Since the SAP Community platform has moved into its new home, our team has received plenty of comments and questions -- and we're doing our best to address them all!
One of the most common questions is: Why did my content end up in the spam filter?
In this post, I'm going to answer that. I'm also going to outline steps you can take to avoid that issue -- and to make things go much more smoothly for all of us.
First off, our new platform has a spam filter powered by machine learning. The system is scanning content as it comes in -- and that includes all the content that got migrated over from the legacy platform -- to identify anything that might be spam. Sometimes, it identifies spam correctly. And sometimes…well…it doesn't.
The moderation team checks the spam filter regularly, processing the real spam (and banning the spammers who tried to pollute our platform) and releasing the non-spam (for lack of a better term) back into the community.
By helping the system understand which content is spam (and which isn't), we are teaching the filter to leave the good content alone. But that process requires time, and the system will make mistakes. Therefore, we ask for your patience as we take the steps necessary to get the system operating optimally…permanently.
If you notice that your content got marked as spam, please do not report it to our moderation team. Our moderators are aware of what's going into spam, and they are working to clear it out as quickly as possible -- but it may take up to 24 business hours in some cases.
Reporting to the moderation team just introduces additional actions that must be completed -- and, therefore, it slows things down by creating unnecessary work. Trust us: We want your valuable content on the community, too, and we will make sure it ends up on the site. You just need to give us some time to work through the filter throughout the day.
Unfortunately, we can't always predict what will end up in spam. Just as the system is learning, so are we! But we have identified some common scenarios that you might want to avoid if possible (as they could lead to your content ending up in spam jail):
- Editing content in quick succession
- Editing old (previously published) content
Why would those things come across as "spammy"? Well, not to reveal too much about how the spam sausage is made, but it's a common spam practice to publish something, then come back later to sneak in spam content/links. (Yeah, spammers, we're wise to you.)
Since it’s against our best practices to update old content – we cover that in Step 10 of our new tutorial (which we recommend for all members, new and old!) -- you shouldn’t be editing previously published posts anyway.
(As an aside: We’re aware that there are formatting issues with some old posts that got migrated, but as we’ve been communicating, there’s no way to replicate the customized html and formatting copied over from Word docs on previous platforms – and you could end up breaking the html altogether if you attempt to modify migrated content. So it might be best to live with that white space, realize that no one will hold that typo against you, and try to write shorter posts that don’t require anchor links and a table of contents. You’re always free – and encouraged – to publish new posts with the most recent information, instead of adding to older posts that readers might overlook.)
There's no guarantee that these workarounds will keep your content out of the spam filter, but we will continue to work to empty the spam queues and help our filter better distinguish true spam. For your part, please don't open alerts or otherwise contact us when your posts get stuck in spam. It doesn't help, and it actually hurts.
