Confused by the system filters : An Original architectural plugin flagged as spam

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Hello everyone,

Many of you know me from my thread here for nEVEn, where I’ve been actively sharing updates and scanning models to help users diagnose viewport lag. I’ve loved being a part of this technical community.

some weeks ago, after 10 months of hard work, I launched my second native extension called WDE (Working Design & Documentation Engine).

The post went viral overnight, gaining 2.3k views in the first 24 hours.

Then, it was suddenly taken down and marked as spam.

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To show that WDE is a serious utility answering real workflow issues, here is the direct feedback I received from a fellow architect on the forum just days ago before the thread was pulled. They are specifically interested in testing how the parametric stair, railing, and revision queues behave because it solves the exact design-change bottlenecks we all face.

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I am a practicing architect and a verified developer here. I see many other plugin creators freely sharing their tools, updates, and commercial extensions in this exact category without issue.

I am not a random software bot or an AI wrapper company. I am an independent creator who built a 100% offline, local utility specifically for SketchUp workflows.

Can a moderator or community leader please clarify the guidelines? Why is one of my tools welcomed, while a deeper architectural utility is wiped out right when it gains massive user interest?

I just want a fair, consistent playground like every other developer here.

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(moved to Meta as this is discussion about the forum itself :wink: )
so, in short, people, you me, anyone, has the ability to flag a post or thread.

Capture d’écran 2026-08-24 à 08.21.50

is several people flag a post or thread for the same reasons, here, spam, automatic moderation takes over.

why do they flag ? it could be they see your message as AI slop, we get users on a weekly basis who come and just use ai to answer messages in a long convoluted manner. it could be they thought you were reposting about the same thing, it could be they didn’t like you, you could be posting something illegal, or doxxing yourself.
Vis à vis extensions, there is a gray line. The community guidelines say you shouldn’t use the forum as an advertising platform, so making a single thread to show your extension is usually fine, posting about it on every thread that *might profit from your tool will often will be seen as spam. oh and off course, actual spams, and ads for craks.
I’m probably forgetting other reasons, and also, people are people, can’t tell you for sure why they flags.

edit : 2 behaviours that we see often are people with a few weeks here that start posting long answers (not very accurate ones) on threads that have been off for a few years, and other asking for help / vague questions. And then, after a few days, they both come back and start editing their posts with links for casinos and other similar stuff.
Force of habits, if you posted something that reads a bit like that, you might get flagged.

normally, when you get flagged, you get an opportunity to edit your message.

wait, that’s the one that acted kinda like a library ? Yeah, someone linked to it a few days ago in the “repetitive task thread”, it was still up :thinking:

idk more than that, at this hour moderation is sleeping, so they won’t be around for a few hours.

your case is odd, because usually flagging happens really quickly, often quick enough that nobody has time to add a reply before the thread gets pruned.
maybe multiple messages got flagged ? I’m just speculating right now.

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Thanks @ateliernab for explaining how the system script works.

That makes complete sense. I am a practicing architect and spent the last 10 months programming these native extensions to solve real design-change bottlenecks. I definitely didn’t mean to trip the security filters by sharing both tools close together.

I have updated my profile picture and information so the platform recognizes I am a real person and developer.

Since this was just an automated trigger, could a community team member please manually restore my original WDE thread?

I appreciate your guidance on this.

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People flag stuff all the time. Lots of good information from @ateliernab

Some guidelines:

  1. Create a post in the extensions section introducing your extension.

  2. Keep your commentary, trouble shooting, etc. there. Take a look at how @medeek does it. He has dozens of extensions and he is widely respected on the forum. His threads have thousands of replies. He has built a community of people who use and follow his work. He doesn’t spam, he doesn’t jump into every thread that has a problem and offer his extension as a solution (you have done this, I’ve seen it).

  3. Participate in other threads that are not about your extensions. And follow #2 above. Contribute, participate. Otherwise people think you are only here to shill for your extensions.

Hopefully the flagging issue get sorted out.

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Ah, I see what you mean, @bmike.

When I saw people facing workflow issues, my immediate instinct was just to share the tools I built to help. I understand now how that can look like over-promotion on a community thread.

Lesson learned! I will absolutely respect those boundaries moving forward and keep my updates inside my own extension topics.

I really appreciate the honest feedback. It helps a lot as I navigate the developer side of the community.

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Too be fair I don’t have dozens of extensions, only eight that are actively being developed and one pending extension that still needs a lot of work.

Sometimes I jump in on a thread when I think my extensions might be the answer but I generally resist that urge and primarily try to keep my self promotion within my own plugin threads. Even on those I try to keep it low key (with respect to the marketing) and my main objective is to give the community an almost real time status of what progress I’m making and what feature I’m working on next. Some developers don’t prefer this level of transparency but I find that it actually garners more feedback and it turns out feedback is very important in this line of work.

