How-To: Get rid of "Unapproved Group Messages"

Preface: I know this is a damn lot of reading, and I'm not always *real* clear..... sorry about that. Trying to be thorough...

Something to keep in mind if you are the owner of a User Group... If you don't "approve" of a message, meaning you don't agree with it, delete it. If you use the "unapprove" method to hide it, it will show up in your notifications.



Breeder had an issue wherein his Notifications were constantly flashing, saying he had 7 Unapproved Group Messages. Over time, as one or the other of us would think about it, we would Pm and come up with ideas. None of them worked.

I finally got the idea to have him transfer ownership of his album to me. My thinking was that the simple act of transferring it might clear the issue. No. Now I had 7 unapproved Group Messages.

But now I had something to play with. I could see what he was seeing but still had little experience with the User Groups.

First things first... what is an unapproved Group Message and how does it show?

If you have your Group permissions set where you have to approve every message that comes in, you're opening yourself to a world of trouble. Keep in mind that Breeder did not have his permissions set this way so we are dealing with some sort of glitch. It happens.

If someone starts a new thread in your group that is pretty easy to spot. I added the arrows by the way, don't expect arrows on your end...



You can approve it or you have to delete it to get rid of the message. Not such a big deal.

The real problem comes in when someone replies to an existing post. This reply will show as an unapproved message in your notifications, so you'll know there's a new post *somewhere*. The issue here is that there is no way to know where the new post is by looking at the thread list.



I added the arrows in the above pic to indicate that both of those threads have unapproved replies within them. Note that there is no way to know that by looking at the thread list and that the threads did not bump to the top. This is because the replies have not been approved yet.

This can be a problem on a large group, that has many threads and is quite active. The only way to get rid of the Notifications will be to find the posts with the unapproved replies and approve them.

I went through ever single thread in Breeders group and found no unapproved new threads or unapproved replies to existing threads. It was painful and there was little pay off. At least I learned that not everyone out there who may be getting the notifiers actually has unapproved messages.

**SAVE**

 

So, how do we fix the notifications?

I think the approach may be different depending on two current conditions...

1. You currently have, or have had in the past, the "Messages must be approved by the owner" box checked.

2. You have never, ever had that box checked and still have unapproved message notifications.

To check your settings, click "Edit Group" at the bottom of your Group page...



Now you should see the "Edit Group" page with this on it......



Click the the "Messages must be approved by the owner" box to remove the check mark (if checked).

Click SAVE



This does not get rid of the Notifications. It will allow new posts to be viewable immediately. If you have people posting things you don't want, delete it. If you have trouble a particular person, remove them from the Group.

They will probably send you a PM and chew you out. Welcome to the wonderful world of web-site Moderation!

 

If you have never had that box checked, you likely have it a little easier than those who did.

Here's what I did on Breeder's group...

Keep in mind I started on the last page of his group, and worked forward. Don't know if that played a part...

I clicked on the "Drop-down Menu" arrow shown by the yellow arrow below. I then clicked on "Select All" as shown by the green arrow below.




At this point all threads on the page will have a check mark next to them, Red arrow below. I then clicked on the "Drop-down Menu" arrow shown by the yellow arrow below, selected "Unapprove Discussions as shown by the Green arrow, then clicked "GO" as shown by the red arrow below.



At this point all threads on the page are unapproved as noted by the yellow arrow below...



I then went through the same steps in this post, only this time I selected "Approve Messages".

I did this on all three pages, as I mentioned, starting at the last one (oldest) and moving towards the first page (newest).

When I got to the first page I noticed that the number in the "Go" box said (27), this was odd as I only had 20 threads selected. I went through the unapprove, approve methods as described above and the 7 unapproved message notifications were gone.

I know, this is a lot of reading... take a break if you need to, an aspirin, nap, whatever helps.

For some of you experiencing this problem, I think we may have just fixed it for you, assuming you followed these steps.

 

For those who had this box checked, and the steps above did not fix your unapproved message notification problem, you will probably have to go through each and every thread, performing the same steps mentioned in post #3 on each and every thread.

 

Please let me know if this all makes sense, if it worked for you and/or you have other suggestions.

Thanks!


Rashy

 

Thanks for the heads up.
As my group is small and i have to approve new members, i havent had this problem. I think noone can leave messages without joining first, and because they have to be a pro tattooist, i check em out before i ok them.
theres about 29 members and its not a real active group.
I will keep your PM for future reference just in case.
Hope your new year is kickin off well.
Cheers, Jeff.

 

thanks that did it

 

Holy Smokes, 'RASH. You're a genius!

Thanks to Carbs & Chrome for linking me up here, I'm now now notification free!