What I find a little disconcerting is that the site can just shut down a thread it considers not ‘suitable’!
Censorship is undesirable in any environment, here it is rather pathetic!
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I don’t think it’s as bad as it was as the moderators don’t seem to be so obvious nowadays.
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@Smiley, maybe this is the case because posts never reach the forum as they need approval first.
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In actual fact I have found out that the original poster asked for her post to be removed. So, in fact, it wasn’t censorship at all in this case.
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@Ken: Glad to hear it wasn’t censorship. Perhaps you could update the title of this topic?
@Manunited: I think relatively few posts need approval. A volatile topic may be put in some kind of “slow” mode, but that seems rare. And I think new users may sometimes need approval for their first post, but I’m fine with that if it reduces spam bots.
Not sure I understand what you mean! Other than saying it wasn’t censorship I can’t see what I could write!
@Ken: Well, really we should just ask a mod to close this topic. I guess it’s your prerogative since you’re the OP. As it stands, it’s a topic titled “Censorship!” but actually there was no censorship. It’s almost like unintentional clickbait.
edit: if it were me, I’d edit the title to be “Censorship! (ignore this, my mistake)” or even just “(ignore this topic; my bad; mod please close/delete)” just to save time for others.
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I don’t think that’s true.
Given that I have said (twice) that it isn’t censorship and explained why (poster withdrew the post not the THS ) I think anyone reading it would comprehend that it wasn’t censorship!!
Over and out then 
I’m confused 
Now you have me confused!!! Why are you confused?
@Smiley @geoff.hom
Im still on "probation’ every post has to be approved (including this one) beforehand. Started with the hoola over the introduction of the 5. Lost track but it has to be getting close to a year.
Not sure how many others are in the same camp.
@Manunited I’m pretty sure many of mine get held up before getting published, for the very same reason. @ziggy was trying to reply to me the other day and it took many attempts until success.
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Censorship is really really bad here for a public forum.
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@Timshazz this is what I receive with every post I submit…
Is this the same as yours ‘being held up’?
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I don’t know if this is the case, but some forums automatically do this to new members or those who’ve not posted to a certain threshold. That’s because they’re trying to avoid spammers. Sometimes, some forums enact this when they’re seeing a rise in spam.
I’ve not encountered that msg myself on THS, though, except maybe when I was new.
On THS, they award badges, some of which allow increasing latitude with what the individual can update or such, sort of like a lightweight form of moderating.
Thank you @Maggie8K you are spot on!
Our forum provider Discourse has different trust levels. All new members posts are manually approved to avoid bots, spam and to help new users.
The more the members engage with the forum the quicker they move up the trust levels. Trust levels and the criteria are pre-set by Discourse across all of their forums. This might be a useful link from Discourse as it explains trust levels: Understanding Discourse Trust Levels
It might be helpful to know that your trust levels as designed by Discourse do not work on how long you have been a member, but rather on how much you engage, so you can drop down trust levels if you are away from the forum for an extended period of time.
I hope that helps and if you have any questions let me know, my DM’s are always open 
My posts got back on “need approval” for some time and that was done by the forum algorithm. I had tried to use a word for gender (of pets I think). That triggered the extra surveillance
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Yes, certain words can trigger limits on forums, even if the use isn’t questionable, just because they can be used in questionable ways otherwise. Such automation is always done blunt force, simply because the tech isn’t sophisticated enough to distinguish like a human can and because it would be prohibitively expensive in various cases to have human moderation at all hours and/or on every post or comment. Even companies with many more resources than THS use such tech.
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