Some of you may have noticed that your comments aren’t published immediately. I’d like to tell you why Word Press puts some comments in moderation and lets other slip through. I can’t. I don’t know how the algorithm works. And if I messed with it I’d mess it up. The advantage of the current system . . .

It’s very good at catching spam comments. Word Press intercepts tens of thousands of spam comments (current total 23,367). That means you don’t see many (if any) comments saying “Great post. I’d like to learn more” from discounttoiletbrushes.com.

Dan and I constantly patrol moderation to free comments. We usually release trapped comments within minutes, occasionally hours. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Meanwhile, rest assured the system doesn’t [usually] trap comments with the word “fuck” or “shit” in them. We’ve disabled that function. That said, we continue to delete flames against the website, its authors or fellow commentators. Sometimes without notice. Keeping our “house” neat and clean.

TTAG is committed to maintaining a comments section without modifying or deleting [non-flaming] comments regardless of the opinions expressed therein. We believe our reasoned commentators account for a large measure of our success. Again, thanks for playing!

[Note: some commentators’ posts always get hung up. I think it has to do with their screen nic.]

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97 COMMENTS

  1. Good to know! Though, from time to time, I miss the “family-friendly” days of yore.

    • I’ll concede that’s a facile and overused equivalence when used as a political argument for or against RKBA, but sometimes (particularly in drift hunters answer to a QOTD) it may be helpful.

  2. I’m pretty sure the word “abortion” is or was a way to get your comment lost to the voids of time. I’ll admit it’s a lazy and overused equivalency when used as a political argument for or against RKBA, but occasionally (especially in response to a QOTD) it can be useful.

  3. FYI the filter seems to be sensitive to platform. My desktop and laptops get moderated, my iOS devices do not.

    • Posts from my MacBook using Chrome as the browser get filtered. Posts from my Android do not.

      • I only use Chrome and have no problems on any of my devices, laptop, iPad, iPhone, android phone.

        • FWIW, I have to chuckle… because my “laptop” sits on my desktop. Haven’t had a desktop computer for over ten years at work or at home.

    • I can post from my Pixel phone. But comments I make on my personal Mac, work Mac, or work Linux box always get lost, regardless of the browser I use.

  4. To point out the example. Here’s an iOS comment. My desktop comment is still in moderation.

    • I’m always on my iPad as I don’t own a desktop or laptop and I’ve never been caught in moderation here.

      My local news website and CNN when they allow comments is a completely different story. I gave up on CNN as more of my comments got moderated than not and never did I see one of my moderated comments get posted later on.

  5. My comments tend to hang if I use my laptop instead of my phone. Sometimes for hours. Which is a shame since my fingers and my phone don’t get along.

    • We’re tired of carrying you bastards.

      /sarc

      (that comment could be taken either way, and I firmly stand by both)

      /sarc again!

  8. That’s ok, Robert. I think most of us know the drill. I go back to the USENET days when communicating was still very much like a virtual village. Sadly, no more. We get it.

    • Prodigy! I almost forgot about those days. Who else used prodigy for online communications?

    • i still have “denizens of doom” stickers that proclaim “flame on!” from usenet. they were gifted from geeky beemer rider customers in the late ’80’s that enjoyed visually explaining rake and trail with a couple french fries. i was more clueless then, although we did have a vic20 that generated price escalation.

  9. Yeah, everyone is censored especially the Pro-Gun opposition not buying into TTAG articles sponsoring boycotts and targeting our own flesh and blood…!

  10. Please define “flame”. Is that anything in disagreement or is there some threshold? Like name calling? Please tell me you guys are better than “I know it when I see it”.

    • Think name calling. Ad hominem attacks. Racist, anti-semitic or religious slurs. And comments about TTAG’s editorial stance or style — which aren’t necessarily flames (but distract from the point of any given post).

      That is all. Mostly.

  11. Yeah!!! We can say fuck and Shit now!!!!

    On a serious note this is the only website I’ve ever seen that successfully keeps out spam. Congrats on that.

    • Now if we could only keep out “The_Resistance”…

      I keed. I keed. I support free speech (or free paid shilling).

      • This website is private property. They have the right to ban whomever they choose and it ain’t censorship.

        They ought to charge a membership fee for using this site. I’m a cheap bastiche and I’d sign up.

        • Bravo. Too many people misunderstand the 1st Amendment (and the entire Bill of Rights for that matter). The 1st restricts the government’s powers but not mine. My son and daughter said something a few years back – “that’s right Dad, we can say whatever we want. The First Amendment says so!” Me – “Kids, The First Amendment says the government cannot restrict your speech. I am not the government. I’m much worse; I control your food, your TV, your internet, and the door to your bedroom as well as anything else I want.”

