Please reply if you run into any errors.

Ian and I have been doing some more work on the website to make it look good since we transitioned to WordPress.   We’ve polished it up some more.  Here’s what’s new/fixed since the last updates:

• Ian did major work on the templates and static pages.
• Ian added the links to the sidebar, and fixed up the lefthand links.
• Ian fixed post authors and times in the multi-post / main views.
• I fixed the single-post view to include the author and post time.
• I fixed the wayward bullets that were hanging outside of the sidebar
• Most importantly:  Link to the current issue PDF is now now fixed.

Please comment on this post if you notice visual defects or usability issues with the new blog software.  (Note: We know the donate and merchandise links are not enabled.)

We’ve finally moved over to WordPress 2.0. There are still some problems and inconsistencies (particularly with the old static pages and the font colors,) but if you encounter anything particularly strange please leave a comment or contact us directly at [email protected].

I have taken the following measures:

Turned off anonymous comments. If you don’t want to put in an email, put in a fake one. That’s fine…this should, at least, help stem the tide of comment spam.

Turned off HTML in comments Same deal.

I’m sorry, but the blacklist isn’t going to work because it is larger than the max packet size on our shared server, and thusly cannot be updated. I’m going to try to trim it over the weekend to see if I can reduce duplication of sub-domains and thusly free up some space. Until then, anonymous comments, comment HTML, and trackbacks will all be off by default. Thanks.

UPDATED: I have turned anonymous comments back on, and taken a very drastic step to curb the comment and ping spam. I added .com, .info and .net to the blacklist. Therefore posting any URL, at all, to comments will be impossible. Yes, this sucks. I’m sorry, but until I have time to really trim the blacklist down and try to make it work right, hopefully this weekend, it’s the only thing that’ll keep spammers from sucking all of our bandwidth.

Because MT Blacklist has mysteriously stopped working again and I cannot figure out how to make it function, I have turned off HTML in comments. I apologize, but it’s really the only way to combat comment spam on this old version of MT without Blacklist.

The OC archive should now be up-to-date.Let us know if anything’s missing or incorrect. And yes, the html archive still has horrible holes in it.

Additionally, here is a random picture I found while perusing the blog images folder:

I installed the newest version of Blacklist that will work with our MT install, that should hold us out for now. If I get time I’m going to go through the SQL that holds the 600+ posts and close all the comments. Then I’ll upload that and leave the default to allow comments on new posts. I’m hoping that’ll work all right, but I’ll keep you cats posted, provided my head doesn’t explode.

So, yes, I did just accidentally delete the last 200 comments. Let me explain why.

You see, we are using an old versoin of Movable Type, and an old version of MT Blacklist. Recently, when I’ve tried to add new blacklist entries, I get an error about exceeding the maximum packet length. No, I don’t know what that means. Anyway, I meant to do a search on a text string, and accidentally searched on all of the last 200 comments, then hit delete before I realized my mistake. Whoops, down the memory hole.

Further, I’ve long since forgotten the login to the cpanel and ftp so I could update to blacklist 1.65, the latest version this MT version will support, from 1.64. One of you cats back on the ranch should do that. Also, you should fork over the $99 for the latest unlimited version of MT Personal. Look, there ought to be enough of you to scrape together $100. Then you can update, and I can stop this madness.

Something not about London for a change: distinguished alum William Beutler’s latest venture is now available to the entire interweb! The National Journal’s Blogometer is here. Every day, Bill sits down early in the morning with a cup of coffee and reads every single blog in the world, then writes a concise digest of them all. This is his story, hitherto available by subscription only.

But do we make the blogroll? Do we bollocks. Where’s the love, WWB? Where’s the love?

I have deleted over 300 pieces of comment spam this evening. Other OC web-site folks, please remember to stay on top of this.

In other news: I shall be in Eugene from late tomorrow evening through mid-day June 19. If you are one of the people with which I should have beer, please email me at nothf -at- yahoo -dot- com if you don’t have my cell number. If you already have my number, or I have yours, this step is unneeded.

While I was archiving the previous issue, I noticed that the summer issues for the past two years weren’t up in the archive. Oops. That’s all fixed now so you can find them here and here.

To refresh your memories, Summer Issue 2003 includes farewell pieces by Bret and Pete (althought Pete’s is written by Tim), and an article about how Tyler lost his crappy job. Summer Issue 2004 includes the best bar bathroom graffiti in town, my own farewell piece, and the edition of “OC Asks” that got us all into this fiasco in the first place (Yes, the one with the talk about penises. Page 7, kids!). Read, and you shall find enlightenment in the context.

For some reason the blog isn’t letting me post the word “s e x”. I get a html page that says:

Not Acceptable
An appropriate representation of the requested resource /mt/mt.cgi could not be found on this server.

However, fuck, shit, bitch, asshole, etc. seem to be okay. I’m also seeing the same problem on my personal MT blog. I disabled MT-Blacklist on my blog, which should only target comments anyway, and still had this problem. And now I can’t import the blacklist from the OC to my blog, probably because it contains s e x.

It could be server related, since both my blog and the OC blog use the same host. For Christ’s sake, I think John Ashcroft is the ghost in the machine.

Anybody else having this issue?

Update (12/16): As of 9:40 am this morning, I can post the word sex. Sex sex sex sex sex sex sex. I am totally on crack, or something.

Update (12/17): Looks like our host has been setting up filters to help combat comment spam, and they’re still working on some bugs. I’ll probably get in touch with them if any problems show up when people are posting stuff.

I just got a lid on the recent attack of comment spam hocking DirecTV (which TOTALLY SUCKS, comments to the contrary notwithstanding).

Anyway, as I was plowing through the flood (how’s that for metaphor mixology?), I noticed that one of our authors drew considerably more spam than the others. The numbers I have are:

Tim: 10
Olly: 5
Sho: 4
Dan: 2
Flood: 1
Pete: 1
Tyler: 1
Everyone else: 0

It seems that something about Tim’s posts is considerably more market-friendly than the rest of our work. I suggest we start selling advertising on them.

I just deleted over a dozen pieces of annoying comment garbage, and those responsible have had their nice little IP addresses banned from the site. A couple of URLs will go into the blacklist, I’m sure. Let this be a lesson, if you want to be a comment spammer, at least do it from a dynamic IP, dipshit.

I think there are only two Movable Type users who read this blog, but they might find this MT comment spam blocker useful. After less than a month of using MT at the OC Online, I have already found one comment spam on my first post. I deleted it, but Im sure theres more where that one came from. This spam blocker uses a constantly updated blacklist of spamming websites that works similarly to updating your anti-virus softwares virus list.
I hope that this will kick the ass of most of the comment spam that comes this way.

Ive also enabled “e-mail comments” on MT so users of this blog will be notified when someone has posted a comment to their blog entry. This way, if comment spam appears on one of their posts they can let me know and I can delete it and blacklist the spammer. I may centralize the process by having everyones profile e-mail address set to our Darkwing account so comments and such get sent to only one e-mail address that can be checked in the office but Ill bring this up for discussion at the next OC meeting.

Note: This could potentially be used as a defense against attempted puppy bombings. Yes, I’m looking at you, FLOG.

via Portland blogger Jack Bog