Maybe they were cleaning houzz?

I have notice today that the ability to clear the Notifications that are connected to the bell in the upper right of my screen are gone today. I can double click on it to open the mark as read but no longer go to the bell and do it without opening the whole list.

I had the no posts notice on every forum some time earlier this afternoon. It's gone and all is back in order now.

I'm not always here on a day-to-day basis so when I finally found a few minutes to check in earlier this evening...I was a tad perplexed to find the "conducting maintenance" sign on the Cooking site as well as the KTable. The blue page didn't last long. I backed out of it and moved in another direction. When I returned a few minutes later...both sites were back up. The gremlin in this case was, apparently, Houzz. And...this has been a fairly regular occurrence lately. Someone at Houzz is paying much closer attention to these forums these days.

Yes all back in order now. Had I gotten a maintenance kind of message I would have understood, but I simply got the no posts found so I was perplexed. That, and it kept telling me to log in even though my name was there.

All's well that ends well. For THIS moment. :)

(?)

Perhaps they took it all down to take a closer look at some of the issues with the flagging of posts that were objectionable and who the users were. Perhaps we will get less inappropriate or snarky replies as the offenders may take this as a warning to mind their manners?

I got the 'No posts' notice yesterday, too. Then occasionally, last evening, I'd get the maintenance notice when I used the back arrow. This morning, using GW url, almost every time I use the back arrow, or click on the forum bar at the top of a thread, or click on a thread from the title page, I get the maintenance notice. If I wait a few seconds for the switch to complete, then click on the refresh button, it usually completes correctly--but not every time. Even with the Houzz url I still got the 'No posts' notice yesterday. Today, using the Houzz url seems to solve the problem with the maintenance notice, but I don't care for the Houzz format.

I keep the Hot Topics link in my bookmarks, not because I comment there, but because that's the easiest way to open GW with the GW url. When I saw the 'No posts' sign yesterday, my first thought was, "Uh oh, HT finally wore out their welcome." Even though I don't post on HT, I hope Houzz doesn't eliminate that forum.

Personally, I think Houzz has far more difficult problems to try to correct than flagged posts. My antivirus program warns me on a very regular basis that the Houzz websites that I visit are being regularly scanned by a "potentially" malicious Russian website...giving me its IP #. I've looked it up a number of times out of personal curiosity to attempt to assess its potential threat. So far...my searches have suggested that it's a internet "teaching" facility in St. Peterburg, Russia. Because Malwarebytes Premium protects me from any invasive programs, I'm not overly concerned. But, if I were Houzz, I certainly wouldn't want these pervasive scans on my property.

Well some time ago there was a data breach here. Most people were notified of it and told to change their password and if they were using the same password anywhere else to change it. So possibly having some intrusion issues. Every time they try to do changes or updates they mess up the code and usually it affects the forums negatively.

Winter what anti virus programs are you using? Love malwarebytes!

Hi Raven...Malwarebytes Premium...v.4.2.0.82..[subscriber/paid version] with all its toots and whistles. I guess it's more correctly referred to as a malware preventive program rather than an antivirus program but from my experience with it, it's all inclusive. Contrary to what some posters have offered in the past, MS Win 10 approves of [and lists as an option] Malwarebytes as a protection program.

I've been a dedicated subscriber for a number of years and am personally convinced it's the best on the market. As they've grown and expanded, and because they block all intrusive malware, I've found no need to have any other program[s] installed on my system. I have it set to scan when I log on daily and usually run another full system scan at night. I'm sure it's overkill on my part...but I'm involved in some outside management activities whose members/contributors have a propensity for being virtually careless so I'm extra careful.

I'm, also, a dedicated Firefox [current v. 80.0.1] user.

