Category: Weblogging

Categories
Weblogging

Bad mans find good woman

I’ve been hit severals time recently with comment spams. In fact the frequency of attack has really picked up as WordPress has become more popular.

I don’t use any form of blacklist, but controlling the spam is still pretty trivial. There’s one throttle in place that doesn’t allow more than so many posts in a short period of time–over ten posts in a minute, and over fifty a day; anything beyond these limits is automatically moderated. I can easily increase the number of comments per minute or day if I suddenly gain political blogger status.

(The ten posts in a minute throttle is new, so please send me email if you have problems.)

I also have code in place to automatically put my comments into moderation at 20 days. Due to the increased frequency of attack, I’ve changed this to put any comments older than five days into moderation. Since most activity falls within this five day period, this shouldn’t be too restrictive.

With these protections in place, I still get the comments. But no build is happening, so it’s just a straight database access and an email. And since I can’t get more than ten of these beasties at a time, the mail is no burden. Once a day, I then go into WordPress, go to the comment power-editing page, search on whatever is common on all the spams, and then mass delete the bunch.

If there’s one drawback to this, when my throttle is in place, your comments may end up in my moderation queue. But unless you’re selling me online gambling, I’ll let you through.

This spam throttling is one of my favorite WP modifications. If I had to pick any five modifications I’ve done to WordPress that has more than paid for the time to maintain these between version upgrades, I would pick the following:

  1. My comment spam throttling. Without having to resort to IP or other blacklisting, I have it controlled and managed with a minimum of effort. I am looking at putting this into a plug-in for WP 1.3
  2. My fullpage preview. There’s nothing like previewing your post within the environment it will be viewed at when published. The only way this can be a plug-in is to use DHTML to modify the page objects on load. Since I’m not fond of using DHTML for anything to do with navigation, I prefer to customize the page.
  3. My comment editing. As I posted comments in the last few days in other weblogs, I really regretted I couldn’t edit the comments after the fact. My damn typos. Because of this, I’ve come to have a deep appreciation for my own comment editing feature. I think all sites that offer comments, should provide comment editing. Best thing of all, this can be a drop-in modification. I need to package it accordingly for 1.3.
  4. My moderated comments customization. Being able to turn moderation on an off selectively rather than globally is a wonder. Again, this can be a plug-in, but would require DHTML to modify the document and this doesn’t ring my bell. So it stays a customization.
  5. My other customizations are tied for usefulness, but I like my comment/trackback split, and my talkback feature (both plug-ins, which I need to link at the WP support wiki). I also like my Insert post status that allows me to publish an entry, without it being part of the overall site navigation. This is particularly useful for About pages and other content that you want static. I also like my static page implementation, though I think the one that comes with WordPress now might be better (have to check it out and see).I also like my new “about this entry” with notes annotation that I just added. It adds an element of fun.

Why do technologists like weblogging? Because the tools are a tweaker’s paradise.

Categories
Social Media Weblogging

Technorati, Technorati, wherefore art thou Technorati

I remember once being critical of TypeKey because (as I said at the time) centralized services don’t scale. Those who didn’t agree pointed out the excellence of both Google and Technorati to demonstrate how well centralization works.

This week, as I noticed comment spam in a TypeKey controlled blog, I thought back on that argument and still believe that centralization doesn’t scale. True, Google seems to be the exception, as it takes a licking but keeps on ticking (though it has faltered a time or two in the recent past, and lately it seems as if you have to wade through sellers trying to get to useful information). As for Technorati, though–I can’t be the only one who wonders if this service will ever be able to re-capture it’s former glory, as days go by searching on both keyword and URL, only to get less than useful results.

I feel like I’m kicking baby squirrels again being critical of Technorati — I like Dave, and think he’s providing a very useful product (which, I should add, is not costing me penny). I’m glad he got VC funding, and a great gig at CNN. And I like the fact that Dave never gives excuses when things go wrong.

But today was the first day in six that I got anything back for my weblog and this afternoon the results will most likely differ wildly from what it was this morning. This is seriously cutting into my ego surfing, forcing me to take drastic measures.

I’m warning you Dave — if you don’t get Technorati fixed soon, the squirrels get it.

Cute squirrels begging Dave for help, saying they're road kill without it.

Categories
Social Media Technology Weblogging

Exit door

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I wanted to to thank those (Steve, Loren, Liza, Tim) who have volunteered their weblogs for conversion for my upcoming tutorials on weblog tool independence. This is in addition to those who are offering space and installation of MT 3.1.

I’ve been asked if because of this series I’m thinking of switching back to Movable Type; what I’m going to do with this weblog moving forward, I’d prefer to leave for the denouement. (Sorry Marc – no peeking at the end.) The purpose of the series isn’t to sell one weblogging tool or another, as much as it is to sell the idea of weblog tool independence.

