Moderation

Moderation controls what happens between a member clicking Publish ad and the listing appearing on your site. You can let listings go live straight away, check each one yourself first, ask sellers to confirm their email address, or charge them to post — or combine these.

Approving listings yourself is the surest way to keep spam and unsuitable listings off a new marketplace. Once you trust your members, posting directly is less work for you and faster for them.

Choose how new listings go live

1. In the admin panel, go to Settings › General.
2. In How new listings go live, pick one of the six options.
3. Click Save changes in the bar at the bottom.

Option	What happens to a new listing
Post directly	Goes live as soon as it is posted.
Moderation on	Waits in the moderation queue until you approve it.
Payment on	Goes live once the seller pays the price of its category.
Email confirmation on	The seller gets an email with a confirmation link; the listing goes live when they click it.
Email confirmation with Moderation	The seller confirms by email, then the listing waits for your approval.
Payment with Moderation	The seller pays, then the listing waits for your approval.

Payment modes and free categories

The payment modes charge the Price you set on each category. A subcategory without a price uses its parent’s price. When neither has a price, posting there is free and the listing is handled as Post directly (with Payment on) or Moderation on (with Payment with Moderation). The same choice is also offered as Charge for posting in Settings › Payments, under Pay to post. To take payments you need a payment gateway: see Take payments on your site.

The moderation queue

When you use one of the three modes with moderation, a Moderation item appears under Listings in the sidebar, with a badge counting the listings waiting for you.

1. Go to Listings › Moderation.
2. Read each card: photo, title, price, category, location, seller, date and the start of the description.
3. Click Approve to publish it, Edit to correct it first, or Spam to reject it as spam.

The ⋯ menu on each card has Preview on site ↗, Stats and Delete, plus Featured and Go to top when you sell those. To handle many listings at once, tick them (or Select all on this page) and use Approve, Spam or Delete in the bar at the bottom. When the queue is empty you’ll see All caught up.

Approved listings get today’s date as their publication date, so they appear at the top of the newest listings and their expiry starts counting from the day you approve them.

To tell a seller what to fix instead of deleting their listing, switch on Reject with a reason.

Reject with a reason

Many listings are almost right: a missing photo, the wrong category. Rather than delete them, you can send them back to the seller with the reason. It’s off until you switch it on:

1. Go to Listings › Settings.
2. In Posting, switch on Reject with a reason.
3. Click Save changes in the bar at the bottom.

Each card in the queue then has a Reject… button. Click it, choose a Reason and add a Note to the seller (optional), then click Send back to the seller.

The reasons are Missing information or photos, Wrong category, Duplicate listing, Misleading title, price or description, Item not allowed on this site, Inappropriate content and Another reason, which needs a note.

What happens next:

• The listing stays unpublished and leaves the queue, which shows how many listings are sent back to their sellers. They don’t count in the Moderation badge.
• The seller gets an email, Your listing “…” needs changes, with the reason, your note and an Edit my listing button. In My listings, the listing says Not published: with the reason.
• When the seller edits and saves it, the listing comes back to the queue for you to check again. Approving it clears the rejection too.

Each rejection is recorded in your audit log.

Edits go back to the queue

With any of the moderation modes, every time a listing is edited and saved — by the seller, a moderator or you — it goes back to Needs review and disappears from the site until it is approved again. The seller sees Listing is updated, but first administrator needs to validate. Keep this in mind before you tidy up a published listing yourself.

With moderation on, sellers also can’t reactivate their own sold or deactivated listings; only you can, with Activate in All listings.

Emails that are sent

When	Who gets it	Email template
A listing is posted directly	The seller, with a link to the listing	ads-user-check
A listing enters the queue (Moderation on)	The seller, with a link to edit it	ads-notify
A listing enters the queue (Moderation on)	The address in Moderation email, if you filled it in	awaiting-moderation
Email confirmation is needed	The seller, with the confirmation link	ads-confirm
You approve a listing	The seller, with a link to the live listing	ads-activated
You reject a listing with a reason	The seller, with the reason and a link to edit it	Not a template: written in your site’s language
Any new listing, if New listing alerts is on	Every administrator and moderator who accepts emails	ads-to-admin

Moderation email and New listing alerts are on the Email settings page, in the Addresses section. You can change the wording of every email in your email templates.

A seller who posts without an account under Email confirmation on gets an account automatically; the confirmation link also signs them in.

Who can moderate

Administrators can always moderate. Members with the Moderator role can use the queue too, as long as their role allows the moderation action. See Roles and permissions.

Related guides

• Manage listings — statuses and actions on every listing.
• Publishing options — who may post and how often.
• Fight spam — every anti-spam tool in one place.
• Categories — set a price to post in a category.