Comment moderation taking too long (comments suddenly stopped coming since 2-3 days)

[ghastly_lump_of_meat]

Everything was normal on day one of posting a new story: people commented on it, and my first reply (a comment I made on my own story) took about a day to appear, which seemed fine.

After that, I posted a couple more replies thanking readers for their suggestions and asking them some questions; they were benign comments, nothing ban-worthy.

But it's almost 3 days now and I'm seeing no new comments (not just my own, I'm not seeing ANY new comments on my story). The only exception was a recent one from a reader who has already posted over 200 comments, which I believe does not go through moderation.

This has never happened to me before, especially my own comment not being approved after almost 3 days.

And I know for a fact that some readers have already left comments.

I'm a little worried. I needed the readers’ feedback on some questions to help me start the next chapter, but now I’m stuck waiting.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's probably not you. Comment moderation seems to come in waves, likely when the site is getting too much comment spam.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Everything was normal on day one of posting a new story: people commented on it, and my first reply (a comment I made on my own story) took about a day to appear, which seemed fine.

After that, I posted a couple more replies thanking readers for their suggestions and asking them some questions; they were benign comments, nothing ban-worthy.

But it's almost 3 days now and I'm seeing no new comments (not just my own, I'm not seeing ANY new comments on my story). The only exception was a recent one from a reader who has already posted over 200 comments, which I believe does not go through moderation.

This has never happened to me before, especially my own comment not being approved after almost 3 days.

I'm a little worried. I needed the readers’ feedback on some questions to help me start the next chapter, but now I’m stuck waiting.

Given that a standard metric is one comment per thousand views (except in LW), I wouldn't be holding your breath for story construction via comments. Don't you have your own direction for the story?

 

[ghastly_lump_of_meat]

Given that a standard metric is one comment per thousand views (except in LW), I wouldn't be holding your breath for story construction via comments. Don't you have your own direction for the story?

Of course I have my own direction, but earlier feedback showed readers were split on a certain topic, so I just wanted to use the comments to address that issue.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

That isn't what comments are for. It isn't a discussion or suggestion forum.

 

[Actingup]

Comments seem a little slow at the moment, consistent with the story approval queue growing and an outage the other day. They might be trying to have a holiday, or something's happened in their lives.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Everything was normal on day one of posting a new story: people commented on it, and my first reply (a comment I made on my own story) took about a day to appear, which seemed fine.

After that, I posted a couple more replies thanking readers for their suggestions and asking them some questions; they were benign comments, nothing ban-worthy.

But it's almost 3 days now and I'm seeing no new comments (not just my own, I'm not seeing ANY new comments on my story). The only exception was a recent one from a reader who has already posted over 200 comments, which I believe does not go through moderation.

This has never happened to me before, especially my own comment not being approved after almost 3 days.

And I know for a fact that some readers have already left comments.

I'm a little worried. I needed the readers’ feedback on some questions to help me start the next chapter, but now I’m stuck waiting.

There was a story side outage last night for quite some time. No readers = no comments.

 

[NoTalentHack]

There's something wrong with the queue in general, whether on the moderator side or the tech side. Xenia, my latest, has 110 comments listed, but from sorting my stories by comments, I know there are at least 15 comments waiting in the wings, and there has been for two days now, as it's currently sitting between one story with 124 comments and another with 140 in that sorting.

Now, it's possible that there's something messed up there with spam (that is, that there were 125+ comments at one point, some got nuked in moderation due to spam, and the hidden tally never got updated), but if that's the case, it's the first time I've ever seen anything like that since I started writing here.

 

[Bazzle]

Comments?

What are comments?

 

[onehitwanda]

Something definitely feels... off.

 

[ChuckWolf]

Has anyone noticed a discrepancy between "favorites" in the control panel notifications as opposed to what is listed? could this be connected?

 

[iwatchus]

Has anyone noticed a discrepancy between "favorites" in the control panel notifications as opposed to what is listed? could this be connected?

It's pretty clear we get favorites notifications in the control panel that are actually for others lists. Which we don't even see a count of in ACP. But if you go to you public profile page, you will see them.

 

[ChuckWolf]

Gotcha. thanks!

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Something definitely feels... off.

Where's Michael Scott when you need him?

 

[MillieDynamite]

I have to write something controversial to get a lot of comments.

 

[TheDok]

Has anyone noticed a discrepancy between "favorites" in the control panel notifications as opposed to what is listed? could this be connected?

Yes I have. This happens when someone favourites a story but puts it in a list, at which point the control panel seems to ignore it.

 

[TheDok]

If I get comments, even shit ones, I am happy. I am not widely read, but there again, I don't touch LW. With 900,000 "reads, I have just over 500 comments or 1 in 1800 reads. Those who read me score me well, in general but high scores do not seem to attract more comments. One thing I have noticed is that the way to attract more "worthless" comments is to edit poorly. There seems to be a stream of individuals ready to criticise bad grammar or tell you how much they liked your story (with no explanation why), and then modify it with but you spelt this word wrong. My advice is don't wait for comments, they will come, and enjoy the few that tell you you have created something that someone else has truly taken something from. Those are the comments that feed my wish to keep on writing.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

After several days of nothing in the comment department, a total of four popped in this evening over three stories. One was an Anonymous, and three were signed in, including one that dated his comment 9/24/25 (two days ago). Hopefully everyone else is seeing some flow even if the log jam hasn’t completely broken.

Edit: Corrected autocorrect.

 

[FrancesScott]

After several days of nothing in the comment department, a total of four popped in this evening over three stories. One was an Anonymous, and three were signed in, including one that dated his comment 9/24/25 (two days ago). Hopefully everyone else is seeing some flow even if the log jam hasn’t completely broken.

Edit: Corrected autocorrect.

I don’t exactly get inundated with comments, but my latest story has only one, and that from someone whose comments get posted immediately.

Maybe it’s related to the publication issues?