ONE commenter moderated despite rules

  • I have an irksome situation. On my blog, a certain user will occasionally get a comment marked for moderation even though my “Discussion” settings should allow all her comments to appear immediately.

    Here are my settings from the “Discussion” tab:

    • Allow people to post comments on new articles: checked
    • Comment author must fill out name and email: checked
    • Users must be registered and logged in to comment: unchecked
    • Comment must be manually approved: unchecked
    • Comment author must have a previously approved comment: checked
    • Hold a comment in the queue if it contains 0 or more links.

    The user affected by this is a longtime commenter with multiple approved comments. She hasn’t changed user names, email address, or IP address since her previous approved comments. It doesn’t affect all her comments, just certain ones.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Hold a comment in the queue if it contains 0 or more links.

    There’s your problem. This will hold any comment with 1 or more links for moderation, and that *includes* putting a link into the Website field.

    Set this to something like 2, which will allow 1 in the website field and 1 in the comment, or 1 which will allow 1 in the website field *or* 1 in the comment, before moderation is triggered.

    Thread Starter mbrailer

    (@mbrailer)

    James:

    Thanks, I’ll try increasing that number. However, the user in question doesn’t supply a URL with her name and email, and she doesn’t include URLs in her comments, so she shouldn’t be affected by that limit.

    Also, only this one user is affected, and it only happens seemingly randomly. Other users who’ve had multiple approved comments never experience this; all their comments are approved immediately.

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Does part of her name or email exist in the moderation list?

    For example (and please excuse the language), including “ass” in the moderation list will block “pass” and “classroom” too.

    Thread Starter mbrailer

    (@mbrailer)

    James:

    No, I don’t have a moderated words list. I’ve set up my rules to block out spammers while leaving legitimate users alone, and it does exactly that virtually all the time, except with this one user at random moments.

    For what it’s worth, there is an apostrophe in her user name, which my other users don’t have.

    I did raise my allowed links limit, but I should note that even when the limit was zero, other users were able to post URLs in comments without triggering moderation.

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Oh yeah, 0 disables that rule, sorry!

    Any luck if she posts without the apostrophe?

    Thread Starter mbrailer

    (@mbrailer)

    Haven’t asked her, and I’m reluctant to press my readers into service like that. I’ll keep monitoring comments and see if a clearer pattern emerges.

    BTW, thank you for running down possibilities with me, that was helpful.

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    You’re welcome! At the moment, I’m sadly out of ideas, but will definitely reply if anything else occurs to me.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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