October 11, 2003
(Updated) New Events Calendar Implemented, Anti-Spam Tool For Comments Forthcoming
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
A couple of website-related items I wanted to cover here. First up, the calendar link in the left-hand sidebar now leads to a new script with much more functionality. I might be tinkering with it at some point, especially if I can sit down and make it meld into this site's overall design, but for now it should at least be much more useful. The new script is much more elegant and allows many different views and ways to look at listings of upcoming events of interest to me.
Secondly, earlier today I came across this post by someone who is working on a nice plug-in for Movable Type which will allow me to create a blacklist of comment content that will not be allowed here, and automagically prevented. Mainly, we're talking about purely commercial messages or porn spam. It's not due for release until Monday, so look for that feature to be enabled here next week. Readers will not have to do anything differently, so the only change you can expect is the utter lack of comment spam.
Also, for what it's worth and even though I don't expect it to be utilized any time in the forseeable future, there's also an advertising box in the sidebar now, in case I ever manage to grow this site to the point at which small-scale advertisers are interested. Mainly, it was sort of an "implement it and forget it" decision (until and unless something comes of it, of course).
Update
The MT-Blacklist plugin is now installed. I've added some of the URLs of the comment spammers we've been getting here to the blacklist and run tests on the comments they've been posting to and indeed everything is functioning.
However, because it simply removes the comments rather than puts in a placeholder comment, some of my follow-up comments instructing readers to not click the spam comment URLs make no sense and now appear to refer to the legitimate comment which previously immediately preceded the spam comment.
Notwithstanding that quirk, everything seems good to go, and if any new comment spam comes in, I will immediately add the relevant URL and the comments will be blocked.
Comments (3)
The One True b!X on 11 Oct 2003
Random extra note not worth including in this post itself. This site was rejected by Google's AdSense program because for some strange reason they don't accept subdomains. So unless I also happened to be the owner of the portland.or.us domain, I couldn't use them.
The One True b!X on 12 Oct 2003
As regards comment spam, I should add that I'm hoping a future version of the forthcoming plug-in will include an option that, rather than simply disallowing the spam, will replace the incoming spam comment with a placeholder comment indicating that a post was blocked. Such a feature would be more consistent with my overall policy of, shall we say, editorial transparency, so that readers can see for themselves what decisions have been made, whether by hand or automation.
Elaine on 12 Oct 2003
Are you going to plug that anti-spam thing into my weblog too???? Yes???