Warning about not being allowed to post "spam"

[Miniskirt]

Howdy! Weeks ago I send a PM to a user which included Links. The system told me that I cannot send "Spam" and disallowed the message. It took me forever to figure out that my PM included Links and that Links are considered "Spam". Of course I included no actual "Spam".

Why not just tell me that I can't include Links in my PM messages or anywhere else on the site?

I think this is "new user" stuff and that I can now include Links (not sure though). Afraid to test this now.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You probably hadn't reached the minimum number of posts/time as a member to be allowed to send links via PM. The system disallows new people from doing this to avoid spam sent by bots masquerading as members.

@The_J or someone else on staff, does this member now have PM privileges?

 

[The_J]

Yes, @Valka D'Ur is right about her assessment.

The issue about why this message pops up as it is, that is caused by... um... us abusing the system. There is a list of words, which are flagged as spam, such as "casino" or "pharmacy". We also have plugged in the Xenforo code for URLs, to avoid that links are sent as spam. Obviously this will also catch legitimate URLs, and we can't really do anything about that. It only applies to users below certain limits, meaning you'll be able to PM whatever you want after a certain amount of additional posts .

 

[Miniskirt]

Exactly fine! I understand how this works, and why this is the case.

My suggestion here is for the system to explicitly state that a user cannot add LINKS to their messages. It was terribly confusing for the system to just say I could not post SPAM. Instead of just saying, "No Spam", it should say, "No Spam and No Links". I did not realize that my Links were verbotz.

Through trial and error, on a long PM with maybe 3 or 4 links, I was able to figure out that I could not use links. I almost just then and there quit the site until I soldiered on and figured out the problem. It took me a while. I am suggesting that the system message be amended to specify No Links as part of the message only, not to change how or why it works this way.

 

[The_J]

That would make sense, but that message which gets displayed is a sytem message, over which we do not have any control, it seems, it does not seem to be customizable :/.

 

[Miniskirt]

Maybe we can get some of the Civ1-2-3 programmers to work on that error handling system?

Just kidding obviously. This topic has run its course. Nice to be understood. Thanks!