Honest post flagged as spam

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I created a detailed post in the Windows 10 forum asking for feedback on how to patch for March. It took a long time after clicking Submit, but finally post 2352962 appeared–minus the carefully separated paragraphs. So I edited the post, adding an extra line break between each paragraph. After submitting that, I got “This topic is marked as spam” and the post no longer appears.

Now what? What is the trick to asking a question about Windows 10 updates without flagged for spam? I’ll try to attach a screen shot of the spam flag as well as the text of the original post.

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Re-posting the original post (without links) worked. Still wonder what happened.

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mcbsys wrote:

Re-posting the original post (without links) worked. Still wonder what happened.

Mark, you encountered new dimensions here, probably not for the last time  ‘-(

* _ the metaverse is poisonous _ *

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mcbsys

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Did you wait a small amount of time to edit the post?; The moderators say very quickly editing and resubmitting a post will get it tossed into the spam bucket.

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mcbsys

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Hi Mark, I take it you are referring to this new topic:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/so-should-i-go-directly-to-kb5001649-for-march-patches-2/

Our hardworking moderation team regularly check the spam buckets, fishing out anything that shouldn’t be there. A little patience, and the item ends up published in most occasions (reposting just convinces the spam filter that there was no-good intention even more!) 🙂

You will note that Susan has already replied 🙂

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mcbsys

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Kirsty wrote:

Hi Mark, I take it you are referring to this new topic:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/so-should-i-go-directly-to-kb5001649-for-march-patches-2/

Our hardworking moderation team regularly check the spam buckets, fishing out anything that shouldn’t be there. A little patience, and the item ends up published in most occasions (reposting just convinces the spam filter that there was no-good intention even more!) 🙂

You will note that Susan has already replied 🙂

Well that was the re-post (note the “-2” at the end, which WordPress adds when there is already an identical URL). This was the original:  https://www.askwoody.com/?post_type=topic&p=2352962.

Thanks for letting me know that there is some active, human review of the spam buckets going on!

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Kirsty

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This tends to happen, although not always, when one has included several URL links in a comment. It used to be just two might be let through by the spam filter; these days three is mostly safe. When the comment has three or a few more links, waiting twenty or thirty seconds before hitting “submit” tends to work and the comment then gets normally posted. But not always. Mysteries of the AskWoody spam filter.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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mcbsys

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[mcbsys]

I think there were only two links in the original post. And it was initially accepted with the links–it was only after editing that it went to spam.

As for a quick edit tripping the spam flag–I don’t get this. Seems to me that the extra care of immediately going back in to correct typos and fix spacing are the very things a spammer would not worry about. In fact, the fixes were so inconsequential that I unchecked the “track this edit” box–maybe THAT was a spammy behavior?

I think I’ve realized why the spacing was messed up to begin with:  I pasted in text from a Gmail message. That preserved the links but added “div” blocks, which WordPress didn’t appreciate. Simple fix would have been to paste into Notepad, then paste plain text into AskWoody and re-add the links.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by mcbsys. Reason: Replace angle brackets around "div" with HTML character entities to avoid splitting post!
• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by mcbsys. Reason: Character entities didn't work. Change to quotation marks

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(Or use the “Text” tab in the entry box to avoid copy/pasting HTM?) 🙂

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mcbsys

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Or even

Kirsty wrote:

If pasting copied content while using the Visual text editor tab (instead of the Text tab):
click on the right-hand “Toolbar Toggle” button, then select “Paste as Text” before pasting.

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It has happened to me that, sometimes, when working in Visual mode, I would paste something with HTML code in it, for example a paragraph of a Wikipedia article with lots of those little links in it, and when I submit the comment, those HTML links then appear as text, but weird text that has to be edited out, because otherwise the comment is a mess. Not a big problem, but it does take extra work. For example, right now: <sup id=”cite_ref-eht-website_3-0″ class=”reference”></sup>

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Sigh. So I wrote a response earlier (post 2353093). PKCano even replied to it.

Looking back at it, I noticed that the post was split where I had mentioned a “div” in angle brackets (because I was describing an HTML issue). Even though that was entered in the Visual editor, it interpreted the div as HTML. So I edited the post, replacing the angle brackets around the div with the corresponding HTML character entities in the Text view. I added a note about why I was making the edit and clicked Submit. However, the post converted the HTML entities back to angle brackets and split it incorrectly again.

So I edited again, this time removing the angle brackets and just putting in quotation marks. Added an Edit reasons, waited five minutes, clicked Submit, and the entire post disappeared. I’ll attach here as an image. At least it is no longer split incorrectly.

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This is all very strange. I do not remember ever having the especific problems that mcbsys is having.

Sometimes, when I am copying text (from Wikipedia, for example) that has lots of html links, I first get rid of all the html stuff there by looking for it and editing it out in Text mode, in those problematic paragraphs.