Occasionally I will run a promotion or sale and I will usually post the details on that so that everyone is aware of those events and how to save a buck or two. My ethos with regards to marketing is that if you build a good enough product it will sell itself.

On a completely different note I have participated in many quite heated discussions about AI and the direction SketchUp/Trimble has taken with respect to some of its own marketing and product decisions. I’m sure the powers that be are not entirely fond of some of my remarks and criticism I have given especially in regards to Layout, however I hope they know I am well meaning, I just want to see Sketchup succeed.

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Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your perspective, @medeek. It means a lot coming from you.

Since I’ve only been part of this community for a few months, seeing how established creators handle updates and thread boundaries is really helpful.

I completely agree with your approach. Keeping it transparent and focused on real feedback is the best way to help other designers.

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I followed the commentary and didn’t say anything because I didn’t think there was much to add to it (and I didn’t flag your stuff). I think @bmike is about right on this one (at the other person’s post). Take a look at how mihai.s does his tutorials. He adds to his thread with a ‘continued from…’ intro and shows his solution to the other person’s post. I think that would be closer to the forum ‘unwritten rules’. I see that you intentionally made changes in line with feedback, so I’m not criticizing any posts and understand your enthusiasm. If your stuff comes from your extension thread it could become one of those threads that people look forward to seeing updates from. My two cents on what people are trying to convey. Good luck with the extension development!

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thanks, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain that. and yeah, I understand what you mean about keeping useful contributions separate from promotion. I’m still relatively new to the community, so I’m learning where that line is.

I genuinely enjoy helping people here, and sometimes I get a bit too enthusiastic about sharing something I’ve built when I see a problem I know how to solve :sweat_smile:

I’ll definitely keep your point in mind going forward.& thanks for the good wishes - really appreciate it!

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One final doubt from my side, just so I understand this correct. I also read the older discussion about extension promotion before asking this, and I understand the point about not turning other people’s threads into advertisements.

What I am still not clear about is this:

if someone asks a question and a developer has built an extension that directly solves that particular problem, what is the right way for the developer to mention it? Should the developer only give the native/manual solution and not mention their own extension at all, or is a short mention okay when it is genuinely relevant to the question? I am asking this only so I can follow the right approach going forward.

Also, if I have unintentionally overstepped, hijacked a thread, or made anyone feel that I was promoting my own work where I shouldn’t have, I sincerely apologise. That was never my intention.

still learning the community, and really appreciate the guidance, thanks.

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As short as possible giving a link to your topic in the Extensions category. Do not include a giant screen snip image or video into the “asking” topic, as that is blatant advertisement.

I myself would not flag any extension specific topic in Extensions introducing a new extension. But I would (and may have) for blatant spamming in other topics. I just don’t remember in this case as it’s been a busy few weeks. Basically if a post deserves a flag it does. It usually just triggers an automated system response, but those notices are poorly worded and often look like they come from a living administrator when they are just “cookie cutter” messages authored by the programmers at discourse.org.

I agree that it was heavy handed to delete the extension topic. If it’s gone, I think you’ll just have to restart the topic.

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Thankyou so much @DanRathbun this makes it much clearer for me.

just to make sure I understood it correctly,

  1. If someone asks a question and my extension genuinely solves that particular problem, I can mention it.
  2. The mention should be as short as possible, with a link to my dedicated topic in the Extensions category.
  3. I should not add a large screenshot, video, or detailed promotion to someone else’s question thread.
  4. The detailed information, updates, screenshots, tutorials, etc. should stay in my own Extensions topic.

If I’ve understood these points correctly, this is exactly what I was trying to clarify. I’ll follow this approach going forward.

Thanks again for taking the time to explain it. I really appreciate it.

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Yes that sounds good to me. Basically be courteous, concise and low key in other people’s topics.

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Another recent example of a breach of forum etiquette was in this topic …

… where highjacking and diverting someone else’s extension topic with discussion of a competing extension, has resulted in the actual Trimble moderator hiding these discourteous post(s).

RE: HTML3D Exporter – Free SketchUp extension - #12

@Hamzah198501 In a case like this, when someone else is introducing their own extension and it reminds you of your own, you really should have begun your own topic to discuss your extension. It may have been okay to add a concise mention with a link over to your topic. But to fully divert the conversation was not nice.

Generally: Before you do it, ask your self would you wish your own topics to be diverted this way?

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You’re right, but we were building something very similar, and I had useful code he could have reused or improved. I saw it as collaboration, not hijacking.

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Probably would’ve been better to start with a DM in that case.

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Actually, I would. This is a public forum where we build things together. If someone had useful code or ideas that could improve something I was working on, I’d appreciate them sharing it.

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@DanRathbun @gta974

If you have any plugins you’re working on, feel free to share them in my forum topics. And if possible, please make them unsigned so I can look through the code, learn from it, and reuse anything useful in my own projects.

You’re also welcome to bump my topics anytime. Any publicity is good publicity.