Moderator approved

[BrandonC]

How long or is it always going to be that I get....
Thank you for posting! Your post will not be visible until a moderator has approved it for posting. You will now be taken back to the forum. If you opted to post a poll, you will now be allowed to do so.

[TDavid]

Re: Moderator approved

I had to email after my posts didn't show for a week. Got an email response a few days after that and now it doesn't show me that message any more.

[NA9D]

Re: Moderator approved

The approval process is to keep spammers down. It really works. Sometimes, a new post gets buried in a thread somewhere and the staff moderators at Vudu don't see it for quite a while.

If you have a problem with a post, send a private message to JohnA and he'll get to it.

[TDavid]

Re: Moderator approved

The approval process is to keep spammers down. It really works.

Respectfully, I don't think treating customers like would-be spammers is a good course of action for any company online. There are plenty of script-based methods to block forum bots that are far more effective than simply moderating all new posts from everybody.

Forgive me for going geek for a moment ...

One problem from a technical standpoint is VUDU chose to use an unmodded third party forum system (VBulletin) rather than integrating and/or at least crosschecking against their customer database with the forum system so they know: which of their customers are also on the forums (hint: listen to these people more, give these people more perks!).

VBulletin is immensely moddable and would be easy for the two credential systems to 'talk' to each other so that VUDU customers who create a forum account can be crosschecked and elevated with higher privileges than a non-customer from the get go. Heck, prospective customers could also be elevated.

Just think of the other possibilities too like:

1. optionally allowing member forum signatures/badges with most recent watched or highest rated VUDU movies/TV (even better if these could be tracked affiliate links so that the member gets credit if other members rent through these links)
2. the ability to view and/or post on forum with the VUDU community through the VUDU player (I bet this will be coming with some sort of LUA script in the VUDU labs).

I think these forum perks should be OPT-IN, not opt-out, btw, for those concerned about privacy. With that said, VUDU is already doing some stuff like this by showing who "just watched" what movie on the homepage. This could be better integrated with the forum system as well.

Bottom line: customers shouldn't be moderated period unless site rules are broken, rather than blocking before anybody even knows if we ever will. Comes off a bit like hey, thanks for buying this $300 device now we don't trust you to communicate with us openly on our website.

That's going to have a few people scratching their heads.

[NA9D]

Re: Moderator approved

Well, let's look at it this way.

When Vudu first started operation there were about 6 of us users (myself included) who were moderators of the forums. Vudu was in startup mode and did not have the time nor resources to devote time to staff members policing the forum. Several of the people who were moderators including myself, have moderated several other forums across the internet. At the same time, we constantly found ourselves deleting spam posts from spammers. It is a very common thing in the industry for first time posts to be required to be moderated. It's not treating the customer base as potential spammers. It's recognizing the fact that Vbulletin has limited functionality to screen users and so the requirement to have the first post approved was implemented. And it has worked well. In about the year and a half of us working things this way, you are the first person to complain about being treated as a potential spammer. If you knew how much crap we were able to catch on the first post, you'd be stunned.

During this period when Vudu had volunteer moderation, no post needed to wait very long before being approved. It was generally minutes and at the most hours. A few months ago, Vudu decided to pull the moderation duties back in house. So those of us who were moderators were no longer able to go in and approve posts. I'm sure Vudu had good reasons for doing this but unfortunately, one of the side effects of this action was that there are now fewer moderator eyes on the forums 24/7 and as such, posts stay in the moderation queue for a lot longer of a period of time. That's not a criticism, that's simply a fact.

It's impossible for Vudu to check against their customer database because people who are not customers come in here and post and ask questions. So that's not reasonable.

And it's not that we don't trust the you, the users. It's that we don't trust the rest of the crap in cyberspace. The legitimate users of the Vudu support forums should be happy that by simply being patient and waiting, the forums are kept clean and spam free for everyone. If Vudu didn't trust you, then all your posts would need to be moderated always. You can choose to look at it with a pessimistic attitude such as you've demonstrated or look at the positive side to a simple action that was undertaken that has made these forums probably some of the cleanest I've seen.





It's not that we don't trust people who post reasonably and accurate

[TDavid]

Re: Moderator approved

Hi NA9D

It seems you have taken my response too personally. I think it's great that you volunteered at an online forum(s). Volunteers are great. High five. My comment wasn't about you or any other VUDU forum volunteer: present, past or future. Not trying to bag on volunteers here, really

Several of the people who were moderators including myself, have moderated several other forums across the internet. At the same time, we constantly found ourselves deleting spam posts from spammers. It is a very common thing in the industry for first time posts to be required to be moderated.

