Community
Wow I just got the notification that several of my comments were approved by the moderator, I actually knew that one was being moderated but not the rest, wow I find this irritating but I won't smoke over it and hopefully it'll be fixed soon!
Nothing on my end, but I haven't posted much this morning.
I wrote this about 35 minutes ago.
I am being moderated frequently on items of unquestionable acceptableness. Not stressing...
I just find it irritating Thomas especially if someone is struggling and you post a comment hoping to help the person right then not possibly hours later when it might not make any sense and it's not quite as irritating if you know right then it's being moderated but lately it's after its been approved but I'm not stressing just curious! Thomas3.20.2010
Thomas3.20.2010 wrote:
I am being moderated frequently on items of unquestionable acceptableness. Not stressing...
The artificial intelligence is thinking your content might be spam. It's not that the content is unacceptable. Actually there is a lot of "acceptable" spam that is actually solicitation or blackhat crosslinking. Don't take any offense to it. We're letting everything valid through and keeping the actual spam from showing up on the site. If we just turned everything off and let anyone post without the tools in place we'd see a repeat of April 11/12th.
YoungAtHeart wrote:
The algorithm they are using has no relation to the words that are used. I think it is totally random - like every five hundredth keystroke in a day or something???????????
Don't feel singled out for what you write - it's machine language which has no relation to reality!
Nancy
Definitely not random. There are specific reasons that something is flagged as spam. Uncovering the reason can be a challenging onion to peel. Sometimes a post is flagged for one reason and other times for multiple reasons. Because we're seeing a number of false positives it could be a conflict of different algorithms. We're looking to get it fixed as fast as we can.
MarilynH wrote:
I just find it irritating Thomas especially if someone is struggling and you post a comment hoping to help the person right then not possibly hours later when it might not make any sense and it's not quite as irritating if you know right then it's being moderated but lately it's after its been approved but I'm not stressing just curious! Thomas3.20.2010
I'm trying to get posts approved as fast as possible.
If you reply right in the blog/discussion/question then you should see a note right after you post. If you are in the Inbox and are replying you will not likely see the notification until after the content is improved as the inbox is a quick way to respond to multiple things and is not as feature-rich as when you are posting in the actual post.
Mark
EX Community Manager
The algorithm they are using has no relation to the words that are used. I think it is totally random - like every five hundredth keystroke in a day or something???????????
Don't feel singled out for what you write - it's machine language which has no relation to reality!
Nancy
Hey Nancy, I got moderated again this morning! ;o)
I bet it is like Nancy said.....sexual innuendo doesn't seem to trigger it.
If it DID, I would be moderated ALL the time (not that there's anything WRONG with that!!!)
tee-hee
From what I understand it has nothing to do with "words" that you use. I am moderated more frequently when I @ mention someone when I am replying to them directly. Or for some reason when I try to post a picture of a birthday cake.
Jennifer, it is a well known fact that birthday cake images have a suspicious number of 1's and 0's in their coding...
Thanks Jennifer-Quit , it was happening once in awhile but the last few wks not so much but over this past weekend alot so I was just curious if it's been more so for others as well, strange but at least the spam is at bay.
I got a notification this morning that my blog had been approved. :-)
I got 5 notifications this morning that 5 of my comments were approved, it's only been once that I had a blog go into moderation and that kind of surprised me because I didn't know even know about it until after the fact!
I was moderated all day yesterday. I've never posted so much in my life. I just wanted to see how long it would go. I did notice that when I was tagging something or someone, it had a fit
Yes, I all of my comments have been moderated for the last 3 days....very frustrating! I hope whatever the issue is gets fixed very soon....Still won't smoke however!
Youngatheart.7.4.12 wrote:
I have been moderated TWICE just today!
(not that I'm complaining Diannnnn!
;-)
Just flagged technically. Not actually moderated.
Mark
EX Community Manager
Hello MY beloved brother Mark just a love note to say ...great job and keep on keeping on... I wanted to tell you I believe you are long-suffering with ALL personalities and opinions ... HUGE changes all for the good of keeping this site up and running because I need support to STAY quit abd growing. I love you and no worries I prayed for you.
What is the difference in "flagged technically" and "actually moderated"?
When you manually report something(Spam, profanity, personal info, personal attack, defamation, etc) on the the site, it goes into a queue for review. I review the reported blogs/comments/documents/status updates. If there is prohibited content then just the prohibited content is removed. A reason for edit/moderation is included and the post is approved. If there isn't anything that breaks the rules the post is left as is and is approved.
This is what most sites consider moderation. Many sites I have been on will just reject the post even if 99% of the post is completely OK. At that point you'll either be able to edit the post and re-post or it will disappear completely into the ether. I don't like this approach, as a whole post shouldn't be removed if there is only a small part that isn't appropriate. It's extremely heavy handed. Furthermore, it's not fair to the person posting if they have no idea why their post isn't allowed. If they don't find out they stop posting or get angry and it only gets worse. They should be aware of what they've done so they can avoid it in the future and be a contributing member.
