Don't see your first post(s) here? DON'T PANIC

[wildweasel]

ZDoom forums has a system in place in which new users' (and Guest posters') first handful of posts will be invisible until a moderator approves them. Any further posts after that will always appear immediately. This is a measure to protect the forums from the incessant spam bots that seem to plague us a lot of the time (as well as a preventative measure because a few idiots decided to ruin the fun for everybody else).

So please, if you don't see your post "go through" and appear on the forums, don't double-post it - just be patient and a moderator will likely see and approve your post within an hour (or possibly more). Much like any other moderator-related issue, we can't be available 24/7, so if your post hasn't appeared and you haven't received an email notification about it being approved or disapproved, that does not mean it has been lost.

And further, we'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't make further posts (that go into the approval queue) complaining about your post not having been approved yet. Again, we can't be available 24/7.

If you just want to have a forum account (perhaps you need to send someone a private message, or use the Advanced Search functions) and don't know where to make a post, try the New Member Introductions thread.

Addendum: As of late, we have also been disapproving posts that are breaking the rules or lack any form of common sense. Following the Official ZDoom Forum Rules, particularly the Guidelines section, will go a long way toward making a good enough first impression that your post is approved. Talking in txt-spk lolz and posting things that aren't related to the topic tends to result in a disapproval. Remember, disapproved posts do not mean you will never be approved, it just means you need to try making a different post. Really, though, if your post gets disapproved, pay close attention to the disapproval reason (you'll usually see it as an email message) and take it as a sign that you may need to lurk more.

[wildweasel]

In the interests of full disclosure, we've been receiving a lot of spambot registrations since last night, so if you receive a message that your post was disapproved, with the reason listed as "Spam bot," and you are positive that you aren't a spam bot, feel free to make your post again.

[Siggi]

In the continued effort to win the hidden war against spam bots I am updating the spam word list.
Kindly let us know if you're human and your posts are being blocked in error.

[wildweasel]

I'd just like to chime in again to say that our spam problem has not gone away. In fact, anything but:

So again, if your post accidentally gets disapproved and you're most certainly a human, please repost or contact one of us.

[wildweasel]

I would like to remind everybody - new users especially - how our Approval Queue works.

For your first few posts - that number is currently 5 but is subject to change* - your post will be put in queue. A moderator will inspect your post, and will usually approve it. However, there are a number of reasons why a post may NOT be approved. If this happens, the forum software will send an email to the account, which will contain a message stating the reason why.

Here are some of the reasons why we might disapprove your post:

• Your post looks like spam or doesn't look like anything a human being would write.
• Your post was in a thread that has not been active for half a year, or more.
• Your post contained insults, harassment, or any other rudeness or hostility. This also includes ethnic, sexist, or homophobic slurs.
• You posted the same thing twice, or more. In these cases you will likely see both an Approved email, AND a Disapproved email, for the "same" post - that's because it appeared in our queue multiple times. Again, your post is under review, it did not disappear.
• Project authors: we will potentially disapprove your Project thread if your download includes any commercial game data.

Until you've had a certain number of posts approved, you will not be able to send private messages to other users, but we may be willing to make exceptions if it is important enough. In some extreme cases, a user who has misbehaved in certain ways may be put in "Needs Approval" status - no matter how many posts they've made, all posts they make will go to our Approval Queue first. We don't do this a lot.

It is also worth noting, that if your posts still need Approval, editing any post you've made will shove it back into the queue, where it will not be visible again until one of us has Approved it.

I hope this has explained enough about how it works. If you're new here, don't worry, it won't last too long.



* depending on how far in the future you read this, it may not even be accurate anymore, as I do not expect us to remember to update this post if it ever changes.