Yes, spam is commonplace, no disagreement there.

I've moderated, admined and even programmed forums from the ground up (as well as modded VB professionally) for years so I hear you on spam being a hassle. We seem to disagree however on the best method for dealing with spam that best utilyzes and takes into account resources (time, money and manpower).

It's not treating the customer base as potential spammers. It's recognizing the fact that Vbulletin has limited functionality to screen users and so the requirement to have the first post approved was implemented.

The default VBulletin install has several anti-spam options (CAPTCHA helps keep out the bots, for example) and there are plenty of free plugins and mods available to do many, many things that help curb spam that do not require forcing every new registered account to have every post and reply held in a queue that can take a week or more to unlock if/when somebody who works at VUDU probably has 20 other things on his/her schedule takes time to do it.

VBulletin has a thriving community of developers both casual and professional. Mods exist and have been around for many years. Who knows maybe if VUDU had asked, they could have gotten volunteer programming help to do everything I described above. Maybe in exchange for a demo unit or something, I don't know.

The point shouldn't be lost here that this was an option VUDU chose not to take. Fact, not opinion.

And it has worked well. In about the year and a half of us working things this way, you are the first person to complain about being treated as a potential spammer. If you knew how much crap we were able to catch on the first post, you'd be stunned.

I can't be the "first" person to complain as evidenced here. I didn't start this thread, so I'm at least the second

It's impossible for Vudu to check against their customer database because people who are not customers come in here and post and ask questions. So that's not reasonable.

It is very, very technically possible and not very difficult to do at that. VUDU made the decision not to do so for whatever reason. From the member area under community the forum link is already there. Not much more work to simply capture those clicks and prepopulate as a customer being that you have to be logged in as a VUDU customer to see that page.

Now, when customers go directly to the forum to register and/or are not logged in they could have another option there to select that you are a customer and link to the account optionally OR just be anonymous, whatever the customer wanted to do. The point I'm making is they could make this a positive instead of a negative.

Positive of linking to VUDU account for VUDU customers:
- no held in moderation queue required for posts made (would help eliminate threads/discussion like this one)
- perhaps give customers a special badge option in the signature if they want (or the other badges like I suggested). Lots of social opportunities here

They could have farmed a mod like this out to one of hundreds, if not thousands of VBulletin developers out there for a few hundred bucks tops if they didn't want to do this with in house devs.

If Vudu didn't trust you, then all your posts would need to be moderated always. You can choose to look at it with a pessimistic attitude such as you've demonstrated or look at the positive side to a simple action that was undertaken that has made these forums probably some of the cleanest I've seen.

There wasn't any "pessimistic attitude" intended toward VUDU but there is sort of one toward some of your response which seems to be somewhat defensive(?). Step off me already. I was trying to point out that there are options out there for making the forums experience better if VUDU would like to take them. Options.

Technically choices were made with the forum integration that didn't have to be made. You are reading emotion toward VUDO that was neither intended or desired. I happen to like my VUDU and am excited about future possibilities with the new VUDU labs.

Haven't done any LUA scripting myself yet (am a bit curious why they chose that in place of other established languages) so am checking into that as well. Looking forward to see where that all goes.

[NA9D]

Re: Moderator approved

TDavid,

I'm not taking anything personally here, rather explaining the history of why a decision was made and the history of it. You are the first person to "complain" that you are being treated like a spammer. The original poster is a friend of mine and a new potential customer. He simply asked the question about it which others have done. He also asked me directly. When I explained to him about it, his response was, "That makes sense." This has been the response of everyone that has asked until your statement. That's not an attack on you just a statement of fact that no one has seemed bothered by it until now.

Why weren't any of the vbulletin things done? Well, those of us who used to basically run the forums here were not vbulletin experts or up to speed on the latest in how the forum system works. One member was particularly better at it than the rest of us but he was still not at your level of knowledge about it. We simply didn't have the time to look for another solution. As for Vudu doing it - trust me - they didn't have the time either. This solution we implemented was fast and easy to do. It does sound like you have some good ideas on how to improve it so maybe we can indeed learn something from you. If I was still in a position of moderating/administrating the boards here, I'd love to dig into it more with you and see what could be done. Perhaps JohnA or JimmyH from Vudu would be able to do that but given their time constraints and how the system is working right now I don't know if it's going to be possible in the short term.

