Potential solution for the Edit Monster issue

starswordc · January 2018

For a while now there's been an issue for some users here on the forums of posts and entire threads vanishing into the limbo of "moderator approval". I've been one of them: I've had repeated problems with the Unofficial Literary Challenges in Ten Forward going poof when I tried to edit links into the OP. Last week our friendly neighborhood admin @ambassadorkael#6946 discovered a potential cause while he was making me a moderator.

You see, back when the migration to the Vanilla system was going on, an option came up that appeared to allow me to customize the display of my username. In other words, instead of "starswordc", I could be "StarSword-C", the way it's supposed to be read.

What this actually did, however, was create a second user account for me under the same email address, which Kael discovered last week after going ten rounds with customer service. Something about the software didn't like this and the bug we've been not-so-fondly calling the Edit Monster resulted.

The resolution, that so far appears to be successful, was for Kael to delete the extra account; he was able to do this without deleting the corresponding posts (which was good for me because they included ULC 13). I haven't had a post eaten since.

So: If you're having problems with your posts being "sent to moderation" when you go to edit them, please try PM'ing @ambassadorkael#6946 to have him check if you inadvertently have multiple accounts. We may be able to get rid of the problem for you.

Live long and walk with the Prophets,
StarSword-C

markhawkman · January 2018

Well the entire reason I have "markhawkman" as my user name instead of marhawkman was it wouldn't let me use marhawkman. but sure, worth a shot I guess.

echatty · January 2018

I've had this problem only once, I remember. I don't remember having the monster that eats posts upon editing said post, though.

If I'm going to be posting something on the long side, I'll c&p it if I have to edit it, after editing, just in case.

where2r1 · January 2018

I never changed my user name, though.

I have made some modifications to what I want to see from Vanilla, when STO first moved over here. But, now, all those modification options are no longer visible...things like font sizes, color choices, block users, etc.

Narrow posts down by date posted doesn't work in search for me any more.
I still use blocking of signature pictures and block categories...to thin out the quantity of posts.

fleetcaptain5 · January 2018

where2r1 wrote: »

I never changed my user name, though.

I have made some modifications to what I want to see from Vanilla, when STO first moved over here. But, now, all those modification options are no longer visible...things like font sizes, color choices, block users, etc.

Narrow posts down by date posted doesn't work in search for me any more.
I still use blocking of signature pictures and block categories...to thin out the quantity of posts.

Yeah same here. I never changed my name either, nor did I ever change Risian4 's forum name.

So I guess there must be more to it. Though I must say that, although I never changed my usernames, I also haven't experienced many posts being eaten anymore recently.

Really, the only times I experienced the problem was when I created one or two posts in a short time (less than a minute) or when I tried to edit a post multiple times in a short time, or a combination of the two; so writing a post, writing another one and editing one of the two.

fleetcaptain5 · January 2018

I didn't even know we could change our names back then.

Otherwise I would have chosen Dirk Diggler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX--ggBxu0o

where2r1 · January 2018

fleetcaptain5#1134 wrote: »

where2r1 wrote: »

I never changed my user name, though.

I have made some modifications to what I want to see from Vanilla, when STO first moved over here. But, now, all those modification options are no longer visible...things like font sizes, color choices, block users, etc.

Narrow posts down by date posted doesn't work in search for me any more.
I still use blocking of signature pictures and block categories...to thin out the quantity of posts.

Yeah same here. I never changed my name either, nor did I ever change Risian4 's forum name.

So I guess there must be more to it. Though I must say that, although I never changed my usernames, I also haven't experienced many posts being eaten anymore recently.

Really, the only times I experienced the problem was when I created one or two posts in a short time (less than a minute) or when I tried to edit a post multiple times in a short time, or a combination of the two; so writing a post, writing another one and editing one of the two.

Well, they DID tell us to come over here and mess around with the new Forums before they "officially" moved...or closed the other forum.

Then, over time and along with the addition of the Arc Overlay....thing were no longer accessible to us.

evilmark444 · January 2018

This could definitely be the case with my account, because I would have tried to make it read EvilMark444, or possibly just EvilMark.

fleetcaptain5 · January 2018

where2r1 wrote: »

fleetcaptain5#1134 wrote: »

where2r1 wrote: »

I never changed my user name, though.

I have made some modifications to what I want to see from Vanilla, when STO first moved over here. But, now, all those modification options are no longer visible...things like font sizes, color choices, block users, etc.

