Posts getting deleted ad hoc

I'm not talking about cursing, or arguing - just certain URLs, names of certain websites (but not all) - even the technical names for a few tractor parts. A while back, and I'd copied a pasted part of a service manual and it kept getting deleted. Found out it was an alternative word for a "fuel shutoff" that was disallowed. (I can't write it or I'll get deleted again). I only found out after much trail and error, leaving out certain words, and trying to post - until if finally went through.

So, how does a person know when something is going to be blasted - with no warning - by the cyber word-police?

I realize rules and some censoring is needed. But, seems there ought to be a way to give someone warning before a long text is totally deleleted. Seems to be these types of forums would be pretty useless if technical replies kept getting deleted. Obviously, the forum software does not work perfectly since it targets certain commonly used tractor parts names and seems to regard them as curses, lewd, or something not allowable. As to the other triggers - ???

There are many other reasons why a post might not make it... besides the "potty filter". There are literally thousands of posts attempted daily by automated "spam bots" or programs attempting to place links to drugs and other illegal activity, or viruses, etc. Some are cloaked to look like a valid answer, and you click on the link and end up at a porn site or downloading a virus.

That said, there are hundreds, if not thousands of links in our archives with links to "competitors". We do not filter these out. There are less than a handful that are blocked, and most of those are because of repeated attempts to self-promote their own sites by placing advertisements in all of the forums. Many of which were reported by the YT community because no one wants to see advertising in the forums.

Please email Chris using the support address I gave you, with the text you were trying to post - we work daily to improve the firewall, filters and other programs so they remain as friendly as possible while still keeping out hacking and spamming attempts that come into the site so quickly that they can consume an entire dedicated T1 line of bandwidth.

That said, we'll work harder on improving the software to let you know what word is being caught in the filter, if that is the case. But what this also does is let the automated spambots know what is blocking them... and they find a way around a particular word, and in comes the drug links at a pace of hundreds per minute. That is what can happen if we openly display what is being blocked.

The technical side of a large website is getting harder and harder to keep safe, so I apologize to you and anyone who is frustrated with filters. Chris and I are both system level programmers so we WILL find a solution, but even the solution must constantly evolve because when you get an edge on the spambots and hackers, they grow smarter and they get back in, so we have to get smarter and block them and so on.

Sorry to rant, I understand your frustration and appreciate your comments.

Kim