikipedia were exempt from the no-link rule for new users.

[jestingrabbit]

I tried to post in another thread and was denied because I'm a new user, and I linked to the wikipedia page of a commercial product to reference my post's info.

It would be nice if some major sites like wikipedia were exempt from the no-link rule for new users.

Its not going to happen man. Most of the spam linking is about seo. Allowing the wiki page could just as easily do the seo they want as any other page.

[ErrorJustin]

Hoping to get approved to say hello in the Time topic. Thought I was caught in an automated filter - feeling guilty about the dozen messages I tried to submit to sneak past it.

[SecondTalon]

I currently see no posts waiting for approval in the Time thread.

Are you trying to link to something?

[MondoManDevout]

Spiders vs Sun...I should be the first one!

[Azrael]

At a certain point, my patience runs dry. This is one such case.

First, no one cares about your race to the first post.
Second, this is asked and answered in the FAQ at the top of the forum. EDIT: Merged into the original for good measure.
Third, leaving a help desk message akin to "why is my computer broken, I need it!" is entirely unhelpful and vexing to the extreme.

[xkcdbracket]

While I do understand the need for patience before my post is approved, can you give me an idea of how long it should take? This is regarding my first post, made yesterday morning.

[Azrael]

There's an FAQ for that:

The process may take some time, especially in the small sub-forums with only a single magistrate. If you must, you can PM the relevant mods or magistrates if more than 25 hours has passed.

[ooker]

My first post is a long post that if anyone actually read can easily tell that it's definitely not spam. It contains links, but those are valuable links. If there's a human behind the approval, then why don't they see it's not spam?

[Felstaff]

Your post is one of many hundreds that come through a day. Don't post a link in your first post, and it won't get rejected: it's right there in the rules at the top of every page. It's even in the discussion at the top of this page.

Unless it's an easily-identifiable URL like Wikipedia or YouTube, we have no way of knowing how secure the site is, how trustworthy it is, whether it's been compromised or not, and no-one's going to put their own computer at risk by clicking every link that comes through. This is why we have that rule.

As we can only put one reason for rejection, your post might also be breaking multiple rules. For instance, you might be trying to post a new thread in a forum that has rules around what threads can and can't be posted.

Your best option--aside from reading the rules--is to ingratiate yourself into the community first with an introduction, before complaining that you don't like the rules (or didn't read them before posting).

[gmalivuk]

Also, we're not just looking at the sort of spammers that create dozens of accounts and try to post hundreds of clearly advertising messages. We also don't want new users who are just here to promote their own website or blog without actually participating in the community.

And if I'm looking through pages of waiting posts, links stand out enough to disqualify those without having to spend more time reading or checking where the links go, which saves me time and effort. And given that all of my paychecks for this work apparently keep getting lost in the mail, saving me time and effort is always a good thing when it comes to running the forums.

[ooker]

Thanks. After getting the rejection the first time, I read the rule, I though, "hey, there are humans behind the approval, maybe they will read that I'm not a spammer, that I do put some efforts into it". So I post it a second time with links, having a space after http://, which is a sign of "this link is important, please allow it" - a kind of custom when posting in forums that I'm familiar with. I should have asked you first*.

Now I know that trying this is actually burdening you to moderate the site, I'm sorry for that. I think you should add to the rule that (1) only authoritative links will be allow, and (2) maybe the link is important and you have well-intent, but we don't have time to check it. Adding this will reduce the amount of trying/testing posts like me, I hope.

*Now, this behavior has something deeper than the surface. I just recently find out that I tend to silently testing ideas on other things, including people, same as Randall on many of his "hobbies". Poking asides, this is sometimes irritating, and I'm trying to find a balance between following my thoughts, and taking care of other people around me. I hope one day I'll find out soon.

Thanks for your patience.

[SecondTalon]

You mean something like...

3. You cannot post any links before you have reached five posts.

Please do not post any links or perform any form of self-promotion until you have a post count of at least five. We have our reasons. Not all spammers are bots, and it can be hard to tell the difference between somebody pointing out somebody else's cool webpage, somebody advertising out their cool webpage, or someone posting malicious links. Because of this, if you post suspicious links in your first post, the entire post will probably be deleted. Also, pushing your post count up to five with useless posts and then posting your link and vanishing will go over poorly.

That said, there is a list of acceptable and unacceptable words or fragments that first time posters can and cannot use. www will be immediately flagged as spam, as will .com or http. This means that if you fail to hit space between a period and the word commence, it will be blocked as spam as it hits the ".com" flag. You will get a message stating "This message has been flagged as spam and has been blocked" if you attempt to do so. This will go away once you have a few posts under your belt. We do apologize for this inconvenience, but your momentary inconvenience is outweighed by our convenience of not having to block 500+ spam messages a day.

And no, the list of blocked words will not be made public.

Though since we don't have the autoblocker anymore, I should probably amend that...