Can't Reply to 'Admin Approved' Comments

1. 94

   LongTimeMotherposted 7 years ago

   For years I have been diligent about responding to questions left on my hubs. But now I've discovered comments are being published on my articles without appearing in my Comments section, so I look like I'm rude and ignoring readers who go to the effort of writing.
   
   Today I spent ages waiting for 'Approved' comments to load in my Comments page so I could hit 'Reply' but there's no option to reply. When the status is 'Admin Approved' my only option is to 'Delete forever'.
   
   I have no way of knowing exactly how many comments have slipped by without my attention but I found three beneath just one dengarden article. So is this a glitch? I hope so. It makes no sense for the 'system' to be automatically approving comments and bypassing the attention of the author.
   
   At the very least, we should be able to choose the 'Admin Approved' status in Comments to be able see what's waiting for a reply instead of having to load every one of the comments from all hubs at the same time. (Annoyingly, loading by 'Date' shows the oldest comments first which is also unhelpful.)
   
   I have over 2,000 comments on my hubs. Please restore the ability for us to quickly and easily identify and respond to comments. The process used to work just fine. Thanks.

   replyreport
   1. STAFF

      Matt Wellsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      If the settings on your Hub require comments to be approved before they appear, you will have 7 days to make a decision. If a decision is not made then a Moderator may make a decision for you. To view all recently approved comments you can sort by 'Date' and filter 'Approved' in Global Comment Capsule Settings. Comments approved by Admin will still display the 'Reply' option.

      replyreport
      1. 0

         calculus-geometryposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         It would be helpful to have this as an official announcement.  I found out admin was surreptitiously approving comments two weeks ago from Kylyssa's thread
         http://hubpages.com/community/forum/139 … ymore-now-
         but this is the first I am seeing HP admit it.  Now you say we have three days to approve, before you swoop in and do it.  Seems like kind of a major new policy change that deserves its own thread and blog post.  Lots of people are going to miss this thread and not realize what's going on.

         replyreport
   2. STAFF

      Matt Wellsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Deleted
      1. 93

         Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Matt, I noticed I had some comments in the Admin Approved Filter that I had previously approved. I know I did because I even already replied to those commrnts.  How did that happen?
         
         Also, how do we clear that filter? It looks like this was not considered by the programmer analysts, and it is important to do or else the filter will simply fill up over time.

         replyreport
         1. 87

            Jean Bakulaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I just realized the comments from others was on our comments section and they were not on the individual hubs like they used to be. It took me days to catch up, and the questions many asked were very time consuming to answer. At least I know where to check now.

            replyreport
            1. 85

               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               They are actually in both places, it's just easier to find them in the Comments section.

               replyreport
               1. 87

                  Jean Bakulaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks, Marisa.

                  replyreport
         2. STAFF

            Matt Wellsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Hello Glenn Stok, Please email team@hubpages.com with some screenshots and we will take a look. We will also take your clear filter suggestion into consideration.

            replyreport
            1. 93

               Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Matt, I just emailed you screen shots showing both issues I mentioned in this thread.

               replyreport
         3. STAFF

            Matt Wellsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Hello Glenn Stok, You can now filter comments by 7 days, 30 days and 1 year to help limit the size of the page.

            replyreport
            1. 93

               Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks Matt. That addition helps tremendously since it no longer causes the browser to hang by avoiding thousands of comments on one page. 
               
               I also got your direct email referring to my question with admin approved comments that I already approved. Thanks for that explanation.

               replyreport
2. 93

   Glenn Stokposted 7 years ago

   Make sure you have the proper settings in your "Global Comment Capsule Settings"
   
   You should select "yes" for "Comments must be approved before they appear"

   replyreport
   1. 94

      Kylyssaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      It won't help because administrators have been overriding author control and publishing comments without our approval.
      
      An admin approved a comment that was basically just a rude comment about homeless people with a zinger at the end on one of my hubs that is frequently used by junior high students in social studies. I had set the comment aside to get a second opinion on it and the admin approved it before I had the chance. I received no notification that the comment had been approved. I moderate such guestbooks to keep them appropriate for young readers.

      replyreport
      1. 93

         Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Kylyssa, What you're saying is that Admin moderates comments now. Please tell me where you read that. Unless I missed an announcement, it's up to us to moderate comments on our own hubs as long as we had specified that in our global comment settings.
         
