Vocal, a little help for your friends?

It seems to be an unwelcome occurrence lately that some Vocal creators are not only having their ability to comment suspended but also having all of the comments they have ever made on the platform removed. The creator discovers this issue when going to comment on a story and receiving a message as shown in the picture below. No other notification is given.

The creators that I've personally seen this happen to cannot understand what they did to receive this harsh penalty, and Vocal has been slow to give them any definitive answers. Eventually most of them have had their ability to comment restored, but all previous comments have been lost.

This situation has me concerned as I'm worried about it happening to my own account, and I started to look for answers. I've come to the conclusion that it may have to do with comment reporting, more specifically 'reply' reporting.

As we all try to do our best with helping Vocal 'police' the platform for spammers and plagiarizers, it seems to possibly come with a complication.

From what I can gather, here's what may have happened to these creators:

You are brimming with excitement over having your new story approved. You get the shiny new story approval email and start sharing it with friends, family, facebook, etc.

Hearts, insights and comments start showing up, and you receive the lovely email from Vocal 'you have a new comment on your story'. YES!

You quickly click on the link in the email to respond or go straight to your story on Vocal and find the comment. You think of an appropriately witty and grateful way to reply and hit enter.

Later you may see that one of your new comments is clearly spam content. It's a link to another site or ad for a product. It happens. You click the little ellipses at the top right corner and choose to report it. A pop-up appears letting you know the moderators have been notified and will contact you if anything further is needed.

Vocal has been very good at responding to these bogus comments and getting rid of them quickly. Bravo!

Everything is as it should be again.

Until a spammer makes a little twist. They make a reply to one of the comments on your story. Maybe on more than one comment and maybe on more than one of your stories. It does not appear that you have been hacked as the image/name are not yours. (Note: I believe the odds may increase if you receive a Top Story or heavily promote your work as it's being viewed by a much broader audience.)

A helpful Vocal creator either sees the bogus reply naturally as they go to comment on your story themselves, OR they see the bogus reply when they receive the automated email from Vocal, 'you have a new reply to your comment'. They think, 'hey wait, that wasn't the author replying, that looks like spam content.' At that point, if they go to that reply and flag it for the moderators, I believe the cycle has begun.

I think it's a possibility that if enough bogus replies are flagged, the platform automatically revokes your commenting abilities and removes ALL of your comments thinking it could be you. No email is sent prior to this action taking place. You stumble upon it when you go to comment and find you cannot, or see that all of your comments are gone and wonder why.

It seems to be a possible glitch that the system did not anticipate as most replies are made by the authors. But they are not limited to the authors, and I believe this is where the problem stems from.

Until Vocal addresses whatever is causing this issue, it might be wise to use caution reporting replies to comments that are spam. If you know the author, maybe message them and let them know about the spam reply. The author can then contact Vocal directly. If you don't know the author, you could comment on their story advising them of the situation.

The commenting feature has been a wonderful addition to the Vocal platform that's really broadened a sense of community that was seriously lacking. It would be unfortunate if maintaining the integrity of this feature created such a disruptive effect.

In Vocal's defense, it does make sense to restrict commenting until the situation is properly reviewed, but removing every comment ever made on the platform before the creator has a chance to appeal seems extreme and to be honest, very disheartening.

I hope there is a simple solution that keeps the platform a safe place to share as well as a safe place for creators to engage.

So Vocal, please help! If you haven't already, consider making it a priority to look into this situation.

And if my assertions are completely off base, please let me know. I'm just hoping if others are having this issue that they know they're not alone and to contact support for help.

Thank you :)