Questions about PH Forum Delays
Hey PH community! 👋
I'm a newbie @mattt_lim (about a month old) and it feels like Product Hunt is playing hard to get with me 😅
Here's what I'm experiencing:
My posts only appear publicly about 12 hours after I write them
My comments show up days later
Today I got a notification for a comment someone left on my post 5 days ago! Each piece of feedback is precious, and I felt bad not being able to respond immediately
Questions:
Why is there such a time delay? Is there some kind of moderation happening?
Is this only happening to newbie accounts? (The user who commented 5 days ago was also new)
Could there be something wrong with my settings?
If none of the above, what might be causing this?
Like everyone else, I'd love to communicate in real-time with the community.
Any help would be appreciated! (I'm guessing this post won't show up until tomorrow either... 🙃)
Replies
Product Hunt
Hey Mattt, welcome to the community! Apologies for the rough onboarding - that's definitely not what we strive for. I'll try to add as much context here, but you're also always welcome to contact us using the chat option in the lower right, or by emailing hello@producthunt.com. I know other people at Product Hunt got the notification of your post like I did, so looking forward to any context they add 👀
1) The time delay is generally due to moderation, but it could also be due to other factors. More often than not, it's moderation, though 😔 We've gotten feedback from others asking why things aren't instant, so it's good to hear from more people so we can work on improving the experience. (This post was already flagged internally asking about the latency, so trust us in that we are aware - we're working on it!!)
2) This isn't just you! We continually moderate all aspects of Product Hunt 24/7 (forums, launches, comments, users, etc.), whether through automated processes or human reviews. We aim for a couple of hours or less, but admittedly, we could be a little faster. I'm personally very aware of this and it's something we'd love to improve on sooner rather than later.
3) Your account is good! The only thing I'd recommend is checking out our Commenting Guidelines, Community Guidelines, and Terms of Service, all of which have tons of helpful information. Our Help Center also recently got a revamp, and the chat option in the lower right now has an AI assistant, Puddy, (thank you @Intercom) to help you figure things out semi-on your own. You can also always chat with our team over chat or email if that's not your thing.
I hope that helps add some context, but we are always looking for ways to improve the site and the user experience. Getting feedback like yours is super valuable, so thanks for sharing!
@ben_griese Thank you for providing this! I've been struggling a bit with these, too (mainly the time delay for comments).
I wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong or if it was onboarding/a trial period. From my perspective as a user, it has felt like my comments take long enough to appear to significantly reduce engagement.
It's good to hear these things are on your radar. I greatly enjoy Product Hunt. I've found some really interesting and useful tools. Thank you for providing a place for this community to exist :)
Product Hunt
Yeeeah, we don't want that and I totally understand how that would lead to lower engagement or total disengagement. When you're interested in something you want that instant ability to engage with others vs waiting hours. 100% hear you, and actively working to improve the community and how we're moderating things 😤
@ben_griese Truly appreciate you taking the time to reply! I'm happy to hear that it's something on your radar 😊
@ben_griese I thought I just needed to collect a lot of badges or build up some stack, but thank you for the detailed answer. And I'm happy that you kindly informed me and guided me. I think I'm going to like PH even more. 💕
@ben_griese I will add that it is a bit complicated and frustrating to publish a new content in a new thread of the forum. I noticed that my new thread does not appear (neither on new nor other sections) or appears with significant delays on the forum in the section p/general. My thoughts were the same as the guys commented: your content is not going to appear on the top of the list because of the newbie account...despite it was published few hours ago and there are the latest posts are on the top of the list.
Hello fellow newbie! I had similar issues too. Sometimes the page didn't even count my comment to a post, and I'm seeing a comment with significant hours of delay. I'm in the process of getting into the PH culture, but confused with these technical issues too
@hyuntak_lee "It's actually a relief to know that I wasn't the only one who felt that way."
Product Hunt
This is great feedback, thank you 🙏. Not much to add besides what @ben_griese shared, but this is on our radar and we'll be improving this.
minimalist phone: creating folders
Hey Mattt. I need to say, that moderation has improved a lot these months. Less AI or bot comments, more moderated content and internal PH team contribute too. So that's the reason why it can take a little bit but the quality is way better.
@busmark_w_nika Thanks for sharing that information with me.