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A system bug or a Big Brother policy?
I just can't handle the many quirks of this system anymore without saying something. I am not going to reiterate what so many have already outlined (WYSIWYG formatting of posts, ability to edit posts and comments, etc) but I do have a question:
Why is it that certain people can be replied to without a single problem and why are some replies quarantined?
It makes no sense. The only similarity that any of the people have who can't be replied to is that they are some of the more obnoxious Trolls around here. Since there is no way for a user to affect who they can or cannot comment to, then this tells me an administrator is making those decisions at the database level.
If those types of decisions are being made, I want to know why those people and how they are chosen. Also, why did my comments not show up and other people did when replying to the same person? I couldn't reply to anyone who had replied to that person either. The screen that came up is one I have never seen before ever:
Your comment is being reviewed by the blog owner or something to that effect. Huh? Since we did we have the ability to review comments? I can't do that with my blog posts. I assume that the user "Scalfin" is no different than any of us, so why the ability to review comments and why replies to only certain users while others went straight through?
Is this a bug or an editorial policy that needs serious review? Perhaps the powers that be will read this or provide some of answer.
Comments (13)
Here, Here!! I've also been hit with this while posting to other people and while doing a corrective post to my own blog. It's completely irratic. Something to do with copying a link into a response maybe? Although I've seen others post links recently.... So clarifation would be nice. Getting rid of this blockage would be even better. Thanks!
May 13, 2008 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
People with quotes in their names (e.g., "Present") cannot be replied to due to a bug in the system. I don't believe there is any bias to this bug, however.
May 13, 2008 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's a vast right wing conspiracy.
May 13, 2008 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ben's right, and it's already a glitch that's being looked at. There is no editorial oversight before a comment goes up (unless it has a ton of links and gets flagged by the system as possible spam). The only editorial oversight of the comments is if you guys let us know someone's trolling/spamming/generally being an ass and we'll come in and pushback or delete the comment. So do let us know.
In terms of the reply system, we're looking into it.
May 13, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
What constitutes a "ton" of links. I did have four or five in the comment that kept getting kicked.
May 13, 2008 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
See comment below. I think it's 10 or more.
May 13, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS: Having done web development I know that this can be a lengthy process of uncovering bugs and fixing them, not to mention rolling out new functionality. Have you guys thought of having a persistent navigation link to send feedback on system errors? Your users are the best bug testers you could ever find and they work for free.
May 13, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
PPS: Glad to know there is no real editorial review beyond user-generated complaints. That is the thing I like about TPM - heated discussions without "adult" supervision and the ability to actually post blogs. Keep up the good work!
May 13, 2008 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
why are some replies quarantined?
That seems to have something to do with having multiple links in a message, or perhaps the ratio of links to text being high. I've never seen it happen to a comment that has only one link, and whenever it's happened I've been able to get around it by splitting the links across multiple articles. HTH
May 13, 2008 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Andrew Golis wrote:
(unless it has a ton of links and gets flagged by the system as possible spam)
Oops, I didn't read that one carefully enough before I posted.
I'd just like to point out, however, that "a ton of links" can be as few as two links, and still trigger the quarantine.
Furthermore, since when is a ton of links a good predictor for spam? Some spam looks like that, but a lot of spam just has the one link they want you to go to, and on the other hand, a lot of serious comments (and even sometimes the most useful comments) may have a ton of links.
May 13, 2008 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I believe the system is set up to only hold back posts with more than 10 links, and we're going to be working on pushing even those out if they're not spam faster now that we have a few more folks helping for the summer.
May 13, 2008 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I had a post held back with either 4 or 5 links. I was commenting on html tags appearing in blog posts, which I think is mostly because of the difference between entering a blog post (where you have to use buttons for links or other html formatting) and comments, where you enter tags directly in your text. I know I've made the mistake myself, and I see a number of posts where someone uses "blockquote" or "a href=..." tags.
That the system has two different ways to do this leads to greater confusion and more mistakes. It would be better if posting commenting had the same input method. I'd prefer more flexibility with html (like table tags), but I think it's more important to have one consistent interface, rather than two different ways to enter, which must be used in different contexts.
May 13, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fosberry,
Thank you for bringing this up:
You should know that your suggestion has been made, I would guess, 100 times before, on many different threads on the topic of the software, including many times by me.
Never have seen a response from management on that one way or another.
I will add on the topic the detail that contributors' posts are clipped so that the whole long thing is not included on the main page, while Reader Blogs are not.
Why? Makes no possible sense, just like it makes no sense to have two different systems for reader input.
A lot of things in this system make no sense, unless they were intentional to create more work for programmers.
Just kind of bugs me that people sell stuff that has all kinds of nonsense built in, and then it takes them months, and er, probably billable time, to "fix" a poor design. And they use the them "bugs" excuse as if the software program itself was responsible, when it's so clear was a case of the installer not understanding something about the use of site and the software.
May 15, 2008 1:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
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