Suspicious comments; Spam comments: LJ decison to block spam is a big FAIL!

[teleen_fiction]

Originally posted by heeroluva at "Suspicious comments" and "Spam comments": LJ decison to 'block' spam is a big FAIL!

So I've been noticing in both my own journal and communities that I haven't been able to see some comments even thought it says there are more comments there than are actually showing up. Instead I'm getting a place hold that says (Spam comment) or (Suspicious comment).

Why are these showing up like this you may ask? In their rush to fight spam LJ has created a new filter that're AUTOMATICALLY TURNED ON in ALL journals and communities, which screens comments that are made with 'suspicious links' ie links that are not on their safe whitelist, so pretty much the majority of the internet. There is no noted way to add to the 'whitelist'.

What really gets me is that they didn't inform people that they were doing this until a week after it was done and that it was automatically turned on.

So how do I turn it off you might ask.

That's simple. Go to your Settings, click on the Privacy tab, and half way down where it says Spam Protection uncheck the box next to "Comments containing a link to a non-whitelisted domain will be marked as spam and moved to a special section." This applies to both personal journal and communities and the opinion has to be manually changed in each one.

While I understand how this could be a good idea, I think they went about it in a very backhanded way, and have implemented it poorly. There was no message to anyone that the link has been screened. It's automatically done. This went on for over a week before they said anything about it. There is still nothing in the FAQs about it even. The only way I found out about this way going through the support pages where people were reporting similar issues.

Please share this!

ETA: These links really illustrate the problems.

Comments

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's worse.

I got a couple such listed comments. They were indeed spammy. I tried to delete them using the "delete" button provided. The screen did something funny: The action box extended too far to the left of the screen for me to reach the confirm button. I would have had to mouse over about 4 inches to the left of my monitor to hit the button.

So though it screens, it doesn't actually let me delete. I informed staff about a week ago. I should see if anything's changed.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Just checked. Still undeletable. Too far to the left to fit on the screen.

Major fail.

[cyranothe2nd.livejournal.com]

Done.