Some people have been experiencing problems in Youtube such as their messages going invisible. I’ve written a set of instructions to put an end to people having to experience such problems.

The reason why the messages go invisible is that Youtube has a spam filter in place and you have done something to set off that spam filter.

First, there are two useful things you need to know before I lay out the rules to avoid setting off Youtube’s spam filter:

1. You need to find out how to check whether or not your message has gone invisible: To do this, simply log out of your account and check whether your message appears.

2. You also need to know how to obtain a direct link to any particular message. To do this, you must click on the “x minutes ago” text, which appears on each of your posts. This will open a new tab/window. Contained within the url address bar of that newly opened tab/window will be your direct link to your message.

Rules to avoid setting off Youtube’s spam filter:

1. Each message which you post must be different to the previous ones you post. A good rule of thumb: No message should be exactly the same as the previous 15 messages that you have posted.

2. You must wait AT LEAST 60 seconds between each post that you make.

3. You must either manually type out your messages or copy/paste from a notepad file. The notepad file which you copy/paste from must also be manually typed out (there should be no text from any external source pasted into the notepad file). You can also paste from the “Mini-Mantras” topic on BUGS and from the Bugs Buddy Web.

4. I recommend that you do not post more than 10 times per day (assuming that you want to post daily). Sharing the load between multiple accounts may allow you to post 15-20 times a day. Note that we repeat so many phrases and key words in our messages that this may be a cause of setting off the spam filter.

If you do not follow these rules then you will set off the spam filter making your posts go invisible. If this happens, I recommend that you do not post with any of your accounts for AT LEAST 24 hours (48 hours may be preferable and in some cases even a week – but how long exactly is hard to determine).

Keep in mind that sometimes 1 or 2 of your messages out of 5 or 10 may go invisible but this doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve set off the spam filter. But if 3 or 4 messages go invisible in a row then you have probably set off the spam filter.

Suggestions welcome.