Narrow posts down by date posted doesn't work in search for me any more.
I still use blocking of signature pictures and block categories...to thin out the quantity of posts.

Yeah same here. I never changed my name either, nor did I ever change Risian4 's forum name.

So I guess there must be more to it. Though I must say that, although I never changed my usernames, I also haven't experienced many posts being eaten anymore recently.

Really, the only times I experienced the problem was when I created one or two posts in a short time (less than a minute) or when I tried to edit a post multiple times in a short time, or a combination of the two; so writing a post, writing another one and editing one of the two.

Well, they DID tell us to come over here and mess around with the new Forums before they "officially" moved...or closed the other forum.

Then, over time and along with the addition of the Arc Overlay....thing were no longer accessible to us.

Hmm I must have missed that bit of news then.

But wouldn't it be even stranger that I have experienced the monster despite not having taken part in the testing at the time?

ltminns · January 2018

Blasted Unix/Linux based code. Always so case sensitive.

frtoaster · January 2018

Are you sure this is the reason? Everything I've seen leads me to believe that the cause is a misbehaving spam filter.

Disappearing forum posts

frtoaster wrote: »

I think I know what's going on here. My guess is that the spam filter is trying to detect duplicates or near duplicates; that is, it's trying to prevent people from reposting the same content or minor variations of the same content. Of course, multiple edits of the same post all look very similar to each other and to the original post. So if you edit a post too many times, the spam filter will incorrectly flag it as spam and remove it from the forums. I'm not sure what the exact threshold is, but my posts seem to get removed after about the three edits.

I, and several other posters, discuss this in the thread below.

Editing post removes entire thread

Given how many people have encountered this bug without ever having changed their user name, I think your supposition is rather unlikely. A more likely explanation for why your posts are no longer removed is that certain types of users like moderators and administrators are exempt from the spam filter.

Several of my posts were eaten last night when I tried to edit them. Do you really want all of us who encounter this bug to contact Kael? I think he's going to get flooded with requests.

starswordc · January 2018

To be clear, we're going to keep working on it. I didn't say that it was the ONLY cause and the fact that moderators might be exempted had occurred to me. I'm just saying, IF you messed with your user account in this fashion during the forum migration and now have problems editing posts, the two may be connected.

markhawkman · January 2018

Yeah, there's the possibility that there's actually a swarm of edit monsters.

frtoaster · January 2018

starswordc wrote: »

To be clear, we're going to keep working on it. I didn't say that it was the ONLY cause and the fact that moderators might be exempted had occurred to me. I'm just saying, IF you messed with your user account in this fashion during the forum migration and now have problems editing posts, the two may be connected.

OK, I guess I'll keep track of this thread then. If anyone besides StarSword-C manages to get this problem fixed on their account, please let us know.

nimbull · January 2018

I haven't changed my user name either and this happened to me.

warpangel · January 2018

I have never even heard of any name customization feature, much less used one. This is the same name I've always had.

mirrorchaos · January 2018

I'm taking a break from this forum for a bit. but this will be my last post until i do return, most likely when ViL is launched.

Anyway, i used to be known under another name before the migration, i remember at the time i couldn't register with it because the original name was somehow taken, since then Mirror Chaos spawned, mostly as play on Harvey and John Crichton from Farscape. my old user name i no longer i remember but what i do remember is that it isn't copied from the original with a number on the end.

Before this post monster started up the only adjustments i have since made is a picture change from Scorpius with a Hawaiian shirt on to one more suitable that is Scorpius plus a new signature. After the change the only adjustment made was to the signature. No major adjustments at all.

legendarylycan · January 2018

i never got any option to change my username when the switchover occurred either, or i would've jumped all over it

rattler2 · January 2018

I don't know if I did or not. If they want to check if I'm affected too, go right ahead.

meimeitoo · February 2018

starswordc wrote: »

For a while now there's been an issue for some users here on the forums of posts and entire threads vanishing into the limbo of "moderator approval". I've been one of them: I've had repeated problems with the Unofficial Literary Challenges in Ten Forward going poof when I tried to edit links into the OP. Last week our friendly neighborhood admin @ambassadorkael#6946 discovered a potential cause while he was making me a moderator.

You see, back when the migration to the Vanilla system was going on, an option came up that appeared to allow me to customize the display of my username. In other words, instead of "starswordc", I could be "StarSword-C", the way it's supposed to be read.

