Why are new threads always to be approved by Moderators first? As far i have seen, there are no moderators and the admin is the only guy taking care of the whole forum.I am asking this because, i like to sometimes share certain websites and their articles(including mine), but a new thread is mostly never approved. Isn't this bad for the forum's future? I always find out that, instead of the links i give, the admin owned Techwhack links are substituted. This is absurd!On a totally different topic, is there anyway i can block the posts by the newsbot from showing up in the "New Posts"?
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Amazon Deals - ToS - Warp
Why are new threads always to be approved by Moderators first?
- Thread starter slash84
- Start date
- Replies 27
- Views 13,203
W
warthog
admin plz reply,i am also against this
Apoorv Khatreja
Super Loser
Well, if you are submitting a link to a genuine, non-spammy website, in the correct sub forum, and it adds to the discussion, or is a worthy topic of discussion, I don't see any reason why it would be disapproved.As for the reason, I was a moderator on this forum for a while. The amount of spam this forum receives is huge! That is the reason I think the necessary moderation has been enabled.As for newsbot, I have to admit it is irritating. But sometimes it does link to quality news which becomes a topic of discussion and also becomes the official thread for it. I just wish it would post some specific tagged posts and not all posts from TechWhack.
@ above forget about the links that he post..worst case we consider his links as spam (which i doubt) so then y is my post gng for approval.... i am posting simple text as in asking questions or answering post.. i m sure this post is not going to go air at the moment.. even this will go for moderation.. typing this on 24-10-09 2.45 am ..
Alright. Here are the responses.
Moderation is not forced on this forum. Akismet is a popular anti-spam plugin which is activated here and it works on its own. It flags some posts in moderation. New users or old users does not matter. People can come here and post immediately. It happens all the time. I bet as a blog owner you might have seen some comments getting moderated by Akismet (I bet you are running it on your own blog). How often do you go through all of them? Can you be sure that you have not missed out on a genuine comment by mistake?
The problem with moderation on vBulletin is that there is no easy way for me to check for threads that have entered moderation. It is only available from the admin panel! I try to clear it on a regular basis. But sometimes I miss it and some threads arrive late. It has always been like that since the day this forum has been running vBulletin.
I do not approve posts/threads with links to personal blogs. TW is an exception because it is part of the SAME network. I avoid posting links to my own personal blog for the same reason. But if you are linking to posts or content from 'established' sites... I would not remove the links. This is part of the 'advertisement/spam' policy. The aim is to reduce instances when people would not post 'solutions' on this forum but link to their own blogs where they have listed the 'solution'.
I have tried finding a way to hide newsbot posts from New Posts section. The only solution is to make the posts invisible from the search engine spiders. And that nullifies the point of having those posts here.
And I would like to make it clear again. I do not mind links to third party sources as long as they are from established sources. I specifically ban some domains because of past spamming. And I specifically ban domains which I consider competing sites (rival forums).
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Let me add something more about Akismet... Almost 80% of the posts it flag is actual spam. I am going through the moderated content right now and I am pretty happy to see the amount of spam it has stopped from appearing on the forum automatically.
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More on why I do not allow personal blog links here... The policy is similar to how blog owners moderate their comments. This forum is not for advertising or link building or marketing. If you have some comments to contribute, post them here. I don't think the concept is supposed to be... I have a comment on this blog post but I have posted it as a blog post on my own blog. So here is the link and read it.
I would like to mention here. I do not go around on third party blogs or forums posting links to my own blog posts or forum posts. I hate that because of the same reason I hate that happening to me. I am a member of Team-BHP forum. I post my problems and experiences on that FORUM and not link to my blog posts detailing the problems (I have tons with my car but the entire content is posted on that forum though the same is also highlighted on my own blog). I bet the moderators of that forum have a similar policy.
I do not use this forum for spamming purposes. I have more blogs that I can promote by massive linking. I can charge money from people who would love to have their content marketed here. But I do not. I have rejected some really good offers from people who wanted to advertise content and services on this forum posting like regular members.
TW has been an exception. I can remove it. It does not help me out really. But the aim is to get some new topics for discussions here. TW and IBF compliment each other. I have used TW as the platform to promote the problems highlighted on the forum by members (Airtel Fair Usage Policy was a good case). And IBF helps with little traffic generation for TW. TW does not have its own forum for the simple reason. IBF is that forum.
The point is... If I had planned properly, TW and IBF would be running on the same domain name. Since, it is too late to do that, they are independent identities. But sharing the same DNA. And this is why I hate the concept of getting the CMS edition of vBulletin which is being forced upon me by the developers of this forum software.
I guess I would remove the newsbot feeds once i migrated to v4 of Vbulletin. and use the feeds in the CMS section instead of the forum threads. that should resolve the major issue with its posts here.
