There is bunch of spam users posting spam amazon links on our forum. I have set up watched words to catch those amazon links, however, it didn’t work. Then I did a deeper research, and I realized how they got away: first, these spam users post a normal reply, and the after a few minutes, they edit the reply and add a spam amazon link! The editing didn’t trigger watched words! I believe this is a bug in Discourse. Can you fix it?

I tried adding a watched word to an existing post on my local but it correctly replaces the word. Can you give us a concrete example with a link that should have been removed and a screenshot of your watched words settings?

Thank you! See this spam post for example: https://www.uscardforum.com/t/topic/81665/3?u=uscreditcardguide And this is our watched words setting: [image]

Your watched word is t.co/ and the link in the spam post is https://t.co/rX42eIcsjD so it should trigger watched word. But one thing that could probably be causing it not to trigger is that the link is visibly looking like the following, so probably the watched word setting is applying to it instead of the t.co/ one. [Screenshot 2022-05-04 at 11.05.12 AM] Will look into this further.

Thanks. The following is the exact reply copied by our admin account, and i hope this can help your study: 谢谢分享～说到apple，apple airpods pro耳机在30% off，link: www.amazon.com/dp/B09JQMJHXY , 这种价格怎样？

I’ve changed the title to reflect the issue better. Nothing in the UI suggests you can’t use a URL as a watched word, but it doesn’t work currently. We’re looking into the this and will get back once we have an update. Also I’m not 100% sure this is a bug. What say @JammyDodger ?

[image] Faizaan Gagan: Also I’m not 100% sure this is a bug. What say @JammyDodger ? It’s a tough one to call. Is it a long-standing oversight, or asking something of the code that was never intended? I think it would certainly be a useful anti-spam tool if it could catch the link text as well, but obviously I lack the technical skill to know if that’s asking too much. :slight_smile:

Hi, the title that you edited does not reflect the problem. I have verified again today: if the user post the link directly, the watched word works on url. The problem only occurs when the user post something first, and then he edits the reply. The editing and saving process won’t trigger the watched word feature.

See above. The problem is not about whether the watched word works on url. The problem is when user edits his reply the watched word feature is not working.

Here’s how to repeat the bug: Add “thisisjustatest” to the list of watched word. Use a non-admin user, post a reply with “thisisjustatest”, then the watched word is triggered. Use a non-admin user, post a reply with other words first, and then edit the reply to add the word “thisisjustatest”, then the watched word will NOT be triggered and the user will be able to add this word to the reply successfully.

I have given it a go. :+1: Added thisisjustatest to Blocked watched words Used TL2 test user to post This is a reply Opened post in edit mode still with TL2 test user Pasted in thisisjustatest along with the existing This is a reply text Edit The watched words successfully blocked the edit Repeated test with editing grace period set to 1. Same outcome However, when I tried to put t.co/ in the Blocked watched words and use the TL2 test user to post the spam 谢谢分享～说到apple，apple airpods pro耳机在30% off，link: [www.amazon.com/dp/B09JQMJHXY](https://t.co/rX42eIcsjD) , 这种价格怎样? message it would let me post it first time, with no need to go back in for an edit. (I forgot to add the wildcards :slightly_smiling_face:) Have you tried to post that link yourself on your own site? And did the thisisjustatest test work for you? If so, have you any other details you can give so I can get the same result on my test site?

Watched word Approval doesn't work if a user edits the reply

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Watched word Approval doesn't work if a user edits the reply

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