    • You could always say it. I curse in half my posts. I mean, how else are you going to prove how cool you are?

    • But we still can’t call a Cee You Cee Kay a “c u c k”

      • Start your own website. You can call anybody anything you like.

        With you at the helm how can it miss?

        • Haven’t you heard Political Correctness is D-E-A-D DEAD!

          I for one am glad Trump won if just for the fact “shop/garage-talk” is back baby it’s back, BIGLY. For the most part are we are no longer held hostage by the preening language police save for posting on Liberal Media websites. Now please excuse me I have to go grab the wife by the pussy that’s if she doesn’t grab me by the dick first.

        • Haven’t you heard Political Correctness is D-E-A-D DEAD!

          I for one am glad Trump won if just for the fact “shop/garage/construction site-talk” is back baby it’s back, BIGLY. For the most part are we are no longer held hostage by the preening language police save for posting on Liberal Media websites. Now please excuse me I have to go grab the wife by the ***** that’s if she doesn’t grab me by the **** first.

      • It’s a lazy descriptor that doesn’t mean what you think it means. I, personally, am glad that word has been banned from this site. I don’t need to hear about your fetish for large black peni.

  13. I don’t worry about the moderation or spam aspects (though it is very nice not to have spam or mega multiple identical posts)… but I’d sure like for the edit feature to work more often… Just hate to notice a typo… AFTER the comment posts. 🙁 But I can live with it… just as I must with most other blogs that accept comments. 🙂

    • I don’t worry about SPAM, unless the key has broken off of the lid and I have to McGuyver lunch.

      • LOL! I don’t like the “spam” in a can at all, but I do remember once when we had to get very creative in order to have any lunch. Near the end of a two day horse pack trip, long ago, our only can of Spam developed a fatal “key” problem after the first few twists. Nobody had any actual tools in their saddlebags, but we did manage to come up with a hoof pick.

        Yeah, desperate times call for desperate measures! We cleaned it in boiling water, then pried the top off the can. The rest of the ride was terrific. 🙂

  14. Damn! To bad your “SkyNet ware” doesn’t stop the SPAM, and Malware ads that permeate the TTAG’s webpages…Like a The clickbait “Nasty, ToeNail Fungus Mal-ads, or the SnakeOil ads , insisting eat this funky exotic plants innards and be cured of cancer Crap…!” Or, let’s not forget about our old favorite….The Browser hi-jacking, and malicious pop-up ads…..

    • We’ve eliminated site redirects/hijacks, at least for now. (Send a heads-up if if happens again.) They came from one of our remnant ad suppliers, since dismissed. We’re also looking at getting rid of the toenail fungus ads, but you wouldn’t believe how profitable they are. Someone must have issues.

      • I ultimately left this site because of those damn “how to unload a rifle” autoplay videos. It starts playing when I load the site. (Hit stop) Oh, this looks like an interesting article. Click on it to load (Hit stop again). Then I see a comment I want to reply to. Whoops, there it goes again, but now I have to scroll up to hit stop, then scroll back down again to find where I was. Write, hit post, and there it goes again. I have to scroll up to stop it, then try to find my place again. Meanwhile I’ve now been told FOUR TIMES how to unload a rifle. Glad to hear that because after shooting thousands of rounds I had no idea.

        Fuck that noise. I came here today for the first time in several months.

  15. The one thing that I love about this site is this: Spam in the comments. There’s hardly any of them. I can handle the ads. But, those spam comments on other sites is just horrible.

  16. My comments always seem to get hung up. No idea why.

    It has limited how often I bother to post a comment because if that comment is/needs to be timely, it seems useless to post if it will never be seen. I think it is something TTAG should work to fix because I’m sure I’m not the only one who just skips making a comment because it will be out of date by the time it appears.

  17. [non-flaming] comments. So…I can’t dress my comment up in a cute dress and let it parade around the interwebz in drag? Dude, it’s like 2017!

    [Insert Brad, er… Chelsea Manning joke here. Too soon?]

    Also, am I the only one here who sees the “housekeeping” posts and thinks of the scene in Tommy Boy?

    • Have you seen that… person, lately? I can’t tell which side it’s trying to portray, and either instance is ugly.

      Does that count as an ad hominem?

      • I don’t think so.

        Manning isn’t, to my knowledge, making an argument that you’re ignoring and going to a personal attack because you can’t argue the point.

