Comments, Trash Folder, And Banned Words

~ beetleypete

After all the problems yesterday with genuine comments going into my Trash folder, when I logged on this morning, I found six more.

So I went straight to the Help option (A big ? in a circle) to chat online with a WP technician on Live Chat.
(This option is available to me as I have a paid plan, Premium.)

After some investigation, WP suggested to me that the comments contained some of my banned words, in particular a combination of the letters RV. This means that words such as ‘Deserved’ and Served’ containing those letters in combination caused the comment to be trashed.

Although this did not seem obvious to me, I have done as they suggested, and removed ‘RV’ from my banned list.

I originally put that on the list as I was being plagued with Spam from an American motorhome company using ‘RV’ (recreational vehicle) in their messages.

If the suggestion from WP does not improve things today, I will be straight back onto them and contacting the Live Chat again.

63 thoughts on “Comments, Trash Folder, And Banned Words”

    1. It seems we have to be extra-careful what we list as ‘banned’, Jennie.
      I have never banned ‘sex’, because of all the counties in the UK that end in ‘sex’, (like Sussex and Middlesex) anyone writing about where they lived would be trashed. I didn’t expect RV to have similar repercussions though.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

        1. Yes, I have a list of banned words and URLs. That stops them going into Spam, and they go straight to trash. By putting ‘RV’ on that list, I inadvertantly trashed every word containing that combination, such as ‘Deserve’.

          This is how you do it, from the Admin Page.
          Settings>
          Discussion Settings>
          Scroll down to ‘Disallowed Comment keys’
          Add your banned words.
          ‘Save Changes’

          Best wishes, Pete.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

  9. I haven’t had any real comments go to trash, but I’ve noticed that specific older posts attract most of the spam, so I closed comments on those posts. Hopefully your fix works, but if you see that some posts are spam magnets you can stop comments on them.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Audrey. I still get so many genuine comments on posts that are over 5 years old or older, so I am reluctant to close comments. But I have heard that does help in cutting out Spam.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  10. I came to a similar conclusion recently and began eliminating phrases and words from my banned list to see where the problem might be. I recently removed RV from the list (I’ve been flooded with their spam recently, too) and since I removed it and haven’t seen legitimate comments trashed. For now I’ve kept ‘repair’ on my banned list and still catch quite a few RV comments.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I have never been on any other platform, Phil. But I did solve a lot of issues by going for a paid plan. They seem to sort out my issues faster than before, when I was on the WP Free.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  14. Good to see the WP engineers were able to help. Their track record with me has been mediocre. I never bothered with word filtering because akismet did a decent job. Anything that got through I just tagged as spam (instead of trashing) and eventually it learned to block it.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Andrew. On a paid plan, the Live Chat is immediate, and usually resolves issues quickly. Somtimes contacting the Happiness Engineers by email could take days to get something sorted.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Coming up to holiday time, I suspect. I was getting up to 50 a day relating to motorhomes, Liz, all from the US. As I am not American, and have no intention of buying a motorhome, it was pointless for them to Spam me.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. One of the good reasons to pay for a Premium Plan, Peggy. You don’t have to wait ages for the Happiness Engineers to get back to you. The Live Chat is immediate. It took less than 10 minutes to get the answer. I know everyone cannot afford that, but I am happy to pass on the answers to them.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

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