18 September 2010

Good News/Bad News

by Frank Turk

I was doing some housekeeping for the blog this morning, and I noticed that there is a great new feature on Blogger: spam filtering.

YAY! Everyone say "YAY!" with me so that we can rejoice that the oriental porn spam will no lobber show up in comment threads and need to be edited out. It also blocks a lot of other annoying stuff, though (Take note Blogger/Google/Axis of Evil) we still cannot block an IP address or a Goggle ID. That and the ability to CLOWN commenters (edit their e-mail address, thereby giving them a Gravatar of our own editorial choice) would finally make Blogger a fully-functional battle station.

That said, many of you had scads of comments stopped up in the Google spam filter. Many many many many many many many many of you. Many.



Here are some tips to avoid this happening:

1. Take a deep breath. If you comment less frequently but more saliently (that is: in a way that sticks out or leaps off the page), you will be a better internet citizen, and the spam filter will not think you;re trying to flood the meta.

2. If your comment gets swallowed, recognize the problem. The best way to fix it is not to repost 7 times in a row the same text hoping it's a bug in MSIE: the best way to fix it is to come back in 10 minutes and post again after you have proven that, by stepping away, you're not a spam-bot.

3. Be grateful that we have a spam filter. Rejoice. It's a James 1 moment for you to count trials as perfecting your faith.

That said, spam filer: on. This is a good thing, and sorry about all your swallowed comments 皇紫勳紫勳豪.







18 comments:

Tom Chantry said...

Spam Filters Everywhere. They drive me crazy. Please - no posts on Tractarianism. We would be reduced to posting comments on John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie That-Other-Guy. I kid you not. It took me three tries to get this through.

Al said...

TEST TEST TEST

VIAGRA

END TEST

al sends

donsands said...

YAY!

Have a Christ focused Lord's Day Team Amigos.

VcdeChagn said...

The best way to fix it is not to repost 7 times in a row the same text hoping it's a bug in MSIE: the best way to fix it is to come back in 10 minutes and post again after you have proven that, by stepping away, you're not a spam-bot.

Ummm...I hate to disagree with you here, but this is absolutely incorrect.

The best solution is to use Chrome or Firefox. (badumbum)

In any case, spam filters are a good thing.

I once played Sandbox Fantasy Baseball (won my league, thank you very much) years and years ago, and now get 300 or more messages per day :(

I'm not a big fan of spam.

Ken said...

I don't know Al from a hole in the ground.

But that made me laugh...

Sonja said...

Thanks Frank! I always wondered what a spam filter looked like (hepa, oil, etc) and now I know. If I was spam, I wouldn't go near that thing.

Solameanie said...

I am glad to know I wasn't the only blogger afflicted with the Chow Mein version of CyberPlayboy. I finally had to enable comment moderation to stop it, until the new spam filter began dealing with it.

Ron (aka RealityCheck) said...

Oh great... first you won't feed trolls and now spam filters... now what am I going to do? ;-)

Barbara said...

It's no baloney: Police Seek Lunch Meat Vandal

For the second time in as many days, a home on Longview Drive in Lisle has been the recipient of unsolicited luncheon meat.

Lisle Police Department reports that a can of Spam was left on the doorstep of a home on the 260 block of Longview Drive between midnight and 8 a.m. Tuesday, April 13. The Spam was found sitting on a piece of paper with the word "SPAM" written on it.

On April 12, a resident of the same block of Longview Drive reported finding a pile of sliced ham at 9 a.m. by the front door of his home. The sliced ham was sitting on a piece of looseleaf paper with the word "HAM" written on it.

****

I'm just wating for a good Ham filter.

Death or Glory Toad said...

I'd not take much trouble filtering the meat vandals. They seem to be improving in their vandalism.

I'd hold out for a while and see if they moved up to T-bones or maybe a side of ribs before calling in a complaint.

Should somebody do that for Biologues? It might encourage them, as dead meat would seem to be evolving daily.

Anonymous said...

Why can't I have egg bacon spam and sausage without spam?

Mel said...

Now if it would only spell check for you too! :) :)

Anonymous said...

It's funny you mention James 1. I'll be doing a mini-serious on James soon, Lord-willing. I smell a sermon illustration. lol Not.

David Regier said...

MR FANK TURK

THIS IS DAVID PAUL REGIER FROM NURRIETA CHURCH IN MURIETA NIGERIA. A CONGREGENT IN OUR CHURCH HAVE GIVEN A TITHE THAT WE ARE UNABLE TOPROCESS IN OUR NORMAL OFFERING BANK ACCOUNT. IS IS FOR THE CONSIDERABLE SUM OF $1.5 MILLION US.

I AM RITING TO ASK YOU TO SEND US YOUR BLOGS PERSONAL BANKING INFORMATIONS SO WE CNA WORK OUT A TRANSFER OF FUNDS. YOU WILL BE REWARDED GREATLY.

Jacob said...

Priceless, David. Priceless. :)

Anonymous said...

Is there a reason you are sticking with Blogger? From my experience, Wordpress is a much better blog application. They use Akismet to filter spam, and I don't remember ever having a problem filtering through my filter.

Kurt K said...

That's no moon...

FX Turk said...

Thre main reasons for sticking with Blogger:

1. It's entirely free and ridiculously customizable. The only limits to the customer formatting and sidebar stuff is our ability to code for Web 2.0. And my ability to code for Web 2.0 is only boiunded by my available time. For example, we can't do the variable PyroManiacs header in a free-level WordPress blog.

2. This is our domain, and we protect thpose who come here, much like Tarzan.

3. 5 years of blogging history would be far too much of a problem to attempt to move. The entire internet would explode if all the inbound links to TeamPyro after 5 years had to be updated or improved.