Sam Ruby once said, and I can’t find where, that the first thing to look for when evaluating a weblogging tool is the exit. Most tools provide an import utility and instructions, but very few provide an easy to use method to export entries into a format consumable by other tools. In fact, Movable Type is one of the best in this regard, though it’s also relatively easy to export from Blogger.

Weblogging tool lock-in serves no one, not even the tool makers. If a person feels they can’t easily move their weblog to a different tool, but they’re also not happy with the one they’re using, they’re going to be vocal in their criticism of the tool; this is the only outlet they have for their frustration. A better approach would be to give them an easy out, so they don’t feel ‘trapped’.

Moving the data is only part of the battle, though. The tough part is handling the differences in tags, functions, and plugins. But there’s a method to the madness, and the tools are more alike than unalike when it comes to processing that data they all hold in common.

Of course, none of us wants to have to spend time moving to different weblogging tools; we’re here to put deathless prose and pithy comments online, not spend time fiddling with technology. Still, it’s hard to be creative when your software crashes, your writing disappears, your post takes forever to publish, your host shuts your weblog service down in a hissy fit, or you’re fighting off hordes of comment spammers who clutter up your space (not to mention taking down your server with the force of their attacks).

Categories
Weblogging

Oh dear but this is sad

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

With some of the current unpleasantness going on in the WordPress support forum and elsewhere, I’ll focus more quickly on getting the WordPress to Movable Type format export finished. This doesn’t mean I’m encouraging people to move, as I really like WordPress. And it doesn’t mean you’re locked into moving back to Movable Type: most major weblogging tools provide utilities and instructions for importing MT formatted weblog data.

(That’s why I will only support the MT format–using Atom is just a way of showing that you’re geeky. Sorry, but why focus on an export format not supported by most tools?)

However, some of the decision making can have some pretty adverse impacts on the non-geeks who just want to use a weblogging tool that works and doesn’t get them spammed. I really like WordPress, and respect and like many of the people who work on and help support the tool; but right now, there are a lot of growing pains and a little too much arrogance associated with the core community, and this isn’t good for the tool.

(I wonder if I just lost my volunteers for my upcoming tutorials?)

Categories
Weblogging

MT and WP Tutorials

My thanks to the two people who have volunteered their sites for conversion from MT to WP 1.3: Steve from Rodent Regatta and Loren from In a Dark Time. I’d hoped for two more, but we’ll go with these fine gentlemen. As soon as WP 1.3 releases and I have a chance to upgrad my sites and make sure all is well, I’ll tackle their moves.

I’ve also had a couple of Movable Type 3.1 folks who have volunteered installations and space, but right now this beta is all hush-hush so I’ll give them credit later.

I’ve been asked why I’ve dropped the port-a-blogging business. Part of the reason is that I’ve postponed buying my camera because of changing financial circumstances. I had planned on putting book money into the fund, but the book didn’t materialize. The money that has been donated (for which I am grateful) will go to film and development; with my Nikon 995, this will do.

However, the main reason for shutting down the weblogging porting biz is that my charging any kind of fee-based service is just not a workable proposition with WordPress. It’s not that the community surrounding WordPress is inimical to someone charging for services associated with WordPress development; it’s that if the service isn’t offered for no charge when you start, it most likely will be within a week or so after starting.

Additionally, people are now getting paid to work in the Movable Type environment, where before they did it for thanks and tips and I sometimes wonder if that hasn’t changed the perception of expectations between ‘weblog developer’ and ‘weblog community’. Movable Type has moved into the arena of the fiercely paid, with an associated expectation of service on demand; while leaving other tools such as WordPress to be obsessively free, but still competing in the same marketplace.

It’s hard to find the words to say without sounding petty, but I’ll give it a shot: I love to tinker with tech and to write, and I enjoy helping others, and don’t mind that I don’t get paid; but I don’t want to feel obligated to do things this way.

I can’t beat the cost of doing things for free, and I don’t want to volunteer to help all people with all things related to WordPress. Nor do I want to become One with the Force, as it were, in order to get legions of adoring fans. I’ve been working with tech close to 25 years now; I stopped having love affairs with my tools back when when I thought Java was hot, only to find out it was just another pretty langauge now fat and bloated by eating too many constructs.

Instead, I’ll convert this small select group of folk, and write tutorials that might help others do the job themselves. Then that will be it for my development and writing online about weblogging tools. Somehow, somewhere along the way, it stopped being fun.

I’ll still write on technology–gentle PHP and might MySQL, Internet ins and out and gotchas, and twisty techs like RDF, with other bits of this and that thrown in; but only as the interest moves me, and that way we’ll all have fun.