It's been a few replies and posts... can I get out of newbie purgatory please?

[FalconFour]

Aside from this forum feeling like I'm stepping back to 2004 in structure (man, I remember building my own vBulletin board), it seems like this forum's safety measures have been... a bit... perhaps overdone. It really impedes my ability to have or engage in any active discussion and just drives me away.

In particular, I've made a few replies that should have made it blisteringly clear that I'm a real person with genuinely honest intentions, yet despite having multiple such replies approved recently, I still remain unable to post topics.

To add insult to injury, these posts are not even visible to me - I cannot find any place in the UI to view that I have even posted something that's pending. To me, it just disappears - which is mildly terrifying if I put a lot of work into something (that I absolutely won't want to rewrite).

As a retro hardware community, the vibe of vBulletin fits well, but I believe it could benefit from some adjustments that make the "newbie puragory" less rejective and cold for new users. Or maybe it's not a retro hardware community, and would benefit from considering newer platforms like Disqus or the like

The lovely catch-22 here is that my post here will, again, be stuck in purgatory until a mod comes by and sees it. And to you, I give my thanks for letting me at least say it out loud - but it's certainly awkward to have every post presented before one person's eyes before it's allowed to be read by the world.

[pdurrant]

We have a persistent problem of old accounts with weak passwords (i.e. ones re-used from other sites, and at some point leaked from another site) being attacked by spammers.

So a while back I moved all user accounts that hadn't posted for a year or more into an auto-moderated group. Your account was one of these, as until 25th August 2025, you hadn't posted since 2018.

I try to remember to check moderated posts to see if they're from someone who's that situation, but I must have missed doing so for your posts. Apologies.

You are now back in the ordinary user category, but with less than 10 posts, you might still find some restrictions.

[FalconFour]

Thank you kindly! ��

Yeah, things related to edits might bite me. That's fair. I appreciate the switch, though I do worry about others in a similar situation. Just good to shine a little light on the potential for that to fall through the cracks

(Just looking back, too - I bought my Kindle Basic (2014) back in 2018 off eBay for $30! Wow, I'd been here even longer than I had a Kindle, haha)

[FalconFour]

Oop, and with that, that last reply went into purgatory again. Maybe more left to be fixed? On my side, it just produces a blank frame on the reply (no content in the "post" it shows), and then I refresh the page, the reply is totally gone, as if I never made a reply. No indication that anything was pending. That... could perhaps use some help?

edit: okay, THIS reply went up immediately. Maybe my "first reply after user change" went into purgatory and now I'm out of it? Haha. Just trying to sus-out the debugs, as it might be unique and useful insight into how the system looks for people under that category

[issybird]

Originally Posted by FalconFour

Oop, and with that, that last reply went into purgatory again. Maybe more left to be fixed? On my side, it just produces a blank frame on the reply (no content in the "post" it shows), and then I refresh the page, the reply is totally gone, as if I never made a reply. No indication that anything was pending. That... could perhaps use some help?

edit: okay, THIS reply went up immediately. Maybe my "first reply after user change" went into purgatory and now I'm out of it? Haha. Just trying to sus-out the debugs, as it might be unique and useful insight into how the system looks for people under that category

Ten posts frequently seems to be the magic number and this one was #11….

[vishcompany]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

We have a persistent problem of old accounts with weak passwords (i.e. ones re-used from other sites, and at some point leaked from another site) being attacked by spammers.

So a while back I moved all user accounts that hadn't posted for a year or more into an auto-moderated group...

I guess I belong to that group, too. I haven't been here for a long time (life...), but I reclaimed my account, changed the password for a really long and unique one.

Could I also please be moved back to the regular group of users?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by vishcompany

I guess I belong to that group, too. I haven't been here for a long time (life...), but I reclaimed my account, changed the password for a really long and unique one.

Could I also please be moved back to the regular group of users?

I've moved you to registered users with the caveat that it didn't always take effect immediately.