As far as tying into a Vudu customer, I still don't think it's possible. The way the system is set up, you have to have a Vudu box in order to create a customer account. So perhaps there's a way that when you sign up, you could sign up tied to your account. Then you could post right away unmoderated. If you aren't yet a customer, then perhaps you could sign up but then then your post held in queue.

Anyhow, I'm not looking to pick a fight with you. I objected to your view that Vudu is treating new forum users as spammers. You wouldn't let me into your house as a stranger w/o getting to know me first. Yet, I'd see that as completely normal and not that you see me as a potential criminal. Same thing with the forums here. We can agree to disagree.

[BrandonC]

Re: Moderator approved

I didn't bother reading everything in you two guys posts. But I can see few things.

1) If I was interested in buying a Vudu, had some questions before purchase and found out I had to wait an undetermined amount of time to see my post and then start waiting for replies I may have moved onto some other similar device by then.

2) If I have to wait for mod approval I would like an email stating my post is now "posted". With no notice I have to keep coming back to check.

3) Ya, there are several ways other than mod approval for VB that may not be 100% accurate but might be better.

[BrandonC]

Re: Moderator approved

OK, the last thing I don't like... Since I just saw it.
My first post was "posted" my reply which i just did required mod approval. What gives there? I thought I was approved.

Maybe I will just create my own Vudu forums.

[namja]

Re: Moderator approved

Sorry to revive an old thread ...

But this process is annoying. And this is probably why this forum isn't growing as quickly. I'm a moderator of a forum on another site* where we have over 86,000 members with over 7,000,000 active posts. Even with all that traffic, we don't use the moderation queue, and we rarely get any spam. And spam that we do get are quickly squashed by the team of moderators. There are better ways** to combat spam than to hold the posts hostage until they are approved.

I used to have over 1,000 DVDs. I sold most of them when Blu-ray came out. I bought about 100 Blu-rays, but I'm not planning on buying them anymore because I want to buy digital copies, mostly on Vudu and UV. It'd be nice if we can have a really active community here so that we can all help each other out with questions and with great ideas. Having a moderation queue stifles the growth of this forum. We are probably losing hundreds of potentially active users because of this. Since my first posts had to wait in the queue, I went to other places to ask for questions (and complained a lot there about the Vudu/UV problems). Hey Vudu, wouldn't it be nice to keep the complaints "in-house" instead of spreading them everywhere?

Anyway, that's all the vent for now regarding this topic.



*DVD Talk. It is the largest DVD/Blu-ray forum on the Internet. I have the same username there.
**And I'll be willing to help as a moderator if that's what it'd take.

[NA9D]

Re: Moderator approved

Well, several years ago, this Vudu site was maintained in cooperation between Vudu staff and several volunteer moderators (myself included) who had been using the Vudu product from the beginning. We had a really good relationship and all got along really well.

At one point there was a management change and Vudu summarily decided that it was no longer in their best interest to have volunteer, users as moderators and so they removed all of our access. We weren't happy to say the least.

When we were all here (there were about 6 of us) and working the forums on a daily or hourly basis, few people had to wait in the moderator queue. Now, I don't know how long it takes. But as one of the mods who initiated the queue, I can tell you it was very effective as it was done to combat a very specific spam threat that was happening on the boards at the time. It's possible that time has passed but again, not being a mod any longer doesn't allow me to see the inner workings of what's going on.

[namja]

Re: Moderator approved

Thanks NA9D. I was wondering why you were no longer showing up as a moderator. I kinda wish you were. You seem very helpful. Anyway, are any of the moderators actively participating in these forums?

[NA9D]

Re: Moderator approved

Thanks NA9D. I was wondering why you were no longer showing up as a moderator. I kinda wish you were. You seem very helpful. Anyway, are any of the moderators actively participating in these forums?

Not much. Ron might still be around. NDED and I are on to other bigger and better things that keep us very busy. MaxH is living the good life and I think Justin is still selling Marshmallows!

Yeah, they gave us the axe and we had no choice....

[canadien37]

Re: Moderator approved

That's too bad, I remember all those names you mentioned back in the day.....I loved NDED's avatar!!! LOL.....Good luck to you all....

[MaxH]

Re: Moderator approved

I actually set it up, since I had previous experience with administering vBulletin, and I know I explained it thoroughly to the person to whom we handed it off, but that was a while ago.

I just saw a guest post (very likely a test post from a spammer, as it's a generic "hi, i like your company" post), so I think they changed it.

Well, all we can do is report them if we see them....