Needs Approval doesn’t Log Reject
There is an issue with Discourse’s “Needs Approval” system, where rejected posts/topics are not logged, leaving users with no record of the action. cpradio reported this issue, and codinghorror assigned it to be fixed in version 2.1. techAPJ implemented a fix, but a regression was reported by Mittineague.
The regression occurs when a user is silenced due to typing too fast, and their post is deleted without leaving any log or record of the action. Mittineague attempted to reproduce the issue but was unable to do so. He speculated that the problem might be due to asynchronous processing, where a post gets caught by both the “typed too fast” and Akismet filters, resulting in the post being deleted without being logged.
Codinghorror asked eviltrout to investigate the issue, and eviltrout confirmed that it seems like a bug. cpradio offered to provide more examples if needed. The issue has occurred multiple times, with cpradio and cpradio providing screenshots of the issue. Mittineague suggested that the post might be a message that he doesn’t have permission to see, but cpradio confirmed that it is not a message.
When a post/topic is in needs approval and a Staff chooses to Reject the post/topic, nothing gets logged. You don’t get an action stating the post/topic was deleted, or by whom, the post just vanishes and the user is left Silenced.
Log of post/topic entering Needs Approval Queue
Staff clicked the Reject button.
No additional logs were added (at the very least, it should log the post/topic being deleted).
We should address this case in 2.1 @techapj can you add to your list.
Regression?
Background:
I routinely work through the New Users list to take a look at new accounts. Today I saw an account that had been Silenced by system for typed too fast. When looking for what had been typed too fast I did not find it in the Profile or Logs. I saw no deleted posts, no Warnings - nothing other than the “typed too fast” note.
Needs Review:
The page displayed “There are no items to review.”. I changed Status to Everything, Refreshed, scrolled down to look for brownwalsh23 and saw
Note that it has a “deleted” but also Pending and Approve / Reject
Going to the topic, the post is nowhere to be found. i.e. it is deleted, both no longer pending and pending, and the member is left Silenced.
Any thoughts on this @eviltrout?
This does seem like a bug to me. I will investigate, thanks!
Thanks @eviltrout, if you need us to provide more examples, as they occur, let us know!
Just saw this again right now.
Staff Action logs show
Review Queue is empty
Searching for everything for this user is also empty
I have no idea how to find his review item to clear it…
I only know of it because he responded to the PM stating his account is blocked. Which the PM doesn’t help either, as it doesn’t link to the post/reply/topic
I am unable to reproduce it so I can only guess.
It has been brought up enough times that I am assuming if one of the Staff had “rejected” and didn’t follow through with the work flow (unSilence, Suspend, leave a Staff Note) someone would have admitted their involvement with the account.
I have seen “post rejected” for “typed too fast” posts in the Staff Actions logs.
My first guess was that the posts were messages that I couldn’t access, but that does not seem to be the case.
My current guess is that there is some kind of asynch happening and some posts get caught both by “typed too fast” and by Akismet. eg.
We might have had it occur again, for another user.
Nothing in Review Queue
I have no idea where to look next.
I’m not finding what was typed too fast.
I see
...
"post_count":1,
...
"flags_received_count":0,
"private_topics_count":2
...
Are you certain it isn’t a message I don’t have permission to see?
It might be possible to query out the post id and request the post, but that feels like it would be a bit of effort and not likely to yield anything informative.
