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the-right-writer
Community Member

No bad words

While trying to post a harmless post with no bad words, I keep getting a message saying it can't be posted because of bad words. There are no bad words in my posts. This must be a bug, similar to the one that tells me every time I post that I have included invalid HTML, when the only HTML is the text.

9 REPLIES 9
williamtcooper
Community Member

Jeanne,

 

Take the last word in the sentence and retype it and make sure that there are no bolded text that were copied and pasted. Sometimes Upwork's system will flag the above for a copy and paste. See if that works.

ArjayM
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Jeanne,

 

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Could you please share with us the content of your post along with the message you're referring to? This way we can take a closer look and assist you accordingly. Looking forward to your response.

 

~ Arjay
Upwork

I don’t have a copy of the message. I gave up and deleted it. I can’t find the draft in my list. The post was in the “Are connects too expensive?” thread. The post was not in any way offensive or negative. I was saying that connects need to be more expensive to save clients from drowning in a pool of garbage proposals. That was it. No cursing, vulgar, or nasty comments and no “bad words.” The really odd thing is that I had earlier read a post by another freelancer talking about having the “bad word” error. I thought nothing of it, and then it happened to me later the same day.

 

I'm still receiving messages about "invalid HTML." I read Valeria's response.

Jeanne, 

 

If you're referring to a message like  "Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied," then you should still be able to just click "Reply" button again and your post would go through. You may get it especially when you copy-paste something into your post.
This error is the result of the built-in HTML parser and this is something the third party vendor our Community platform is build on provides. Unfortunately, we do not have much control over these settings.

~ Valeria
Upwork
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Jeanne,


This past week we've experienced a new type of spam. Our teams are working hard on new solutions to catch spammers before they start. But we may have growing pains in the meantime.

As spammers shift their approach to evade detection, we adjust our automated filters and detection system. As we tighten our filters, posts by our valued members may be impacted, which is why some of you may be experiencing error messages when posting.

I understand it's frustrating; we are frustrated too. We ask for your patience while we continue to improve our detection mechanisms.

~ Valeria
Upwork
celgins
Community Member

Jeanne,

 

I feel your pain!

 

A few hours ago, I attempted to reply to a post by Karrar A entitled, "What steps can I take to increase response rate...". I received an error: "The message body contains one or our predefined bad words...," and for a moment, I felt like an elementary school student who blurted out something inappropriate in 3rd grade English class.

 

I was 100% sure my post was harmless, but I kept rephrasing sentences and deleting words to try and figure it out. After 20 minutes, I finally found the word. If you can view the screenshot I attached, the culprit was the fourth word in my sentence: "There is no_____ formula."

 

I have no idea why this is a bad or banned word, but the Upwork algorithm that flags bad words may need some adjustment! 😆


Clark S wrote:

...

I have no idea why this is a bad or banned word, but the Upwork algorithm that flags bad words may need some adjustment! 😆


Hi Clark,

 

And adjustments have been made. Sorry about the frustration this has caused you. Again I can't share which filters we had to set up and why but we've been continuously improving them over the last couple of weeks to make sure we still catch spam with minimal or no impact on our valued members. 

~ Valeria
Upwork

Hi Valeria,

 

Thank you for the update. Reducing spam and inappropriate content is important, so I definitely understand!

Yes, that's the message I have received more than once.

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