         The detection of possible spam and low quality comments are the only exception, to my knowledge, and those comments automatically go into your spam folder or low quality folder where they wait for you to delete or approve.

         replyreport
         1. 85

            WryLiltposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Matt Wells announced it further up in this thread. I'm a little baffled by this decision - we should at least be informed of added comment so we can review them.

            replyreport
            1. 93

               Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Actually Matt Wells announced it in this thread an hour AFTER I posted my comment, and after I sent an email to the team asking about this discrepancy. (Change your thread setting to Chronological mode).
               
               I am also baffled, as you are, that this was not announced. Once in a while I see notifications that Hubbers had finally approved comments I left in their hubs months ago, and even years ago. I thought they finally checked their pending comments. Now I realize it must have been the HubPages' moderators doing it. What a shame, because the Hubber of those hubs still is left in the dark and not aware of what's going into their hubs.
               
               Many times I see spam that Hubbers I follow never remove. I even see unrelated comments that have nothing to do with the subject of the hubs. These things hurt the Google ranking.
               
               If it has been decided to have moderators approve comments that are three days old, then how about also having them also delete spam comments and comments that don't relate to the subject.

               replyreport
         2. 86

            Sherry Hewinsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Also, many of us have notice that it stated happening. If it's not the weekend, I could easily miss a comment for three days. I don't really mind them approving it, but I wish I was notified. Apparently, when admin approves it, it's not in our notifications section any more, and I haven't gotten any emails about it.

            replyreport
         3. 94

            Kylyssaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I think they don't realize that hubbers are people on some level and that maybe they haven't done a great deal of research into the legal and practical aspects of publishing.
            
            Publishers have to see their readers and contributors as humans or they get into trouble. If you see readers as numbers or as non-living resources you'll miss all your target demographics because they're ALL people and you aren't actually considering them as such. If a publisher fails to see writers as people, it's probably even worse, because the publisher must understand the human factor to attract readers. Numbers don't have motivations and requirements, but people sure do.
            
            If HP really understood that readers and writers are people and acted as such, the vertical sites would be going crazy rather than just doing OK. They could just use the standard verbiage publishers use and notify contributors of changes and it would make big differences.

            replyreport
3. 94

   LongTimeMotherposted 7 years ago

   Matt, I hope you didn't deliberately ignore the points I was making. So assuming you just didn't notice, I'll highlight them again and indicate how your response failed to meet my needs .....
   
   You said, If the settings on your Hub require comments to be approved before they appear, you will have 3 days to make a decision. If a decision is not made then a Moderator may make a decision for you.
   
   I shouldn't have to insist on approving every comment before it appears. I'm happy for the comments to appear but I want them to also appear in my Comments section, as they used to. Why? So I don't look like I'm rude and ignoring readers. AND so I can answer questions that are asked.
   
   If moderators are going to approve questions that are asked, why aren't they taking steps to answer the questions? Obviously in many cases they won't know the answers .... so why aren't authors advised there's an unanswered relevant question? (As was the case when comments were displayed at the click of a button.)
   
   You also said, To view all recently approved comments you can sort by 'Date' and filter 'Approved' in Global Comment Capsule Settings.
   
   I already addressed the issue of 'sorting' when I wrote,
   
   At the very least, we should be able to choose the 'Admin Approved' status in Comments to be able see what's waiting for a reply instead of having to load every one of the comments from all hubs at the same time. (Annoyingly, loading by 'Date' shows the oldest comments first which is also unhelpful.)
   
   And if you check, you'll see that I do in fact have over 2,000 comments on my hubs. I'm sure I'm not the only hubber with thousands of comments to load. which is not as quick and easy as you imply.
   