        Since you’re not deflecting from an argument by use of a personal attack and, instead, are simply giving your opinion of how the person portrays themselves in public, I do not believe it can be classified as an ad hominem.

        Now, if Manning said something like “I’m not a traitor to my country” and you rejoined with “You’re an ugly, nasty, trans person and that’s disgusting” then Manning would be lying (because he/she/it IS a goddamn traitor) and you’d be engaging in an ad hominem.

  19. I stopped commenting because my comments get stuck in moderation. So until this is fixed I have little reason to come to TTAG except once or twice a day to see the stories.

      • I use the same setup to comment on a variety of websites. And I commented on here for a couple of years with no issues. It only became an issue about six months ago.

  20. Fucking wannabe tyrants. Shoot all the fag asshats and politicians.

    Embargo that bitches!

    • And be accused of neglecting the special needs folk amongst us? And it’s cheaper on the taxpayers to provide you with internet access than it would be to fund the short buses to take you to real programs.

    • “Embargo that bitches!”

      I love this. It’s meaningless but at the same time it’s epic on a scale of “All your base are belong to us”.

  21. I don’t know. For the past few months, I don’t think I’ve been able to comment at all. Did you guys outright ban people from commenting?

    • I’ve had no issues; and I know of ONE guy who got the banhammer. For being a literal Nazi and trying to use these pages to recruit more. Trump’s election really brought out the nutcases on both fringes.

  22. You mean people purposely talk shit behind cryptic user names, no way. What is this, reddit, /pol/? I find when im playing with a vpn or tor it automatically smells something fishy, the other times im sure you delete it, every now and then though, i get through

  23. It would still be nice to have a feature to up vote or down vote a post, but that’s just my shitty opinion, lol. Actually, it’s time to say “Thank YOU” for a job well done.

  24. I’m more concerned about the fact that notification of new or follow-up posts seems to be totally random to nonexistent.

    • If I want user opinions on a subject or item, I check this site’s comments. TFB is only good for new product announcements, which is the only reason I frequent it. Their comment section is laughable at best.

  26. My posts are always marked as spam and flushed if I edit them with my VPN software running on an Android device. Stinks so I have mostly quit editing my posts.

  29. What about the new trend I noticed at TTAG. Like the new edition of “CNN LibTard Pro-Aggressive Trolls” that have been taking up residence here? In the comments section…?

  30. As a joke the other day, I tried to post the exact same thing twice (it was about what appeared to me as TTAG double posting some story in the Vedder Holsters thing). First I tried to cut and paste the same sentence (“What’s with the double posting of the Blah-blah story?” or something like that.) only to have the second attempt blocked with a popup saying, “You already said that.” So I replied to my first post with the cut/paste and the reply got deleted within 24 hours. Not sure if it was the moderators or the Al Gore Rhythm. If it was the first: Get a sense of humor moderators! If it was the second: GET A SENSE OF HUMOR SKYNET!

  33. I would be moderately miffed if the moderation of this site immoderately moderated comments I considered to be moderate lest anyone be allowed to post something the moderators considered to be immoderate. Be that as it may, I will moderately approve of moderation of immoderate comments the moderators moderately consider to be immoderate . Moderately, of course – but only in the course of consideration of what is considered immoderate in the course of modern discourse.

  34. Moderation is for wimps. You’ll get killed strolling down the middle of the road.

    Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess. Really, why be a wimp? Lukewarm coffee? Well done beef? Opinions, only if it’s OK with everybody. What is this, Canada?

    I want my coffee laced with Red Bull, and my burgers triple, with bacon, handed to me by Carl’s Jr. spokes-eye-candy in improbable grilling bikinis. While watching people shoot guns at ‘splody things because they can, that’s why. At an all pork bar-b-q guarded by Team America.

    You can moderate my comment when you pry my keyboard from my cold, dead fingers. Come and block it. (Yippi-kay-yay, shimpfwort.) I, for one, decline to debase myself with “moderate” comments.

    What? Different kind of “moderate?”

    Nevermind.

  35. OK. Testing, testing. Did this comment make it through? If so, it’s the first one ever with your new system. Delaying comments for hours sure diminishes the utility of this site, as info that might be helpful to other readers never sees the light of day in time to be useful..

  36. You have my email below. Please respond and tell me why my comments/questions are not being posted. If there’s some issue at my end I’ll correct it. If it’s at your end, please fix it.

  37. I speculated that Akismet might have reacted excessively moto x3m. However, the comment history indicates that Akismet cleared this comment everytime I personally approve the comments.

Comments are closed.