Approval Status is different given user's permissions. Visitors can see non-approved items

Question

The approval status for blog post items is different given user's permission on a blog site. I had the Draft Item Security setting set to "Only users who can approve items (and the author of the item)" and users with Approval permissions did not see pending items on the default home page but did see them within the list (as expected). However, users with just read-only permissions did see these pending items on the default home page AND the item status was now marked "Approved" when viewing the list. If I switch the draft security to "Any user who can read items" then the statuses and visibility are the same for both approvers and read-only users (as expected).

Is this a bug or am I misunderstanding how this setting should work? Ideally read-only users should not see pending drafts...

Answer 1

Add a column with the version number to the view and check which items are visible by approvers and regular readers.

An approved item will be visible to a regular reader. If that item is changed and moves into draft state, it will have a draft version number with something other than a zero after the dot. The draft will be visible to approvers, while the general reader audience will still see the previously approved major version.

This is by design.