BurningbirdThe discussion continues on comment spamming and a couple of people have taken my initial quick fix and expanded on it nicely.
Jennifer from Scripty Goddess has taken to solution into the MT tmpl files, adding the hidden field to processing.tmpl.
Brad Choate came up with a fairly complex solution that, while not keeping a determined spammer out, would force the person to work for their spam.
Joni Electric has a good re-cap of effort to date.
(Found through trackback, by the way.)
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
Christine staged a Blog Debate, during which Ciscley commented about guys being reluctant to move to Moveable Type because it’s popular. She wrote:
I think (I *know* in my personal blogging circle and I’m generalizing from there) that most of the people that are uncomfortable with the popularity of MT are guys. It’s like it’s a dirty blog word to every guy I know. They use phpWeblog (though I still have to design their layouts for them cause the interface only goes so far). They use geeklog. They’ve thought about pMachine. They’re willing to try anything and everything but MT.
Is it because so many women use and love MT? Is it because MT, if you don’t actually use it and know what a huge part of it Ben does, appears to be the creation of a woman? Is it taking something away from the all male tech industry to consider that a product inspired by or significantly designed by a woman is the best option out there?
Jonathon picked up on it, writing:
There are so many things to like about Movable Type—reliability, elegant interface, customizability, MySQL support, vibrant user community—but what could be more intriguing than Ciscley’s hypothesis of gendered MT use? Has Mena’s contribution influenced the software to the extent that it attracts a disproportionately high proportion of female users?
Christine picked up on both Ciscley’s and Jonathon’s comments, so it will be interesting to see if there is any form of debate on this.
A gender bias with Movable Type just isn’t something I’ve seen. I would imagine that there is a strong gender bias with the other weblogging tools that Ciscley has mentioned, but not with MT.
Any initial reluctance to adopt MT is based on the installation, which can be a hassle for non-techies. However, this seems to effect both men and women equally, and is really dependent on how comfortable the person is with Perl and CGI. Once installed and used, though, MT users can be fanatical in support, regardless of gender. I know — I’m a fanatical MT user.
(“Hello, my name is Burningbird, and I’m addicted to Moveable Type.”)
Why do I like MT? Because it’s a lovely, lovely piece of software. Powerful enough for all my needs, hooks that allow one to tweak if we wish, and now it has the MySql backend, which for a data person such as myself, is pure heaven, with little chocolate sprinkles on top.
Hmmm. Come to think of it, if Movable Type is an example of software resulting from a paired man/woman collaboration team, then I think it’s time for the software industry to look at its development practices.
(Notice how I didn’t once use “—ism”? I’m getting better. And Christine, I have Trackback enabled. Do I get a cookie? Sorry for the double ping, but MT went crazy — it pinged you three times, blo.gs, weblogs.com, and my mother. It also scritched my kitty underneath her neck, and washed the dishes in passing.)
It’s not often that one can room with an ex-husband and manage to remain best friends. It just goes to show that though I may be firey, difficult, opinionated and hard to live with online, I’m a soft, loveable, easy going charmer offline.
Well, no, not really, but it was a nice try.
Anyway, the roomie and I visited downtown St. Louis Saturday afternoon and by impulse decided to ride the tram to the top of the Arch.
Before going further, it’s important to know that I’m slightly afraid of heights, though it’s manageable. I have no problems in tall buildings, on bridges, or on hills, but I can get uncomfortable with open stairways — I get dizzy for some reason. I’m also a bit afraid of tight, closed spaces, though it’s also manageable. I love caves, but the roof has to be at least a foot over my head; I’m not one to crawl through tight spots.
Anyway, back to the story.
We stood in line to go through security, which only took about 20 minutes. And then we stood in line to be admitted to the waiting area for the tram. Another 20 minutes. Then we stood in an inner waiting area for about 25 minutes. We were finally allowed in to the stairs for loading on to the tram. The wait there was only about 6 minutes, giving me enough time to realize that the entrance for the tram was about 4 feet tall and about half that wide.
The guide joked with the crowd, “I hope you’re not afraid of heights or are claustrophobic”. HaHaHaHaHaHa.
When the tram arrived and the door opened, these people crawled out of this little egg like thing with five seats crammed into a space that could easily fit two.
Rob and I were the last on, which means we were right next to the door. The door with a glass window. The door with a glass window overlooking a great, big, tall stairway. The door with a glass window overlooking a great, big, tall stairway, all viewed from the inside of a little itty bitty living space. For four minutes. And they didn’t provide Tic Tacs.
Next time I get an impulse, I hope someone hits me.
In the meantime, thanks to Norm Jenson for feeding my Tim Tam habit…
…and get off your butt and vote tomorrow.
