ModerationRule

Represents a rule used in your community to moderate member-generated content.Each rule specifies the member-generated content the rule applies to, the criteria to enforce the rule on, and the moderation action to take. Moderation rules help protect your community from spammers, bots, and offensive or inappropriate content. This type extends the Metadata metadata type and inherits its fullName field.

Community moderation rules created with the Metadata API are more powerful than moderation rules set up in the Community Management UI. For example, in the UI you could create a rule that moderates posts and comments. In the Metadata API you could create a rule that moderates only the Link Name of a Link feed type. Use the Metadata API to express complex moderation rules.

Don’t update moderation rules you create using the Metadata API in the Community Management UI. If you do, you overwrite relevant Metadata API fields or the fields are ignored.

Important

Keep the following things in mind when creating moderation rules:

Your org can have up to 30 rules. This limit is per org, not per community. This limit includes both content rules and rate rules.
Each rule can have up to three keyword criteria.
Rules that block content run first, followed by rules to review and approve content, then rules that replace content, and last by rules that flag content. If two or more rules perform the same action, the oldest rule runs first, based on the date the rule was created. Rules to replace content don’t run when the content also applies to a review rule—we want community managers to review the original content.

File Suffix and Directory Location

ModerationRule components have the suffix .rule and are stored in the moderation directory of the corresponding package directory. The file name format follows community_name.moderation_rule_developer_name.rule.

Version

ModerationRule components are available in API version 36.0 and later.

Special Access Rules

To view, create, edit, and delete moderation rules, you need the Manage Communities or Create and Set Up Communities permission.

Fields

Field Name	Field Type	Description
action	ModerationRuleAction (enumeration of type string)	Required. Indicates the moderation action that you want to take. The valid values are: `Block` `Review` `Replace` `Flag` `FreezeAndNotify` (Reserved for future use.)
actionLimit	int	Indicates the moderation action limit. Available in API 39.0 and later.
active	boolean	Required. Indicates whether the moderation rule is active (`true`) or inactive (`false`).
description	string	A description of the moderation rule.
entitiesAndFields	ModeratedEntityField[]	Indicates the types of user-generated content this moderation rule applies to.
masterLabel	string	Required. Label for the moderation rule.
notifyLimit	int	Indicates the notification limit of the moderation rule. Available in API 39.0 and later.
userCriteria	string	Represents the member criteria to use in community moderation rules. Available in API 39.0 and later.
userMessage	string	The message you want your community members to see when their content is blocked. Use the `%BLOCKED_KEYWORD%` variable to display up to five blocked words in the user message. If you don’t specify a message, the member sees the standard message: “You can’t use `%BLOCKED_KEYWORD%` or other inappropriate words in this community. Review your content and try again.”

ModeratedEntityField

The fields and entities you want to moderate.

Field Name	Field Type	Description
entityName	string	Required. Indicates the types of user-generated content the moderation rule applies to. Post and comments only apply to content created in groups and user profiles. All feed types, such as polls and links, are supported.
fieldName	string	Indicates the field the moderation rule applies to. To moderate feed posts, use entityName `FeedItem` with fieldName `RawBody`. To moderate feed comments, use entityName `FeedComment` with fieldName `RawCommentBody`. The `RawBody` and `RawCommentBody` fields aren’t available in any other API. Note
keywordList	KeywordList string	Indicates the keyword list that you want to moderate against.

ModerationRuleType

Required. Indicates the type of rule to run on user-generated content.

Field Name	Field Type	Description
type	(enumeration of type string)	Required. Indicates the type of rule to run on user-generated content. Valid values are: Content Rate Available in API 39.0 and later.

RateLimitTimePeriod

Required. Indicates the time period that is applied to the rate limit.

Field Name	Field Type	Description
timePeriod	(enumeration of type string)	Required. Indicates the time period that is applied to the rate limit. Valid values are: Short Medium Available in API 39.0 and later.

Declarative Metadata Sample Definition

The following is an example of a ModerationRule component.

1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<ModerationRule xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
3   <description>Blocks Bad Word List in posts, comments, Link URLs, titles, and poll choices.</description>
4   <masterLabel>Blocking Rule</masterLabel>
5   <action>Block</action>
6   <active>true</active>
7   <userMessage>You can't use %BLOCKED_KEYWORD% or other inappropriate words in this community. Review your content and try again.</userMessage>
8   <!-- Applies the rule to FeedComment.RawCommentBody (an internal only field), if it contains words from the keyword list specified -->
9   <entitiesAndFields>
10     <entityName>FeedComment</entityName>
11     <fieldName>RawCommentBody</fieldName>
12     <keywordList>community1.badword_list</keywordList>
13   </entitiesAndFields>
14   <entitiesAndFields>
15     <entityName>FeedItem</entityName>
16     <fieldName>LinkUrl</fieldName>
17     <keywordList>community1.badword_list</keywordList>
18   </entitiesAndFields>
19   <!-- Applies the rule to FeedItem.RawBody (an internal only field), if it contains words from the keyword list specified -->
20   <entitiesAndFields>
21     <entityName>FeedItem</entityName>
22     <fieldName>RawBody</fieldName>
23     <keywordList>community1.badword_list</keywordList>
24   </entitiesAndFields>
25   <entitiesAndFields>
26     <entityName>FeedItem</entityName>
27     <fieldName>Title</fieldName>
28     <keywordList>community1.badword_list</keywordList>
29   </entitiesAndFields>
30   <entitiesAndFields>
31     <entityName>FeedPollChoice</entityName>
32     <fieldName>ChoiceBody</fieldName>
33     <keywordList>community1.badword_list</keywordList>
34   </entitiesAndFields>
35</ModerationRule>

The following is an example package.xml that references the previous definition.

1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
3   <types>
4     <name>ModerationRule</name>
5     <members>community1.blocking_rule</members>
6   </types>
7   <version>36.0</version>
8</Package>

Metadata API Developer Guide