Moderation is not forced on this forum. Akismet is a popular anti-spam plugin which is activated here and it works on its own. It flags some posts in moderation. New users or old users does not matter. People can come here and post immediately. It happens all the time. I bet as a blog owner you might have seen some comments getting moderated by Akismet (I bet you are running it on your own blog). How often do you go through all of them? Can you be sure that you have not missed out on a genuine comment by mistake?
The problem with moderation on vBulletin is that there is no easy way for me to check for threads that have entered moderation. It is only available from the admin panel! I try to clear it on a regular basis. But sometimes I miss it and some threads arrive late. It has always been like that since the day this forum has been running vBulletin.
I do not approve posts/threads with links to personal blogs. TW is an exception because it is part of the SAME network. I avoid posting links to my own personal blog for the same reason. But if you are linking to posts or content from 'established' sites... I would not remove the links. This is part of the 'advertisement/spam' policy. The aim is to reduce instances when people would not post 'solutions' on this forum but link to their own blogs where they have listed the 'solution'.
I have tried finding a way to hide newsbot posts from New Posts section. The only solution is to make the posts invisible from the search engine spiders. And that nullifies the point of having those posts here.
And I would like to make it clear again. I do not mind links to third party sources as long as they are from established sources. I specifically ban some domains because of past spamming. And I specifically ban domains which I consider competing sites (rival forums).
----------
Let me add something more about Akismet... Almost 80% of the posts it flag is actual spam. I am going through the moderated content right now and I am pretty happy to see the amount of spam it has stopped from appearing on the forum automatically.
----------
More on why I do not allow personal blog links here... The policy is similar to how blog owners moderate their comments. This forum is not for advertising or link building or marketing. If you have some comments to contribute, post them here. I don't think the concept is supposed to be... I have a comment on this blog post but I have posted it as a blog post on my own blog. So here is the link and read it.
I would like to mention here. I do not go around on third party blogs or forums posting links to my own blog posts or forum posts. I hate that because of the same reason I hate that happening to me. I am a member of Team-BHP forum. I post my problems and experiences on that FORUM and not link to my blog posts detailing the problems (I have tons with my car but the entire content is posted on that forum though the same is also highlighted on my own blog). I bet the moderators of that forum have a similar policy.
I do not use this forum for spamming purposes. I have more blogs that I can promote by massive linking. I can charge money from people who would love to have their content marketed here. But I do not. I have rejected some really good offers from people who wanted to advertise content and services on this forum posting like regular members.
TW has been an exception. I can remove it. It does not help me out really. But the aim is to get some new topics for discussions here. TW and IBF compliment each other. I have used TW as the platform to promote the problems highlighted on the forum by members (Airtel Fair Usage Policy was a good case). And IBF helps with little traffic generation for TW. TW does not have its own forum for the simple reason. IBF is that forum.
The point is... If I had planned properly, TW and IBF would be running on the same domain name. Since, it is too late to do that, they are independent identities. But sharing the same DNA. And this is why I hate the concept of getting the CMS edition of vBulletin which is being forced upon me by the developers of this forum software.
I guess I would remove the newsbot feeds once i migrated to v4 of Vbulletin. and use the feeds in the CMS section instead of the forum threads. that should resolve the major issue with its posts here.
Firstly talking about Akismet, yes i do use it on my personal blog and i have seen spam from hundreds coming down to single digits just because Akismet actually learns from what comments on our blog are spam and what are actual true comments. So Akismet does what its controller/admin tells it to do. If you block a specific domain once, it will be blocked till its told not to do so the next time. And i do agree about blog link spamming/blog post spamming as i see it in my blog all the time, they are actually automatic bots doing the dirty work. But that doesnt mean every link to a personal blog is spam. I hardly give out links to my blog to other websites, and if i remember properly i might have given it 2-3 times here for the whole year of 2009, i dont understand how its considered to be spam. I might share certain articles which i believe is not covered in any major website "yet", and i might be one of the very few covering some event or review of a service.Getting on to the newsbot case, i agree it complements this forum to some extent. But do check on how many people actually look at those posts or comment on them. If one out of hundred posts are being acknowledged by your members, i consider the rest 99 percent as spam and unnecessary content. And if the majority of the posts are nothing but autoposts by a bot, i personally wouldnt be interested and most of those news/articles would be available online on major website way before it is being posted here and i would have already read most of them.Let me know if i am the only one thinking about all of this.
i remember properly i might have given it 2-3 times here for the whole year of 2009, i dont understand how its considered to be spam.
you might not consider it as a spam. i as a forum moderator would consider it as a form of advertising.
you might not consider it as a spam. i as a forum moderator would consider it as a form of advertising.
D
Deleted member 10390
I use to browse through techwack links. It is really good. Please do not stop posting it.
Apoorv Khatreja
Super Loser
I really have no problems with the newsbot. I just wish it would be well organised. Posting Airtel related developments in 1 thread. And so on. And avoiding posting of some stuff completely.
D
Deleted member 10390
Thanks for Ispy. Was it there earlier ? Where can I find the link once I browse out of this thread ?