Why Does That @#$%^ Comment Not Show Up?

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Now that the banning rules are out of the way, here a few more reasons why your comment may not show up.

Your comment will not show up, if …

You have just registered. Comments of new sign-ons need to be manually rescued from the moderation queue. This is to keep comments free of spam.

The comment was caught by the “bad word filter.” WordPress has a “bad word” list. A comment with a word that is on the list is put into the moderation queue and needs to be manually rescued. We check the queue regularly, sometimes, not so regularly. Our bad word list is very short, it has four words that would cause any FCC monitor to explode. However, the bad word function is rather silly. It rings alarm when a bad word is within a good word. When I took over, “idiotope” and “idiothermic” were considered bad. So were “shitake” mushrooms and “massspectrometric”. Just to name a few. Those bad words have been removed. The few remaining on the list should not pose problems. I hope.

The comment was caught by the spam filter. This is tricky. The filter will reject comments it considers spam. How it does that is its dirty little secret, and it appears to have a mind of its own. If you don’t see your message, try to change it a bit and post it again. If it still does not show up, please drop us a line.

You are using a “throwaway” email address. Comments from people (or bots) who use certain anonymous email providers have a high rate of spam, and therefore are blocked at TTAC. It is a long list, ranging from “@advertfast.com” via “@discardmail all the way to “@zoo-hardcore.com” (I kid you not). If you sign up using one of those, the sign-up will not be accepted. Once signed-up, this lockout should not be a problem for you, unless you manually change your email address to one of the throwaway guys. If you can’t comment after changing your email address, change it back.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Bertel Schmitt Bertel Schmitt on Jul 23, 2012

    NOTE: At the time of this typing, four new comments are sitting flagged as SPAM, two from KitaIkki, one from APaGttH, one from Ronnie Schreiber. I kept them there and referred them to our tech crew for them to find out what triggered the false positive.

  • TheOtherLew TheOtherLew on Jul 24, 2012

    What I want to know is: why IS this comment appearing?

  • Doug brockman There will be many many people living in apartments without dedicated charging facilities in future who will need personal vehicles to get to work and school and for whom mass transit will be an annoying inconvenience
  • Jeff Self driving cars are not ready for prime time.
  • Lichtronamo Watch as the non-us based automakers shift more production to Mexico in the future.
  • 28-Cars-Later " Electrek&nbsp;recently dug around in Tesla’s online parts catalog and found that the windshield costs a whopping $1,900 to replace.To be fair, that’s around what a Mercedes S-Class or Rivian windshield costs, but the Tesla’s glass is unique because of its shape. It’s also worth noting that most insurance plans have glass replacement options that can make the repair a low- or zero-cost issue.&nbsp;"Now I understand why my insurance is so high despite no claims for years and about 7,500 annual miles between three cars.
  • AMcA My theory is that that when the Big 3 gave away the store to the UAW in the last contract, there was a side deal in which the UAW promised to go after the non-organized transplant plants. Even the UAW understands that if the wage differential gets too high it's gonna kill the golden goose.
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