Technical Issues
It’s possible that your comments might go into moderation more than usual today and perhaps tomorrow; there have even been some “disappearing” comments. This is a result of a few separate issues.
- The first is that the Akismet filtering software is a wee bit buggy right now, and we are working to fix it.
- The second is that for some reason, the number of spambot comments has spiked significantly over the past week.
- The third is that one of our banned users has been repeatedly trying to post again.
Those last two can effect the system because it affects what the system looks for to identify them, and in certain cases broadens the parameters of what is and isn’t “kosher” according to the system.
Apologies to all while we await WordPress fixing the bugs in the filter. It is possible that your comments will not appear immediately, but we will try to make sure they post as quickly as possible. (Provided, of course, you are not a spam bot or sock puppet, in which case ymmv.)
Thanks for your patience.
What if I am not a sock puppet, but I play one on TV?Report
I can’t really picture you as Lamb Chop.Report
But I’ve gotten so good at singing “This is the song that never ends!”Report
How long do you usually sing it for?Report
Did you not read the title of the song. I started in 1989!Report
That would explain why this comment on Linky Friday that was very passionate about Nike shoes was caught in moderation. I was afraid that since the language on the comment was disjointed, that it was discrimination against non-English speaking commenters.Report
In the wild and wonderful world out there, there’s a concept called hellbanning.
You might find this concept useful.Report
Is IP address one of the items the filter considers? Because that’s the only plausible explanation for a difficulty I’ve encountered a couple times. I hit “submit”, the page reloads and the comment doesn’t show up. Go back with the browser and submit again. This time I get the error page informing me I already posted that comment. I try to comment on another post, same problem. The cure is to reboot my phone. At first I thought it might be a caching issue but what would WP know or care about my cache? But rebooting would give me a new IP address.Report
A number of us have this issue, @road-scholar . Usually just refreshing the page will get everything up to date.Report
Of course I know about refresh, give me a little credit here. I went to grad school studying internetworking–routing, switching, firewalls, wireless–all of that mess. Verizon is a big network and the IP address I present is going to be assigned based on what gateway I happen to be connected through that day (hour, minute). So maybe once in a while I get an address that’s in a sub-net the filter associates with a spam source. Then it just dumps my post without notification. Only thing I can figure out that makes sense anyway.Report
Oh. Yea. That. [eyes glaze over… head tilts… tongue slowly extends…]Report
Sorry, Kazz. I realize it’s easy to forget what with the truck-driving thing and all, but I really do know some shit about some things. Unexpected things.Report
I understood none of what you said, Road, and am just assuming on faith that it is computer related.Report
The things is, I occasionally get the same random-seeming behavior (some comments publish, some set to pending, some go directly to spam, some require a captcha) while I’m in my non-mobile home, well within DHCP’s lease period. (I had to throw that last bit in to sound smart.) So my working hypothesis is that WordPress is batshit.Report
Last time I was in NY, I could not comment from the hotel I was at. So I’m going to agree with Schilling and say WP is batshit sometimes.Report
There are a couple of potential issues.
If the comment is showing up under Gift of Gab, then it’s a caching issue. Restarting the phone/computer will fix that, but then so will closing and restarting the browser.
If it’s not showing up under GoG, then it’s in the moderation queue. This likely is related to your IP. From there, though, it gets… complicated (more complicated than just your IP through your ISP matching a banned IP). Has this been going on for long? If not, it’s likely related to problems with our filter. If so, it might be related to banned IP’s.
If you write a comment and it ends up in spam or moderation, WP will say that you have already submitted the comment even if it’s not showing up.
Also, there is a caching issue. I don’t know the technical specifics,Report
Well, I know spam filtering is usually a two-step thing–a black/white-list switch followed up with (the more computationally expensive) Bayesian scoring. And either one can look at originating IP address. Fortunately it only happens very occasionally, like two or three times since I started hanging out here. Unfortunately, it always seems to happen after I’ve pecked out a longish comment. Naturally :-P.Report
It’s actually more common than even that. I sent you an email. Should you reply, I will explain further.Report
@will-truman Very interesting. Ironically I found your email in my spam folder. So I’m letting you know in case my reply ends up in yours.Report
The good news is that my classical music posts are getting an unprecedented number of comments.Report
I feel bad, ’cause I listen to every thing you post, but I never say anything. I’d feel worse if I just said, “Uh… cool” though.Report
They are pretty damn awesome. I’ve been delighted with your ability to introduce me to composers I’ve never even heard of.
That JustLikeRealRaybans agrees with me is just added testament to this fact.Report