Hold new-member posts and approve genuine writing

Where: Moderation panel → Post approvals

Before you start

New-member approval, spam heuristics and word-filter holds are separate reasons. Raising a trust level or approving one item does not necessarily exempt future content from every rule.

Steps

1. Enable Require approval for new members.
2. Choose the post-count threshold; zero means every non-staff post needs approval while the gate is enabled.
3. Save and submit a test topic/reply from a new ordinary account.
4. Open Approvals, read the held writing/reason and choose Approve or Reject.
5. Verify the resulting public thread with a separate reader.

Verify

Held content is unavailable to ordinary public readers until approved; the staff decision is recorded.

Troubleshooting

Repeated holds after reaching the threshold may come from filters/heuristics. Read the actual hold reason rather than turning off every protection.