I’ll leave there only the html links I have put in the comment myself on purpose, having pasted those, when necessary, using the “link” tool in the upper toolbar (it looks like a skewed hamburger, really) to put links to YouTube or other sites that place a picture instead of a plain brown link, because picture links are not appreciated here. Then I’ll wait between twenty and thirty seconds and hit “submit.” In comments with no html links at all, I can submit pretty much right away, these days, without any inconvenience.

By the way, this site has become quite faster than what it used to be, let’s say a month’s ago.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Earlier this month I tried replying to a thread, but my original post, now seen as message #2362718, was rejected as spam, until I removed the direct link to the article.

I will re-create is here, to let it get caught again by the spam filter, in the hopes that the “sb” I was told to confer with in the rejection will explain.

The link I tried to post was to Find and Delete Duplicate Files and Photos in Windows

I believe that the item I posted was germane to the topic being discussed, and I wasn’t trying to sell something. My first thought was that giving a link to a “competing” advice site might be a “no no”, but I couldn’t find anything in the rules prohibiting that.

And, I remembered that my last several posts have been flagged by the spam filter, until I edited out the direct links. Yet I see other posts with direct links.

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Well, this time it worked, so I’m not sure what went wrong before.

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This (false-positive as a Spam) has occurred to several of us. The programmers have not been able to isolate and debug the problem. Yet, anyway.

“sb” is Susan Bradley, who this year took over this site from Woody Leonhard.
See https://www.askwoody.com/about/ ; also on the Menu Bar at the top of the pages here.

(Another bug: the first time that I Submitted the text above, it evaporated, with the warning message – “Do you really want to do that?”. I ended up Logging Out, and Logging In again.)

Suggested safety net: After creating a Post, Ctrl+A (Select All), Ctrl+C (Copy), and Ctrl+V (Paste) it into a text file somewhere (Notepad is fine).

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PaulK, that is good advice. I do exactly what you recommend and have been doing it for more than one year by now. If the comment disappears without explanation, or gets blocked by a over eager filter introduced recently here, as I understand this, to reduce the work MVPs have to do policing the many, many, many, often redundant, daily postings, I then email news of the event to “sb” including a copy of the disappeared comment. It tends to work.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Thank you, Oscar.
One thing that I failed to include above was that, just after clicking on Submit, I saw that the Captcha was present (I hadn’t notice it previously). Normally this indicates that the submitter is not logged in, but I WAS already Logged In. I couldn’t clear the error message to recover, so had to do the Log Out/In cycle. Physicists posit worm holes and tunnels. I think that I found one, but don’t have a clue on how again to locate this … Easter Egg(?).

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PaulK, It has become increasingly clear that there are several new glitches in the system, likely coming from recently added features to manage it more automatically and, or make the pages to be downloaded faster with our browsers..

Once, not so long ago, I had a comment instantly blocked. I guessed I was dealing with a robot and my blocking could have something to do with having “too many” URL links to articles in relevant Web pages pasted in my so severely objected comment. So I stayed on the same page, without leaving it or logging out, removed one of the links and tried submitting again: It worked! But this, obviously, is no recipe for success in all cases.

Sometimes, the only way to resolve the problem is to email Susan, sending an attached copy of the disappeared comment and also a picture of the “Blocked!” message from the robot.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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It is very frustrating. I posted a reply earlier and it went through then just vanished. In Susan’s defense, if you’ve never managed a website, especially WordPress, the amount of hackers and bots is ridiculous. It’s a constant battle. You have to automate as much as you can or you’d go crazy. It’s gotten so bad, that something I used to love to do is now causing me to rethink it and give it up. I’m at the point that I think I’d rather push baskets at Wal-Mart. Not kidding!

Never Say Never

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OscarCP

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I should add that Susan has recommended to let her know if a comment vanishes after being posted and being listed in “Recent Replies” at the top of the brown right bar of the page, so it is clear that it got actually posted and, later on, maybe some hours later, it got deleted, but without a follow-on email informing the bereaved poster of the reason why the post was deleted. That is not supposed to happen, so she wants to hear about it.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Susan Bradley

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Yes indeed, please do let me know!

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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Cybertooth

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Over in the “Out of band for Print Nightmare is out” thread, user rick41 commented that his “(Original version of post with link to article was rejected.)”

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/out-of-band-for-print-nightmare-is-out/#post-2376055

So I wonder why.

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The cloudtalk plugin is the culprit.  Sometimes it overreacts to IP/content/etc.  I’ve whitelisted rick to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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? says:

in my case(s) firefox and firefox esr always pass muster when i post, it is when i use chromium that i get the no go notification. i’m sure the problem is somewhere in my browser settings. i guess i could F12 it?

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? says:

F12ed it and it went through on Chromium. must be the content of my posts…

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