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Moderation information

It would be quite helpful if, when a moderation flag is set, and the "offending message" is a bounce message, if information included in the moderation message included the date and time the bounce message (setting the moderation flag) was received (if this hasn't already been added to versions later than 1.1.6).

I spent the better part of the day chasing the reason for a "blocked message" sent to a new member, only to discover that flag was from a week ago when the member signed up (email authentication is enabled) and apparently cleared the next day, and was not a response to a post sent this morning (after which I logged in as admin and discovered the moderation flag on the bounced message).

Whatever the blocking problem was on the recipient's end, it resolved itself the next day apparently and emails are now going through to that domain from the forum, and I've been chasing a fairy that has already moved on from that mail server... :persevere: :rolleyes: 
 
// Deep inside every dilemma lies a solution that involves explosives //

Re: Moderation information

Reply #1 –

Sorry for the delay in a response, been busy doing a rather major change to the 2.0 JavaScript files and at this point who knows what I have broken!



Well first its Email, and its intended to be infuriating!  I thought 1.1.6 had the bounce detection functions in the maillist section? 

That was intended to log bounced emails for "cause" and (optionally) disable the users "send me email" options.  The intent being to detect bounces and then prevent re-sending which "if" it was a valid TLD to not to get blocked for trying to continually send email to a blocked (or non existent) address.

Re: Moderation information

Reply #2 –

Well, the message for moderation was from my host email server telling me the receiving domain (Outlook.com) was blocking messages from my host's domain (not my ip). I confirmed neither I nor my host were on any known black lists, and outlook's support confirmed neither my IP or my host's ip were blocked at the time I inquired.  I set up a user with an outlook email account, and then sent a PM to it - and it went through just fine (albeit into the spam folder). (Touche', my  spam system marks Outlook's support emails as spam too..  :tongue: )

Anyway, my host was unable to find a clue, and outlook's support, to their credit, responded in a timely manner (although their first email response had no message payload which gave me no information except that my trouble ticket number listed in the subject indicated my submission had generated "something", but otherwise gave me no positive "first impression" of how the troubleshooting effort might play out - and the time stamp of that message indicated it wasn't "auto-generated"). However, my "WTF" reply to the empty message elicited a response fairly quickly and over the course of the next few hours revealed no existing blocks by outlook.com.  

Anyway, what was not part of the moderation information I had was "when" the bounce message was received for 'moderation". I checked the member account (the only one with an outlook.com email) and verified  was not configured to receive email notifications of posts so I concluded the message sent earlier in the day was not the culprit. My error logs revealed, however the member signed up on the 28th and tried to access the account on both the 28th and then again on the 29th, and was rejected because  the account had not been authenticated. However, there are no accounts awaiting authentication, and the new member account is now valid (without my intervention), and the log showed sign up on the 28th, and last active on the 29th, so I assumed the member found the authentication message in his spam folder, and completed the sign up process.  

Now, the authentication email is not the only possible email-exchange scenario between the member and Elkarte that I can imagine, just the one that I know for sure occurred, and is the most likely trigger - if something else went on that I'm not aware of, well, by the very nature of that, I'm not aware of it.

All told, it occurred to me that this dive into all the rabbit holes I could think of chasing the error only to come up empty (because of the transient nature of this particular one) could have been avoided if the moderation notification included the date and time of the moderation flag, narrowing down the event horizon..



I would think a timestamp memorializing the event on the temporal plane we're all flying on could he helpful information regardless of what actually activates the moderation flag, not just for a received email. 

And thusly, a timestamp included with setting the moderation flag is the full width, breadth and depth of my "product improvement request".  :sparkles:
Last Edit: March 12, 2024, 03:23:17 am by Steeley
// Deep inside every dilemma lies a solution that involves explosives //