Posts need to be approved by a moderator?

[Elvis_Christ]

Originally Posted by roshiq

Now, who knows...this sort of extra precautionary measure can cost HDC some more in coming days as it becoming frustrating everyday.

Yeah I was thinking the same. If I wasn't a regular I don't think I'd be persevering with it because it's really frustrating and annoying. I end up missing heaps of posts because they don't turn up for a day later and threads are becoming quite disjointed.

[ChronoGrl]

:mad:

Can I be a mod so I can approve my own posts?

[TheWickerFan]

The administrators are a joke. I love how they're staying away so the mods get all the complaints about something they have almost no control over.

If only we all had the e-mail addresses of the admins. The flood of complaints heading their way would almost certainly get them to do their jobs.

[Sistinas666]

I'm not going to give up but this is horse shit.....:mad:


Randomly my posts show up but if I type too much they don't?

[_____V_____]

Originally Posted by Elvis_Christ

I think the board needed some extra mods to help out rather than implementing something like this. NE and ___V___ (and zwoti?) are the only ones holding the fort (and they do a great job don't get me wrong) and could do with a helping hand cleaning up spambots etc. Plus they will be extra busy having to approve posts all the time.

Zwoti is with us and he's been of immense help in controlling the spammers. But yes, we could do with a couple of extra hands these days.

Originally Posted by Elvis_Christ

None of the other mods are regular visitors/users on here so it's kinda pointless still having them as moderators. They should be bumped back to regular accounts and pass the responsibility should be passed onto the people that actually use the board.

....just a thought because with this system in place there almost needs to be a mod on round the clock for the board to function normally.

Kpropain has almost completely disappeared (he made an appearance once in the past 3-4 years), Austin is around (judging by the Last Activity times in his profile) but doesn't post anything and we don't know if he's moderating as well, Rayne's become very sporadic, and Flayed has been out for god knows how long. We need at least one replacement for Kpropain right now. Are the admins listening?

Originally Posted by Elvis_Christ

This any closer to being sorted out? The board really sucks to use at the moment.

Trust me, we are as frustrated as you all are.

Originally Posted by neverending

V is away on a trip for several days, and he seems to be the only one the admins will communicate with.

And even I am left hanging and dry.

Horror never bothered to reply to any of my dozen emails since the spammers started appearing (or before actually, I sent him a couple emails and PMs asking for extra Moderators, IP viewings, some other forum features, etc.)

ElGato was in continuous touch the time he was online (he's Russian, btw), and he had the new Re-Captcha installed (which isn't working either as we all have found out), and has enabled the notification feature for registration of new members, and the IP viewing. And the problem with that - the new registration notification emails are coming only to my email (neither zwoti nor NE are getting them). Result, I am the only one doing all the banning from emails, sorting the spammers from the genuine member accounts.

Thankfully, all of us can view IPs now.

And what happens? I come back from a week long trip and sit down to ban 200-odd spammers who have registered in the meanwhile.

One good thing - the spammers have stopped posting for now. Looks like their external links posts/threads which are going directly into the Moderator's queue for approval and wasn't visible to them immediately after they posted, has become a deterrent for new spammers and old.

Originally Posted by TheWickerFan

I haven't encountered this problem yet. If you want to hold a conversation with someone, would private messaging be affected?

I don't think so. PMs shouldn't be affected with this "new" feature.

Originally Posted by roshiq

Totally agree.

There are many online forums where they have some fine measures to control spamming, like to share a link or post an image a member have to be regular & become enable to do such things after having a decent no. of posts (say 50 or 100 or may be more) in the forum/discussions. I think that 'unknown & irregular' admin of ours could apply this sorta measures instead of blocking posts from almost everyone here & later getting approved by the mods.

Which is one of the things I asked horror to enable. New members should be restricted to their first 25 posts (as a newbie) before they become a regular member. Needless to say, he never replied. I was going to ask ElGato to enable all this but he's disappeared from the past week as well.

