I thought that all posts by newbies were vetted before being allowed onto the board
A common misconception.
Posts from new members (those with fewer than a certain number of posts) are indeed held pending approval but ONLY if they ALSO contain certain key words or any URLs.
The key word list is fairly long, and includes "Viagra", for instance.
The primary function of the approval process is to block spammers. 99.99% of spam attempts never see the light of day. But it has beneficial secondary effects also.
SD