I was aware of the data breach...but it's been more than one if my research is correct. One we were informed about and asked for password revisions. Others...not so. The latest flurry of maintenance checks leads me to believe that they're becoming very vigilant...especially scanning photos/videos and/or copied and posted website material for "issues" that might affect Houzz' security. IMO...it's about time! But in their defense...I doubt they ever expected the threats and difficulties involved with owning these member involved sites. It's not a part time job. It's a full time...not for the faint of heart...requirement/investment/job. And their involvement with FB has made it even more difficult.

Of course...all of the above is my PO. 😐🤓

Thanks! I agree with you about malwarebytes. I have been a user and fan from the original development. It is an excellent product. 👍

mama_goose, on Hot Topics, the Houzz employee Emily recently asked for people not to post photos with block letters on them. I think what she said was to post photos and type out the words. I and others asked for clarification on that, but as far as I know, no clarification was given.

Do you think, mama_goose, that Emily's request could have been related to that increased vigilance you speak of? Could it be a security matter? (I had first thought that maybe Houzz was going to start making an effort not to publish copyrighted material. Years ago when the GardenWeb forums were under different ownership I remember they did tell us not to post copyrighted material unless we were the copyright owner.)

matthias, my comment was referring to Elizabeth's comment, and the fact that HT was the forum where I first saw the 'No posts' sign. After I found all the forums displaying the same notice I didn't think much about it, other than Houzz is dealing with a glitch. Over the years there have been mentions of threads on Hot Topics becoming contentious, and recent comparisons of some KT threads to HT subjects. It always seems to be worse in the election years.

There was a recent thread in the Using Houzz forum about the memes with letters, but I didn't realize it was all pictures with letters--and I have to admit I'm not even sure if they are the same thing.

I remember the outcry about pictures captured from the internet being intellectual property and not being posted without the owners' permission. I personally don't mind seeing my pics used to illustrate a design, and don't think there is harm in doing so, as long as someone is not trying to profit from them--but that brings up the question of whether Houzz is benefiting from pics posted (not being paid directly, but in increased viewership). I tend to agree with Winter--more that Houzz is trying to block hackers from obtaining members' personal info, and trying to stop malware.

I'm not Mama, matthias...but this is the explanation that I read for the recent Hot Topic's posting request. HTH

Comments (3)

Emily H

16 days ago

Yup
- Posting screenshots of blocks of text like this often contain
profanity or content that has been removed previously from the site. Our
system needs to be able to read text to effectively screen for
inappropriate content - screenshots make this difficult, and will often
result in the removal of whatever content was posted..

Buehl, on the Kitchens forum, recently brought up the subject of kitchen layouts, which have text, and I suppose that would also apply to several other forums--home building, bathrooms, remodeling. She was having trouble with one of her threads being sidelined until the mods could review it.

I haven't had any layout posts go MIA, but when I do a screenshot, I paste it to my Paint program, which converts it to a jpeg file. Maybe it's different if one simply copies and pastes a screen shot.

BTW, since I first posted on this thread, the GW url issue seems to have been resolved--for now.

If this forum should disappear, remember that there is the KitchenTable forum on Reddit that Zalco set up for us 4 months ago. It appears to be live.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GW_KitchenTable/

Thanks for the replies. I actually meant to address my question to Winter, but confused myself, urrgh. I'll look for the thread with Emily's message. Was that in Using Houzz?

I was trying to find a thread that I had posted on earlier today and looked in my activity. The only postings showing that I have done is two and the last one before that was 20 hours ago.

Here's the whole thread, matthias. [Glad to see I'm not the only one who get's a tad confused from time-to-time.😉] I remembered reading it at Hot Topics when it was first posted but couldn't find it there this afternoon so I did a search at DuckDuckGo to get it.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5979135/clarification-please#n=3

ETA:

Do you think that Emily's request could have been related
to that increased vigilance you speak of? Yes. Most assuredly.

Could it be a security
matter? Yes, again. I think they're getting hit from all sides these days because this site is so rich in user info. Not only can a dark side "visitor" get user addresses, if they wander around for a while...they can get your geographic location, life's story and in some cases, your financial status. These Houzz discussion groups are a gold mind to a dark side activist.