AppleVis Website September 2025 Updates

By AppleVis, 22 September, 2025

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Forum
Site News, Updates, and Feedback

Dear AppleVis Community,

AppleVis is continuing to evolve. We wanted to take a moment to share some recent updates to the AppleVis website over the last couple months:

  • Deleting Comments:
    • It is now possible for users to delete their own comments. Below each comment that you have posted, along with the 'Edit' link, you will now find a link for 'Delete'. When activated, you will be taken to a confirmation page. Press the 'Delete' button on this page to delete the comment.
    • Whenever possible, we suggest using the 'Edit' functionality rather than 'Delete'. This is because completely deleting a comment will potentially leave any future comments to the discussion out of context. For example, if you post an answer to a question, someone replies to you, and you subsequently delete your comment... The other person's reply will still be there and may reference your comment that is now deleted.
  • OpenAI Moderation API:
    • To help ensure that AppleVis is a safe and welcoming place for everyone, we have today begun testing the use of OpenAI's Moderation API to augment our content moderation efforts.
    • The purpose of evaluating Moderation API is to see if and how it can augment our manual moderation efforts--nothing more. AppleVis is open around the clock, and it is impossible for our team to monitor the site in real-time 24/7/365. If someone starts posting explicit or harassing content in the middle of the night, for example, it is our hope that the model would catch that and not allow those posts to go through. We are evaluating this technology to determine its strengths and limitations.
    • In broad terms, the model behind OpenAI Moderation API checks for harassment, hate speech against people because of a personal characteristic, or content that is elicit, violent, discussing self-harm, or sexual in nature. The above link takes you to Open AI's Moderation API documentation if you wish to read the full list of content and the accompanying descriptions.
    • If a post is flagged, it will not be published and the user will be notified.
    • While we wish it weren't so, we fully expect that the model behind Moderation API will not always get things right. If you submit a post /comment and it is rejected, and you believe your content complies with our Forum Guidelines, please send us a message via our Contact Form. In your message, please be sure to include the full and complete subject line and body of the post which you were trying to submit.
  • Forum Name on the Homepage:
    • For forum topics on the homepage, the name of the forum is now displayed in parentheses along with other information about the post.
      • We are aware of the need to have this information displayed on subsequent pages when accessing the "More Apple Posts" link. Our appreciation to the users who flagged this. We hope to have a resolution soon.
  • Menu Redesign:
    • We have redesigned the main menu of the website. Each menu item is now an expandable button, with links to various sections of the website.
    • Account information is now easier to access and can be located by navigating to the bottom of the Main Menu and expanding the 'Account' submenu/button. When logged in, you will have a 'My Account' and 'Log Out' links. When not logged in, the Account submenu will contain a link to login.
    • We would appreciate your input on navigability of the menu, items included, item placement, etc. While the main design of the menu is fixed as part of our website's theme, items included, and where we place what, can easily be changed.

We appreciate and welcome any and all feedback on these changes.

Options

Comments

By Dennis Long on Monday, September 22, 2025 - 19:38

I'm not a fan of AI moderating things. I guess time will tell how it does. I do like the ability to delete comments.

By TheBlindGuy07 on Monday, September 22, 2025 - 19:52

Thank you. :) that's all I'm gonna say. Great stuff there.

By Joshua on Tuesday, September 23, 2025 - 04:28

i am also not a fan of AI moderating the sight cause i know AI can make mistakes some times

By TJT 2001 on Tuesday, September 23, 2025 - 06:44

I appreciate the ability to delete comments and view forum names on the homepage.

I have the same reservations about AI moderation as other commenters, but I feel that the incorrect removal of posts is less likely to be an issue on AppleVis than some other forums because of the nature of the topics we discuss and the community AppleVis attracts. If time zones and moderators' availability are the impetus for AI moderation, I wonder whether AppleVis could consider diversifying its moderation team to have greater representation outside North America. This may have advantages beyond removing undesirable content from the site.

I have a few points of feedback concerning the main menu.

  • I don't particularly like needing to expand the menu and relevant submenus. I feel that this adds unnecessary time when navigating to the item of interest.
  • I feel that the "Post" submenu should be completely hidden if a user is not logged in.
  • I think that it would make more sense for the "Account" submenu to appear as the first item in the list because being signed is a precondition to being able to post content, which is the reason why I most often access the menu.
  • After expanding a submenu, it appears to take about a second for the resulting options to appear. When using JAWS with Brave and Firefox, pressing Down Arrow immediately after expanding a submenu (i.e. before the resulting items appear) causes focus to be placed at the end of the submenu, not at the beginning as users would expect. Can AppleVis do anything to make the items in submenus load more quickly, or can AppleVis do anything to ensure that screen reader focus always be placed on the first item of a submenu after a submenu has been expanded?

By Oliver on Tuesday, September 23, 2025 - 07:56

I think, as long as false positives can be flagged quickly, maybe by including a button in the email one receives rather than the contact form, to push it up to human moderation, this is a good idea. It's better to accidentally mute harmless content for a short time than let offensive stuff ride through, as I say, it needs to be easy for the poster to put it right without too many hoops to jump through.

Great work on the other stuff.

Next update, no subject lines for replies... Cheers. ;)

By Brian on Tuesday, September 23, 2025 - 09:47

I am digging the updates to the website. I do agree with the poster who suggested that the account option be first, rather than the last, but otherwise I like the changes.
Sidenote, don't listen to anything Oliver says, that guy is whack!
True story. 😱

By Ekaj on Tuesday, September 23, 2025 - 11:54

Great job as always, and kudos to the team for continuing to make this wonderful resource known as AppleVis available to the masses. I'll definitely check out that moderation documentation as time permits. Thanks once again and keep up the awesome work. I'm off to exercise class.