What this actually did, however, was create a second user account for me under the same email address, which Kael discovered last week after going ten rounds with customer service. Something about the software didn't like this and the bug we've been not-so-fondly calling the Edit Monster resulted.

The resolution, that so far appears to be successful, was for Kael to delete the extra account; he was able to do this without deleting the corresponding posts (which was good for me because they included ULC 13). I haven't had a post eaten since.

So: If you're having problems with your posts being "sent to moderation" when you go to edit them, please try PM'ing @ambassadorkael#6946 to have him check if you inadvertently have multiple accounts. We may be able to get rid of the problem for you.

Live long and walk with the Prophets,
StarSword-C

It's a nice theory, for sure; and I appreciate the effort; but it utterly disregards every user (like me) who this has happened to, and who never changed their display name. Also, the edit bug is not consistently showing up: it just vanishes *sometimes*.

meimeitoo · February 2018

frtoaster wrote: »

Are you sure this is the reason? Everything I've seen leads me to believe that the cause is a misbehaving spam filter.

Disappearing forum posts

frtoaster wrote: »

I think I know what's going on here. My guess is that the spam filter is trying to detect duplicates or near duplicates; that is, it's trying to prevent people from reposting the same content or minor variations of the same content. Of course, multiple edits of the same post all look very similar to each other and to the original post. So if you edit a post too many times, the spam filter will incorrectly flag it as spam and remove it from the forums. I'm not sure what the exact threshold is, but my posts seem to get removed after about the three edits.

I, and several other posters, discuss this in the thread below.

Editing post removes entire thread

Given how many people have encountered this bug without ever having changed their user name, I think your supposition is rather unlikely. A more likely explanation for why your posts are no longer removed is that certain types of users like moderators and administrators are exempt from the spam filter.

Several of my posts were eaten last night when I tried to edit them. Do you really want all of us who encounter this bug to contact Kael? I think he's going to get flooded with requests.

Thinking of Occam's Razor, I'm thinking the cause for this bug is rather banale: the editor fails the 'concurrency' test; aka, whilst the database is updating the thread (like someone else posting/editing in it). it fails to deal with several ppl making changes to it concurrently, thus entries in it get corrupted (deleted). That is at least the very first place I would look.

P.S. Not saying the database itself would get corrupted: all half-way decent database systems to-date are pretty much 'transaction-safe.' But the editor itself might very well get confused on concurrent change operations.

frtoaster · February 2018

meimeitoo wrote: »

Thinking of Occam's Razor, I'm thinking the cause for this bug is rather banale: the editor fails the 'concurrency' test; aka, whilst the database is updating the thread (like someone else posting/editing in it). it fails to deal with several ppl making changes to it concurrently, thus entries in it get corrupted (deleted). That is at least the very first place I would look.

P.S. Not saying the database itself would get corrupted: all half-way decent database systems to-date are pretty much 'transaction-safe.' But the editor itself might very well get confused on concurrent change operations.

I've seen it happen with threads which I doubt anyone else was even looking at, much less editing, at the time. I'm fairly certain it's just a poorly coded spam filter. You can test this for yourself. Just post the same thing a couple of times, as Markhawkman and Mattjohnsonva did.

http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13311702/#Comment_13311702
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13311703/#Comment_13311703
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13311704/#Comment_13311704

http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13311705/#Comment_13311705
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13311706/#Comment_13311706

anodynes · February 2018

I found out the other night that you get the same message with the short Link code for images hosted on imgBB, but not for the full URL of the same image. It sounds like a spam filter issue to me, with it not liking the tinyurl style for links.

damix4 · February 2018

My comment on this topic was eaten after I tried to edit it few seconds after posting. Then I wanted to post a c/p of disappeared comment, but I got "Invalid CSRF token. Please try again." pop-up message. 30 min later when I tried to add the original comment again, I saw a pop-up message saying it needs moderator approval/review (or something like that).

I never changed my forum name before so that isn't the reason this is happened.

where2r1 · February 2018

I am afraid the ONLY solution right now: Become a Community Manager. His posts scare the edit monster away.

legendarylycan · February 2018

where2r1 wrote: »

I am afraid the ONLY solution right now: Become a Community Manager. His posts scare the edit monster away.

ohh boy, getting to interact with this lot of angry, pedantic nerds, angry, jaded players and just general all-around angry people on an even GREATER basis than i already do! sign me up, sign me up!

Potential solution for the Edit Monster issue

Comments