I would like to add a few things that has already been pointed out by one of our Admins:

- An introduction as your first post tends to increase the chance of the person being a genuine member wanting to connect. What we have noticed for those who end up spamming or have other bad intentions is that they go to preexisting threads and post few word responses. Many cases where this was seen had later ended up with that user editing at least one of their posts to insert a link, thinking that they were being sneaky and passing the system. So we would advise for anyone who is new and/or post for the first time to give an introduction of themselves and perhaps add some things about yourself to increase the chance of being relatable to others with the same situations, hobbies and interests, etc.

- Please act accordingly if a PM is sent in regards to a post that has not been approved yet. Sometimes the post(s) made can lead us to question on whether if the user is going by the guidelines (ex; advising to take medication when in actuality it should be approved by a medical professional.) This does not mean that you are in trouble when contacted. But please respect the fact that we might need clarification and if the post does not get approved then there is a reason as to why that is.

- Forums are generally at a high risk of dissolving for multiple reasons. One of them, which has been pointed out, is due to the amount of spammers that sign up for the sake of putting their links out there. Some are actually persistent and create multiple accounts even after seeing that they get banned the first time around. This is not as easy of a task for mods to do as it might seem, and does in fact have an effect on how forums can suffer. We are volunteering our time to help keep this site as clean as possible, and hope that it will remain on serving to connect with others for many more years to come.

I think that covers all that I wanted to add. Thank you for reading and understanding.

Regards,
Nikki

 

Just an update. For all members who might have just joined in the past few days since this feature was put into place, please be patient. There seems to be a glitch in this feature that is causing the posts of new members to continue to be deposited into the moderator approval queue even after they have attained the first five posts.

At that point, if the staff has approved all of your posts, your posts should automatically go through and be posted without requiring moderator approval. Unfortunately, something isn't working right and that isn't happening as it should. I've notified the administrators so they can take a look at it and see what's going on. Until then, if you had fewer than 5 posts when this feature was started, all of your new posts will continue to fall into the moderator approval queue and we will approve them ASAP (assuming you aren't a spammer).

If you had more than 5 posts prior to about a week ago, this shouldn't affect you or your posts at all.

 

This glitch is also causing some members’ post counts to remain on “0” even after their posts have been approved and are showing on the forum, so if you have noticed this and you are confused, we are working on how to fix it. The owners of SAS own several forums and have been very busy lately, but they should be able to help us soon. Until then, your posts will continue to be approved and we will do what we can to make your experience on SAS easier for you. Thank you for being patient.

 

Just an update. For all members who might have just joined in the past few days since this feature was put into place, please be patient. There seems to be a glitch in this feature that is causing the posts of new members to continue to be deposited into the moderator approval queue even after they have attained the first five posts.

At that point, if the staff has approved all of your posts, your posts should automatically go through and be posted without requiring moderator approval. Unfortunately, something isn't working right and that isn't happening as it should. I've notified the administrators so they can take a look at it and see what's going on. Until then, if you had fewer than 5 posts when this feature was started, all of your new posts will continue to fall into the moderator approval queue and we will approve them ASAP (assuming you aren't a spammer).

If you had more than 5 posts prior to about a week ago, this shouldn't affect you or your posts at all.

This glitch is also causing some members’ post counts to remain on “0” even after their posts have been approved and are showing on the forum, so if you have noticed this and you are confused, we are working on how to fix it. The owners of SAS own several forums and have been very busy lately, but they should be able to help us soon. Until then, your posts will continue to be approved and we will do what we can to make your experience on SAS easier for you. Thank you for being patient.

Just another update. As of 7/7/2024, some of these problems are persisting. I don't want to make this a long, drawn-out post so I'll get right to it.

If you are a new member or a long-term member who hasn't posted in a long time, any new posts that you make will go into the holding area for moderator approval. You should see a message telling you that your post is awaiting moderator approval.

We need and value new members. These measures were purely to prevent spam.

So. Unfortunately, this was originally only supposed to happen for the first five posts a new member would make. For some reason, it goes on for much longer with some new members and we don't know why. But rest assured that eventually you will be able to post freely so if you want to be a member of this forum, just be patient and make your posts and wait for them to be approved. This issue always resolves itself eventually.

And for new members, the most important thing you can do is make sure your posts can't be confused as spam. Which isn't hard. Just make an intro post and don't put any links or videos in your first several posts or in your signature. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. Sometimes we will not approve messages if they look like spam.

Again, we apologize for the problems this has caused for the forum, for our regulars and for sincere new members. This wasn't what we were trying to accomplish when we asked for this feature to be turned on. We are not sure why it wasn't fixed when we reported that it wasn't working properly but we're trying to approve new members when we are able to determine they are not trying to spam. There are a lot of obvious spammers who sign up still so if you see new members who get banned right away, that's what that's about.

Thanks!

 

I would like to add that if your first post is about medication, this will make us more suspicious that you could be a spammer. Also, all posts about medication automatically go into the Approval Queue even if you have a lot of posts and have been here for a long time. Those will be approved once we have reviewed them.