   Okay, so you obviously didn't believe me when  I said, Today I spent ages waiting for 'Approved' comments to load in my Comments page so I could hit 'Reply' but there's no option to reply. When the status is 'Admin Approved' my only option is to 'Delete forever'.
   
   Your reply is definitely wrong, which indicates there must be a glitch. Comments approved by Admin will still display the 'Reply' option.
   
   Do you want me to provide you with a photo seeing as you don't seem to believe me? The only option on the one specific dengarden article I'm referring to is 'Delete forever'. I don't know what's happening elsewhere because I don't have time to look but from where I'm sitting I'm seeing a definite problem.
   
   Please reassess this problem and give me another answer. Thanks.

   replyreport
   1. STAFF

      Matt Wellsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Hello LongTimeMother, I apologize for the previous post. There is currently not a 'reply' button for admin approved comments. We will soon be adding a 'reply' button to admin approved comments as well as display the most recent comment first when sorted by date. Also, Hubbers now have 7 days instead of 3 to decide if they want to approve or deny a comment. Thank you for the suggestions and we will take the sort by "admin approved" option into consideration.

      replyreport
      1. 93

         Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Matt, last night I experimented with listing all approved comments as you had suggested. Do you realize that when we have thousands of comments this task causes the browser to hang with delayed response to clicks? 
         
         I sorted by date and got involved with something I did not expect to do. Since it shows the oldest comments first, I noticed many comments form my early days that needed cleaning up. I had many "nice hub" type of comments that we all know should be deleted for SEO reasons. So I went through the listing to delete those comments. Of course I only planned to do a few because the task would have taken forever.
         
         As you know deleting previously approved comments requires two steps: deny then delete forever. Since the response to clicking the deny button is slow on this extensive list, I tended to click several times—thinking that it just didn't recognize my click when it didn't respond.  The problem is, as I discovered, that the spam button appears in the same place as the deny button. So when I pressed deny several times, I was actually pressing the spam button without realizing it, due to the delayed response. I think I inadvertently tagged some comments as spam because of that. Just because a decent Hubber says "nice hub" I don't want them to be tagged as a spammer. There was no way to undo that in case some of my "delete forever" clicks got registered as spam clicks.
         
         This whole process needs to be improved if you are telling us to start using this inferior process.

         replyreport
      2. 86

         Sherry Hewinsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for increasing the time before admin approval to 7 days. I think that's a more workable time frame. It's nice to know someone's listening to our concerns.

         replyreport
         1. 94

            Kylyssaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, thank you for increasing the time. I can hire someone to check my comments if I'm away more than a week. It's very important to me to keep abusive comments and profanity off of hubs that appear in lesson plans for children.

            replyreport
   2. 94

      Kylyssaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I have over 6,300 comments. It didn't take forever for them to load, but it took over twenty minutes.

      replyreport
4. 94

   LongTimeMotherposted 7 years ago

   Matt, thanks for making the improvements but I'm having a problem with your new system. When I look at 'admin approved' comments, I'm currently seeing comments I manually approved and replied to. Would you please check into that.
   
   Thanks.

   replyreport
   1. STAFF

      Matt Wellsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Hello LongTimeMother, please give me an example of a comment that you approved and replied to that is labeled 'Admin Approved' and I will look into it.

      replyreport
      1. 93

         Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Matt, you may recall three weeks ago I had reported the same problem. I had sent you a screen shot at that time.
         
         You had sent me a direct email reply explaining that there are times when an admin will review comments I already approved and that causes the system to tag it as if approved by the admin. I don't remember your exact words, but that was what I remember.
         
         The ongoing problem, however, is that It fills up the "admin approved" filter even for those of us who are diligent with keeping up with moderating comments.

         replyreport
         1. STAFF

            Matt Wellsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, I do recall. Comments approved by an author can still be reviewed by an admin. This most likely occurred when an article was moved to a Network Site.

            replyreport
            1. 93

               Glenn Stokposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               It's happening to hubs that have been in niche sites for a long time already. It's confusing to see these comments because I have to go back and check to see if it's one I already approved and replied to myself. Otherwise I almost end up responding to them a second time. I'm sure I'm not the only one being fooled by this.

               replyreport