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

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: July 22nd, 2012

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.

#BertelSchmitt #Housekeeping

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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2 of 64 comments

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.

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TheOtherLew on Jul 24, 2012

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

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