So this is pretty much just me trying to get some site feedback. Other mods are aware and all but just thought we could kinda chat about some stuff, mostly Site (WordPress and Disqus) related and less things like warnings and bans and rules. With the understanding that ya know, I really am trying to keep the place running but this isn’t like my full time job or anything. So let’s not get too crazy with any sorta ideas. But still do wanna talk about some things and get the temperature of the site end of things.

First, I wanna talk spam invasions. It’s real bad, not gonna lie. We’ve had to get real creative with the word filter and things like that. But still – don’t click any links from anyone you don’t 100% recognize. The bots are from a hack way back in 2017. They just seem to have been activated in the past month or so. Disqus’ normal spam filters aren’t working because for the most part because they are legit accounts and not brand new like typical spam bots. Because of us always sort of being in shields up mode – 2 other requests besides not clicking the links:

1 – Don’t try to act like a spam bot. I know, it can be funny and all. But when we are banning 100+ in the queue and you get a spam flag, you can definitely accidentally be banned.

2 – Flag spam bots every single time. We have a flag minimum threshold setting so 3 flags auto-deletes a post and puts it into a queue. That way we can delete it right from that queue without anyone else accidentally clicking it.

Next up, pinning. So, we don’t necessarily have a standard or hard rule for pinning. Generally, I will say the process goes like: Site Stuff like States of the Channel etc – always pinned. Things like The Pits, The Moonies, Charity drives etc – always pinned. After that our general rule is 3 pins at a time. We try to prioritize things that monopolize the OT (and sometimes the PT) so that not everyone is coming in dropping a WW1984 take when there’s a better thread where the conversation can be held for a longer time, for a recent example. Past that, we pin most stuff people request. Best way to ask is to @ an active mod or if there isn’t one, send a modmail. Generally, a pin is 3 or so days.

Next- Block editor. We are working on a revised posting guide. It’s a work in progress and will be something that gets a little more priority soon but for now, there’s a few videos and stuff. I think more people are adapting and learning it and I’ve added a few plugins that I hope have made it easier to use hopefully. But if there’s still ongoing headaches with it that maybe can be fixed, let’s here them.

Finally – The Dreaded Media Library. Actually, not bad! We are at 33GB of 200GB total for site storage. Deleting unattached media helped a TON. Unfortunately, some older articles did lose media. I’m really sorry about that but it was impossible to comb through and find what was and wasn’t attached with the filter. We also removed any non image media like videos or MP3s and that helped a ton.

Stuff still out there – Disqus is honestly working on upvotes. I am even gaining them again after being stuck at 0. A lot of the past few weeks of maintenance and borking is them trying to fix some of those problems. I know a lotta people hate Disqus but again, they talk with us now, we are on their User Council, and they have taken feedback pretty well and are trying to improve things. We use Disqus in a really weird way. And yeah, we have looked at other options and none even come close to what Disqus provides.

We always need more volunteers for OTs/PTs.

Generally, modding has been pretty rough sledding the past few months. It’s been very busy with a higher volume of warnings/bannings/issues than ever. We can talk a little about modding too if you all want.