14 My post has disappeared!

While this may sound like a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes, the explanation is actually quite simple. Mystery Net is a family site, and as such does not permit bad language on its pages. To enable this to happen, Mystery Net has an automated moderator which monitors all posts for content. This, I am sure you will agree, is a good thing. However, due to some quirk of fate, some words find themselves "moderated". So, be aware that writing something about Alfred Hitchcock or Charles Dickens will cause your post to be swallowed.

Also, remember that the moderator, when looking at your posts, ignores spaces and punctuation. Suppose you were to write a contribution for The List about favourite music, and you were to include the line: "Michael Jackson's hit single Thriller". Believe it or not, that sentence contained a naughty word (please don't go looking for it).

To avoid this problem, the usual thing is to try and rephrase the post in such a way that the "naughty" word is avoided. However, if the post relates to someone like "Alfred Hitchcock", then there isn't a great deal you can do except wait (see below).

It isn't just naughty words that cause posts to get swallowed. Long strings of numbers, which may be part of a malicious code, designed to destroy Mystery Net are automatically stopped. Actually, it is more likely to be that someone has used a very long digit somewhere. Just so as you know, a string of up to six digits is fine, anything over six digits will be stopped. To prevent that from happening, the usual convention is to add a letter (usually the lower case "r") at regular intervals in the number. Don't bother with commas, as these are ignored by the moderator.

The other thing that causes the moderator to stop posts is hyperlinks (also known as web addresses). Occasionally posts get swallowed for no apparent reason. Current theory is that the moderator gets hungry from time to time and will swallow a post at random. Ho hum.

So what should I do?

The best thing to do is to try and avoid writing anything that can be swallowed by the moderator. However, if it does get moderated, there isn't a lot you can do except wait. There is only one person who has authority to release moderated posts, and that is Fran Hinkel. She comes by every day or so and checks all moderated posts. If they have been accidentally swallowed, she will release them. If they contain content that should not be on Mystery Net, they won't get posted. You can always email Fran and let her know that you have a post stuck in such-and-such a game. However, please remember that she isn't available all the time, but she will always try and get to the posts that has been caught.

Another important point to remember: If you have tried and failed a second time to get your post put on Mystery Net, then please don't keep trying. Fran has on occasions found over 30 posts all saying exactly the same thing. If it didn't get posted the second time, it is unlikely to get posted any of the following times either.

If you are trying to post a topic and your post is moderated, it is advisable to do a second post saying "Post stuck in Moderator", or else you might lose your turn to someone else.

15 What exactly is this Bonus Question game all about?

Ah, I see you’ve been reading the Call for Votes post that comes out every Friday, and seen that I post the answer to last week’s Bonus Question. It might help you to know a bit of history to this.

Many years ago, when I were a lad, I used to read William Hartnell’s chess column in a Sunday newspaper’s supplementary magazine. Every year, at Christmas time, his column would be along the lines of “I have received many solutions to this year’s quiz, despite the fact that I have not written one. If I had, these are the answers…” and would go on to list about ten or so answers along the lines of “only on a Sunday” or “28, not including cherries” and other nonsensical answers.

I always enjoyed that, and so decided to write a few myself – after all, just reading who is hosting which game could be a bit dull, and this would be a nice bit of padding. Besides, I wondered if it might become a running gag – how many different ways can I come up with explaining why I had forgotten what the question was? Or something like that. The first time I posted the answer, I was asked where they should post their guesses. Fair enough; I created The Bonus Question game area. I haven’t created any rules for it, because, and lets be frank about it, there are none!

Some play the game by trying to second guess what the answer will be. Some try and guess what the question would have been, had I actually posted it. Sometimes I choose those, sometimes I create my own. It would not surprise me if someone does try and create rules for the game. I’m quite happy for someone to do that – provided that the rules reflect the way the game is played: silly rules only.

So there you are. Are you any wiser now? I know I’m not…