Posts now require approval ?

[jpucng62]

Please approve my new topic on EPCs!!

[daveg]

I have been getting the "unapproved" notice on most of my posts for the last few weeks - Is there a naughty list?

[jpkeates]

Someone needs to explain and fix this.
It's going to kill the forum.

[landlord-man]

No it wont.

Because people like you keep saying you wont post til its fixed but keep doing so.

This is my only post since i said i was going - and ive been waiting ever since for them to delete my account.

Nothing gets done - nothing will get done.

Admin - why wont you delete my account

[JK0]

I have been getting the "unapproved" notice on most of my posts for the last few weeks - Is there a naughty list?

I'm definitely on the naughty list.

[jpkeates]

No it wont.

Because people like you keep saying you wont post til its fixed but keep doing so.

It made no difference either way.
I simply come here much less frequently and use other forums more and more.

Because other people seem to have given up, there's less and less to respond to anyway (although that could be seasonal).

This is my only post since i said i was going - and ive been waiting ever since for them to delete my account.

Nothing gets done - nothing will get done.

Admin - why wont you delete my account

They don't seem to delete accounts unless they're banning people.
Your posts are going to be here forever, anyway.

Change your password to some random text pasted from somewhere and you'll lock youself out.

[royw]

I thought it was getting better, I haven't had the problem for a couple of weeks now. Perhaps I'm off the naughty step 😊

[nukecad]

They don't seem to delete accounts unless they're banning people.
Your posts are going to be here forever, anyway.

Change your password to some random text pasted from somewhere and you'll lock youself out.

Forum Admins don't like deleteing accounts, especialy ones with hundreds of posts - it leaves 'holes' in threads all over the place.
They might change the name and cut access, but won't delete the whole account.

As Jpkeates says, if you are sure you never want to post on a particular forum again then simply go to your profile> Edit Settings>Account, change your registered email and your login password to junk characters, save the changes, log out, and then forget about it.

[bob369]

I'm must definately be on the naughty step ... I started the thread, clicking on the thread on my 'Notifications' page brings up:

Sorry, you are not authorized to view this page.
Please try logging in or logging in as different user Login or send a message to the admin

[daveg]

I have never posted spam or anything that broke the forum rules but nearly everyone of my posts now requires approval which makes the forum unusable.

After nearly 12 years on here I will not use this forum again, I am sure I will not be alone.

Admin know there is a problem and don't seem very keen to address it - why? you know it is destroying a really useful place for landlords and tenants.

[boletus]

Posts unapproved. Again.

[boletus]

I simply come here much less frequently

Me too.

(Post unapproved.)

[davetg]

I tried a new user Id and it worked for a while but it now seems all my posts require approval. I have never posted links anything controversial or had a post changed before being approved. What is going on? When a post is flagged do admin get given a reason?

[Moderator2]

As you are all well aware, the issue continues, here’s some relevant points;

1. There’s no clear pattern.
2. It can affect anyone, even me.
3. I get posts sent to moderation, obviously I can immediately approve them.
4. It’s not necessarily related to editing, quoting, etc, but editing in particular seems to be a trigger (in my case).
5. It appears to last for periods of about 1 hour then goes away for several hours.
6. If a post is blocked in a thread, typically subsequent posts will also be blocked, even for different people.
7. If a member has a blocked post and then tries to re-post, then the second post will also be blocked.
8. Repeated posts in the same thread over a short period of time e.g. 8 posts 15 minutes will typically result in all those posts being blocked, but that is considered a correct course of action for a typical forum anti-spam filter.
9. There’s no predicted way to avoid the issue, otherwise I would have let you all know.
10. Reported post messages are only monitored by me, if you want to make a point to the forum owners then use the contact details, otherwise I will only pass on the general forum sentiment.
11. Blocked posts generate an automated message and appear to me on a Moderation List.
12. If a blocked post is deleted before I can approve it then it is removed from the list and I have no record of it being blocked.
13. If a blocked post is edited to something like ‘Unapproved’ or other messages that I see, then I delete the post and don’t approve it.
14. I can quickly approve many posts using the Moderation List, edited posts as per point 13 slow that down.
15. There is no notion of a ‘naughty step’, I keep no lists of ‘troublesome people’ or suchlike, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me and when someone doesn’t I don’t bear a grudge, no matter how colourful or insulting their comments might be. Posts are not being blocked by me.
16. There is a ban list, currently just over 6000 long, probably 99% spammers.
17. We have considered that this could be a general communications issue since it appears random in nature and lasts for periods of about an hour, or possibly a server overload, but switching servers appeared to make no difference.
18. We have tried disabling various settings, but that made no difference.
19. Next steps could be quite dramatic, e.g. a forum re-build with new software, that’s a lot of effort with some potential risk that it may not resolve the issue.
20. Until recently the notification list was over 4000 long which made it impossible for me to properly respond to new notifications, I recently spent a couple of hours deleting that list. I am now in a position where I can quickly approve posts, but it helps if people use the ‘report post’ option. I accept that I am here to help you and not the other way round, but this is a difficult situation.
21. I receive email notifications for reported posts, but not for moderated posts.
22. The forum owners are well aware of the issue, and how long it’s been dragging on for. It’s not forgotten and accepted that patience is wearing thin (or has worn out).
23. You might imagine that it should be easy to diagnose and fix, but support from the vBulletin developer, even by sharing files and other data, has revealed no answers.

I’m sure there’s more I could say, but that’s a fair update I think.

Regards,

Andy

[nukecad]

Is it VB or is it Sucuri? (Yes I know VB is getting a bit long in the tooth nowadays).

The problem did seem to start shortly after Sucuri took over the site security.