On the other hand there is a set of applications that look together at all posts on the site with the exception of private messages and automatically puts them in my queue for review if something looks suspicious. Flagged posts may have one or more characteristics of possible spam. New members(newly joined or minimal to no participation) are more likely to create spam than an established member. The Jennifer, Elvan's, Giulias, etc. of the community aren't likely to create spam. While spam controls are intended to only target the non-established members, the configuration is very complex and needs to be calibrated to each community to fit the communities needs. As time passes the configuration may need to be adjusted to keep the spam out while still still letting all the great stuff happen. That all being said, a mix of actual spam and legitimate posts are flagged as spam. The spam is removed and you don't see it. All of the false positives are approved and are posted. Right now the ratio of actual spam to real posts is not what I would like to see. I'm confident that this will be fixed when we figure out a better configuration and any discovered bugs are fixed.
Lastly, there is a prohibited word list filter. Another application looks at a list of words and *'s out any words that exist on that list that appear on public posts and private messages. These posts aren't put into my queue for review. The prohibited words simply are *'d out. Most of the words on the list are used for personal attacks or discrimination. This list may morph over time to add/remove words. People should want to be on EX because they feel like they can belong. Many of you live by the fact that EX helped you quit. Helping people feel like they belong is the first step to them feeling like EX was an integral part of their quit. Ensuring language used for discrimination and personal attacks is minimized will reduce likelihood that such events will occur and hopefully will in-turn make EX a better place to be.
So really to summarize. There are legitimate posts that are accidentally getting flagged as spam. I'm simply approving them and though the notification says they're approved by "moderation" they're not really moderated because they're posted as they were created and aren't altered at all. Hopefully that brings some clarification. We're working behind the scenes to fix the spam moderation so it's less disruptive to the community. Improvements will help both you the members and me the Community Manager focus on helping the site being more effective for all. Thanks for your patience.
Mark
EX Community Manager
She likes it.
My first time in the moderation prison!!! For a thank you note to some of you guys.
What happens to us in moderation?
Oh, everything in moderation...I get it...Nancy must eat chocolate in moderation and someone must give away points but only in moderation. I refuse to get angry about it. WTH! What do I know about IT or running a blog community.
It definitely messes up the flow of the conversation.
I have my OWN definition of being "moderated."
Catch my drift???
;-)
I'm bringing some punch next time
Yeah, she gets moderated all the time....in her dreams!!
Had one moderated yesterday. Sensed a dark shadow passing. Said to self, now don't get spooked! Spooky feeling crept away slowly.
This is "ALL" such a freaking WASTE of time....I mean really? I'm ashamed to admit that I have actually spent the last 20 minutes of my life reading this nonsense! I personally could give a S##t less, as to whether this site, or any of its' minions that have been programmed to watch me...like my content or not....My input is not instrumental in anyones life on its' own anyway...."I" am not that important....!!! "WE" are what make this site what it is today....collectively we can do huge amounts of good for countless other addicts....that is the entire meaning as to why I am here at all anymore....
So, in a wrap...."Frankly my dear......I don't give a Damn!"
Stick that in your moderated pipe and smoke it!
Pops with 455 Days of Freedom!!! and not really caring one way or another if you moderate me or not
The spam prevention service is to keep solicitors out, not to monitor actual quitters. No big brother here.
I'm looking to put this issue in the past sooner than later.
Mark
EX Community Manager
Yep, a couple times. I think it will work itself out. And I don't mind being moderated, if its a way to keep the dirtbags out, I am good with it
welcome to the land of artificial intelligence. it needs to learn the rights and wrongs, what's allowed and not allowed. Remember how confusing the recommended topics or related topics were at the end of every blog showing up. Now they're populating beautifully and actually related to the theme of the blog itself. It just takes some time.
crazymama_Lori wrote:
welcome to the land of artificial intelligence. it needs to learn the rights and wrongs, what's allowed and not allowed. Remember how confusing the recommended topics or related topics were at the end of every blog showing up. Now they're populating beautifully and actually related to the theme of the blog itself. It just takes some time.
Yes, there is more context now to related/recommended topics now that it's been some time since all the data was migrated over. The recommender gets smarter and more accurate over time. It has become more accurate especially when things get succinct descriptive titles, are tagged properly, @mentions link to other related topics, in a location that makes sense and likes vs helpful answers are properly used.
Mark
EX Community Manager
you guys are such rebels!
Computers are not going to help me, people are. If we as humanity don't have each others backs, then cooperation and machines will control us. Just like the cigarette did.
You are so right dlane68 it's the people behind the computers and we're here for you and for each other so we cancontinue stacking up our precious smoke Free days, yay for Days WON.
The artificial intelligence is thinking your content might be spam. It's not that the content is unacceptable. Actually there is a lot of "acceptable" spam that is actually solicitation or blackhat crosslinking. Don't take any offense to it. We're letting everything valid through and keeping the actual spam from showing up on the site. If we just turned everything off and let anyone post without the tools in place we'd see a repeat of April 11/12th.
Definitely not random. There are specific reasons that something is flagged as spam. Uncovering the reason can be a challenging onion to peel. Sometimes a post is flagged for one reason and other times for multiple reasons. Because we're seeing a number of false positives it could be a conflict of different algorithms. We're looking to get it fixed as fast as we can.
I'm trying to get posts approved as fast as possible.
If you reply right in the blog/discussion/question then you should see a note right after you post. If you are in the Inbox and are replying you will not likely see the notification until after the content is improved as the inbox is a quick way to respond to multiple things and is not as feature-rich as when you are posting in the actual post.
Mark
EX Community Manager