the biggest crapweasel in history.
I present you with, a little info about our comment spammer:
bali phetermine vigra.. err.. click here
(thanks to Roger Wood for putting this up)
Posted by tj at January 10, 2004 02:54 AMmaking a user register before being allowed to comment
Unfortunately, it's not. There are plug-ins for MT that can help.
Posted by: eyeballkid on January 10, 2004 07:47 PMWhoops, "not allowed by Movable Type," is what i meant.
Posted by: eyeballkid on January 10, 2004 07:48 PMJay Allen's MT-Blacklist works beautifully. I've been using it at the 'bottle for a couple of months now, with some small hiccups. It rocks.
Also : are the bold, italic, link buttons on the commentbox dead for everyone, or is it just me?
Posted by: stavrosthewonderchicken on January 10, 2004 11:52 PMAlso, the next rev of MT (3.0) will have an option to make registration-to-comment mandatory...
Posted by: stavrosthewonderchicken on January 10, 2004 11:53 PMLong-term, though, I don't think a simple blacklist will work. Look at your email, if you've got a bad spam problem there: How many unique senders a day send you spam? Dozens, no doubt. I fear one day it'll be the same for blog comments--Movable Type sites are getting hit the worst right now because their comments forms usually use the same name for the CGI script. I predict the popular free hosted comment systems will be next (HaloScan, ReBlogger, QuickTopic, etc.) Having said that, blacklisting comment spammers individually is a step up from deleting their comments one at a time.
Posted by: arto on January 11, 2004 07:18 AMYes, stavros. The buttons used to work on Explorer at home but not on Netscape at work. Now they are dead, no matter which browser and computer I use. It happened when at the same time jpoulos did the last upgarde, so I figured maybe the site was now beyond my browser versions.
Posted by: tizzie on January 11, 2004 02:00 PMarto is right on that. The blacklist is good for now, but will be nigh unuasable in the future. Even with the Bayesian plug-in, which I haven't tried yet so I can't comment of the quality of, the spam comments will still appear. There are other solutions, but they would limit the functionality of the site, ie: not allowing html in comments, not linking the username to a url. The MT 3.0 registration option isn't a perfect solution (though I'm not a beta tester, so I'm clueless to its implementation), but it's a definite improvement. Every step added to make commenting more difficult would be welcome and therefore prevent the ease of scripting it, would be welcome.
Posted by: eyeballkid on January 11, 2004 02:09 PMThat was a bit muddled toward the end, huh? Coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
Posted by: eyeballkid on January 11, 2004 02:54 PMHi all. I've been absent and neglectful of this site and I apologize. I had no idea that things were out of hand with the spam. I don't check in that often, and apparently by the time I do, tj or whoever has made with the cleaning up.
I will implement whatever plug-ins or blacklists it takes--but I really have no idea what works and what doesn't. The dialogue above is very helpful--let's hash it out and arrive at a solution.
I am aware that the buttons are broken, I messed them up during the last mini-meltdown a couple of months ago. I meant to look at them, but I got all caught up in throwing myself in oceans and condo-shopping and whatnot.
Here's the deal: I'm going to have to move the site to another server. It's something I've been putting off for a while because this site is so big, but I really need to sit down and do it. I hope we won't be down for more than a day or so, but the fact that it is hosted on a provider's machine means that I can't just pick up the db and move it. I have to dump it into a flat file and rebuild it in the new location.
So I'll do a fresh build of MT, using the latest version, and fix all the broken bits and all that. (I wonder if we couldn't use a redesign, while we're at it? Just a thought.)
Any idea when MT3 is coming?
Posted by: jpoulos on January 11, 2004 03:10 PMOK. I fixed the bold, italic and link buttons.
Go us!
Posted by: jpoulos on January 11, 2004 03:39 PMThe word on MT3.0 seems to be early Q1 2004. So, that would be any day now, I guess.
Posted by: eyeballkid on January 11, 2004 04:07 PMGo us!
Cool...[waves "hi"; work desk stacked to the ceiling with work]
This crazy person that's linked over at the Blue has a flying monkey with a toothbrush on his site.
I really wanted to post the link just to see how the link button's working. It still doesn't work in Netscape but it works in IE!
Posted by: tizzie on January 12, 2004 02:22 PM but it works in IE!
smiles...not for me. Wanted to know: harmless addictive ingrediants
Where's Miguel? I have to tell him about my Close Brush With Death.
I just came home from having a beer with friends at a neighborhood bar. They introduced me to a friend of theirs, and he said "Oh, yes, I know who you are. I work at Southern Kitchen."
Oh. My. God.
Thankfully he had a sense of humor and was unarmed :-) He laughed and said how much he liked my writing. I was mortified! I kind of ducked behind my friend for safety as my life flashed before my eyes and said, Oh, right!
No offense, tizzie, but Netscape 4.x isn't a real browser. Time to get with the 21st century, babe!
Posted by: jpoulos on January 13, 2004 09:32 AMWell, Mr. Smarty, I have Netscape 6! And 6 is greater than 4!
It's probably not a real browser either, but nyah nyah anyway!
Posted by: tizzie on January 13, 2004 10:11 AMUpgrade to 7. They work in 7.
Signed,
Mr. Smarty
PS - You love me. You ALL love me.
Posted by: jpoulos on January 13, 2004 10:16 AMOh, and after you upgrade Netscape to v7, remember to pronounce it "Mo-zill-ah." Then all the cool kids will like you.
Of course, once the cool kids like you, you'll probably shun us.
Unless I anticipated this, and gave you intentionally bad advice. *grins evilly* See, there are two great mistakes. The first is, "Never get into a land war in Asia." The second is, "Never get into a battle of wits with a Sicilian."
Of course, not being Sicilian, I have no wits.
Posted by: arto on January 14, 2004 06:59 AMWait, comment spammers are quoting Tom Waits now?
*ducks and covers hoping to escape the wrath of the kaf*
Posted by: ufez on August 23, 2004 04:58 PMA note about posting images:
We encourage users to post images, especially those hilarous pics of monkeys
wearing dresses or programming for Linux. But posting images that reside on someone
else's server is considered by many to be bandwidth theft. Our thoughts
on the matter, along with some solutions to the problem, can be found
here. Thanks.
In an effort to help eliminate spam (and to preserve the sanity of the 9622 Volunteer Simian Spam-Cop Brigade) all threads older than 30 days will now be closed to comments.