status-monitor Delayed Post Publication Warning

Ategy · Jul 24, 2019

Coming out of these discussion, I would like to propose a Warning for Delayed Posts:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/restricted-member-moderation.1146597/
https://www.namepros.com/threads/namepros-whitewashing.1146593/

Problematic: Essentially when the publication of a post has been delayed (because it was put on hold to be moderated), after it gets approved by moderators, it gets inserted into the thread at a the time it was originally submitted by the user.

The problem is that often times there will be other replies made by others in the meantime, so when the held-back post finally shows up, it gets placed further back in the discussion, where it can be missed by some ... or much more problematically .. take the discussion out of context as it might make look like the following post is in reply to it, instead of to the previously (un-moderated) post to which the reply was actually intended.

BEST Solution: The ideal solution would be to have the post set with the time of moderation/actual publication. Even better and clearer if a little warning could also be made to show the time it was originally submitted at.

Alternate solution: If changing the time of the post is something that would break too many other things, then at least put a warning some place in the thread (at top would be best) stating the time the post was published/moderated.

Either way, it would help with clarity for both original time of submission and the time of actual posting to be visible so as to make the thread as in context as possible and so that misunderstandings don't start because of post order confusion .. particularly when they could have been avoided by having such warnings.

Hope that made sense ...

Paul · Jul 24, 2019

If I recall correctly, we tested various ways of handling post approval, and we ran into numerous issues with just about every potential solution. It's been a while, but I believe this was our reasoning:

For threads that have been approved, it makes sense to adjust the post date to match the approval time. While it's possible that the thread is time-sensitive enough to be irrelevant when we approve it, that's pretty unlikely, and I don't recall it ever happening.
For posts within threads, the post date has to match the time the post was submitted, not when it was approved. If it matches when the post was approved, there will likely be replies since the post was written, and the post is almost guaranteed to be out-of-context. This still isn't ideal: a post seemingly gets inserted into the middle a discussion. However, it preserves context a lot better than the alternative.

We could add a notice to the post, but there are a few problems with that:

The fact that the post was previously in the moderation queue isn't stored with the post itself. Querying for that information would slow down thread pages a bit.
XenForo doesn't really provide an easy way to attach additional information to the thread for use by the view (the portion of code that turns the data into something your web browser can display). It's possible, but it's time-consuming to implement. We'd need to do this in order to attach a notice to the post. One way around this might be to spoof a warning (the kind issued by moderators), but I'd have to look into this more to determine whether it's viable.
It would have to be worded very carefully to indicate that the post has been reviewed out-of-context and has only been screened for blatant rule violations, usually of the same variety that got the person restricted in the first place--or, for posts flagged as spam, we're just looking to see whether it's actually spam. It's definitely possible for a bad post to make it through the moderation queue, so we'd need to indicate that the post isn't actually "approved"--it just passed a basic screening for a specific issue. It could still be problematic, and we're still relying on people to report issues; we're definitely not endorsing the post or indicating that we fully approved it.

Ategy · Jul 25, 2019

I thinking a simpler approach.

Simply have such posts be appended to as a part of the moderation process. As long as the data could be called at moderation it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have it automatically added at the bottom of the post. Meaning that the warning simply gets appended at the bottom of the post like below:

Even better in that the moderator could manually edit the or delete the box as the situation requires.

It could also be generic if pulling the times is too complicated

Obviously you could also make it a little prettier .. lol .. as well as use a background colour other than the Panel or Box tags.

Or alternatively put it inline with the "Last edited:" bit.

Note: This post was submitted at xx:xxpm and published at yy:yypm

or

Note: This post was submitted at a different time than when it was published

or

Note: The "High Risk" content of this post has not necessarily been moderated, please report any infractions

status-monitor Delayed Post Publication Warning

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Ategy

Arif M, NameCult.com TheDomainSocial.comTop Member

Paul

Tech, NamePros

Ategy

Arif M, NameCult.com TheDomainSocial.comTop Member

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