15 January 2004 Archives

Six Apart has released MT 2.66 specifically because of comment spam.

One change is throttle control, which means if you get hit from the same IP address with several comments in a row, MT will shut down the IP. This wouldn’t have helped with the recent comment blitz because that person used a proxy to vary the IP address with each comment. But it should help with the script kiddies.

The second change is one I, point blank, do not like. What happens is that a redirect is built into the management of comment author’s URL, so you get this silly little redirect page between clicking on the URL and getting to the URL. This supposedly is to stop the redirected URL from getting Google Buzz. However, people who have implemented this have said it doesn’t work. Not to mention that my good commenters no longer get Google goodness.

(And it does nothing about the spam comments that embed 100 different URLs into the comment body. )

I tried this at a site that’s upgraded – it busts the back button. There’s this ugly little redirect page. It’s awful.

Google is self-healing. Comment spam and Google is between the spammers and Google. I don’t care. I just don’t want to have to hand delete 500 comments, have to manually use SQL to do this, or use a blacklist that won’t scale.

I appreciate Six Apart trying, and I like the throttling, but all I want is good comment management. It’s not sexy tech, but it’s what we need. I’ll wait for 3.0 with the promised comment management. I also hope that we have the option to NOT use the redirect functionality. I don’t want to have to hack this out of the code.

A friend wrote that rather than do any kind of formal break, just write when I feel like it, don’t when I don’t or don’t have the time. Good advice. I also heard from old friends, in comments and in email, and well, it was nice. Meant a lot to me – about as much as the old, and new, friends mean to me. Time to kick this bird in the butt and do some damage.

Besides, I was getting bored. I hadn’t tangled with anyone for the longest time. So, to make up for it, earlier today I tangled with the Little Green Football folks – yeah, the Chartreuse Balls Gang – over their warped sense of humor (and most other things, too), but that’s for a later post.

I’m on a strict getting in shape campaign that has been doing wonders for my physical well being. For breakfast I have orange juice and a banana, cheese and salad for lunch, good, well cooked meals for dinner and little snacking. Hard work with weights Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and strenuous hikes Tuesday and Thursday and on the weekend. It’s paying off too, my stress is down, and I feel better.

It’s paying off, too, in general physical health. For instance, my blood pressure today was 112 over 72, which is pretty darn low. Of course, I know what my blood pressure is today because earlier this afternoon, while I was hiking, I fell on a hill when I slipped on loose rock.

Yeah, rather than paying attention to the walk I was looking around, which is mistake number 1 to 100 while hiking. When I started to slip, I tried to dig my foot in and managed to twist it completely end over end, and then joined it falling down the hill. I lay there at the foot of the hill for some time calling out for help because I had thought I had broken the ankle, but no one was around. Finally, I just picked up my butt and limped out of the park, drove home (oh, and that was really fun) and then had my roommate take me to the urgent care clinic.

No breaks, but I am on crutches for possibly several weeks with a badly sprained ankle and foot, torn ligaments, injured knee, and all sorts of fun stuff. Not to mention bruises all over.

Still, could have been worse. And I managed not to break my camera and was actually able to bring you one whole photo from today’s hike. Oddly appropriate looking, don’t you think?