Originally Posted by roshiq

Already we have only couple of number of regular members here actually, which is pretty less than a year ago (I guess). Now, who knows...this sort of extra precautionary measure can cost HDC some more in coming days as it becoming frustrating everyday.

It is. I have noticed the number of posts have come down in the past 10-12 days. It is affecting the board.

Originally Posted by Fearonsarms

This is getting more random by the day-trying to post my music collection in Elvis's thread there's been a day where I could post two pages, another day one page then yesterday five pages. Also it's not just long posts AND/OR links to external websites as posting my albums of the year I was able to make four posts but not the fifth. I agree with wicker it's messing with people's heads.

I think it's a preventive measure enabled by ElGato to prevent someone from spamming the board. But yes, if it is happening randomly then I don't see it's purpose. Also, maybe external links aren't the only one in the so-called "filter". Maybe specific words/phrases in posts/threads have been added to the "suspicious list" which makes them marked for Moderator approval.

All this has increased our workload hundredfold. It was actually easier when the spammers were popping online and we were banning them outright. :mad:

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Can I be a mod so I can approve my own posts?

Welcome to the team! We would LOVE to have you onboard!

Are you ready for a lot of shitwork, brickbats, sleepless days/nights and a round-the-clock job that doesn't pay even a penny? Then you are welcome to register. :)

Originally Posted by TheWickerFan

The administrators are a joke. I love how they're staying away so the mods get all the complaints about something they have almost no control over.

If only we all had the e-mail addresses of the admins. The flood of complaints heading their way would almost certainly get them to do their jobs.

Horror has never bothered to be online to deal with the problems of the board. There are no specific rules/guidelines to run the forum either, so we all go by the stuff which zwoti and Rayne hammered out in the "It Stops Now" thread, while using our own discretion and judgement in doing our best to run the forums smoothly. Periodical upgrades, regular contact, continuous interaction with members/Mods alike, are non-existent. In the end, it's just us against the rest.

What makes you think they will even bother to check your emails? They aren't even bothered to check MY emails! And to hope that they will do ANY jobs after getting emails from anyone, is a dream which can never be true.

It's a miracle that ElGato responded to my desperate email 2-3 weeks back when horror wasn't responding and spammers were popping up like mushrooms. Now it looks like even he has run out of options and he did all he could.

The only solution is an upgrade to the latest version, with the latest Spam Filters and bugs ironed out, with all loopholes in the vBulletin software plugged. The version which we are running is still the 2009 one (it's been 3 years!). Zwoti says it's amazing how even this outdated version has kept the spammers out for this long. It was just a matter of time.

I asked ElGato to upgrade the forums to the latest version of vBulletin. His silence means that this order has to come from horror himself. Looks like there are payment issues involved (or else if it was a free upgrade, ElGato would have done it in a flash), and we have to sit and wait for horror to come online for this.


Anyway, as regards all your posts going into the Mod queue, don't worry. Someone is always online to approve them (NE does most of the duty at nights, zwoti is here during the afternoon/evenings, and I am here in the morning and at nights), so post what you want and if it goes into the Mod queue, be patient for a bit. Please don't double post the same matter if you don't see your original post. One of us will always be around, I assure you.

[ChronoGrl]

More than happy to help! (seriously)

Sign me up!

[Elvis_Christ]

I'd be up for taking on the job too.

[Ferox13]

I think the only long term solution is that someone (who gives a shit about the forum) like V be given admin rights and let the people who actually use the board run it.

[TheWickerFan]

I would also be happy to moderate. I'm here constantly anyway, might as well do something useful.

I found a list of the 4 administrators, and everyone except Horror has logged on in the past week, so they must be aware of what's going on. I also sent a PM to ElGato, and he got back to me. Don't know if anything will come of it, but at least I heard from him, which is more than I can say for Horror.

[Ferox13]

Got my first one now..

I was posting the recipe to my famous Comrade Ilsa's Cranberry Sauce recipe..

your loss :-)