Happy Blog B’day, #3

Posted on October 30, 2008 by ken

And how the internet time flies, not unlike the time in the non-digital world. Three years ago, this old blog went live on the series of tubes¹.

As is the ritual at times like these, the statistics from the WP Dashboard at this juncture are:

You have 1,513 posts, 8 pages, contained within 2 categories and 265 tags. You have 747 total comments, 737 approved, 10 spam and 0 awaiting moderation.

I’ve enjoyed the ride, and the domain and hosting being paid into aught-nine sometime, y’all keep coming back for your daily dose of drollery. OK? We never close.

-k-

H/T for the graphics: foamcow, via the Flickr. Love the penguins!

And, for the platform and plumbing: WordPress, Akismet, Scribe Fire, and HostMySite. We’ll be doing more bidness in year 4!

wordpress, akismet, hostmysite, scribefire

¹ Not to be confused with the series of cubes, wherein the originator of that phrase will be doing 5 to 10, if there’s any justice at all.

A Rare False Positive

Posted on October 26, 2008 by ken

For the first time in a long time, Akismet mistakenly flagged a non-spam comment. The auto-flush spam comments on old posts has trimmed the spam cesspit by a huge margin, so non-spam comments are easier to find.

And, I plucked James‘ comment out of the dreck, and it’s available to all.

Not beating up on Akismet at all; I’m in no danger of having to take off shoes and socks to count false positives.

-k-

Slickness is Slick

Posted on September 17, 2008 by ken

As documented here, I activated the heretofore unnoticed Automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month checkbox in the Akismet WordPress plugin.

A month or so in, and my spam trap went from ginormous¹ to next to none. And I can much more easily find any false positives that make it into the spam trap².

The only downside is that the Akismet Badge at the bottom doesn’t roll up the “spam trapped” numbers like it used to. It would be nice if the web mavens at Akismet would have a second number in the badge, an “auto flush” counter, for lack of a better term.

Even in the absence of that, this Akismet feature has been a win-win. Less spam that I even see, and comments are left open, so that anyone with something to say can still say it if they are so inclined.

Thanks, Akismet!

-k-

¹ For a little five and dime blog like this.

² There have been only a handful of those, in my entire history of using Akismet.

Akismet Slickness

Posted on August 17, 2008 by ken

I don’t know how long this option has been in Akismet, but there’s now a checkbox labeled Automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month
.

Following the recent WordPress 2.6.1 upgrade, I noticed the option when reactivating plugins post-upgrade. I checked it, and my incoming spam trap has been squeaky clean. This is better than turning off comments; anything that I’ve ever written here has comments open, so someone with something legit to say can still say it, irrespective of the post’s age.

Thus far, it has been a win-win, and far fewer spam comments to trudge through looking for false positives. I’ve had precious few of those.

Thanks, Akismet!
-k-

An Overnight Milestone

Posted on November 15, 2007 by ken

While I slept, the Akismet spam trap caught its 30,000^th; spam comment. I personally thank the on-line pharmacies, car quote places, Hold ‘em poker sites, and most of all those prolific porno sites, for making this all possible.

Thanks, Akismet! Now, on to 100k!
-k-
[stags]tbbs, Akismet[/stags]
[tags]Akismet[/tags]

Enhancement Vendors

Posted on July 14, 2007 by ken

tbbs-land’s Akismet-powered spam trap continues to collect its daily ration of sludge; the count of such occurrences appears in the right sidebar when you visit the site.

A not too scientific analysis of posts which get the most spam hits is one entitled “Wee Willie Wiki”. I wonder whether spammers, especially those hawking male enhancement potions and products, think the post refers to any portions of the male anatomy. I’d like to think that even a spammer has a little discernment. Who knows?

The text of one spam comment to the post was this little gem:

An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.

Heh. Words to live by, even outside the world of enhancements.

-k-
[tags]akismet[/tags]

Millesimus Primus

Posted on May 19, 2007 by ken

This self-referential post marks post number 1001 here at tbbs-land. I think it fitting that the 1000^th announced the blimp. I guess it’s incumbent to cite statistics on milestone events; from the WP Dashboard:

Posts: 1001
Comments: 532
Categories: 27
Akismet spam kills: 13,543.

On to the next 1000, and y’all come back now, ya hear?

-k-

5000 in 19 days

Posted on April 8, 2007 by ken

I marked the occasion of my 5000^th spam comment with this post. And today, thanks to the efforts of the get prescription drugs at home people, a new resurgence of the porn people, and contributions by the free ringtones and online poker camps, Akismet has now protected tbbs-land from over 10000 spam comments.

Ba-whoosh! And not a false positive in the lot of them.

-k-
[tags]akismet[/tags]

Another Milestone

Posted on March 20, 2007 by ken

tbbs-land hits a somewhat ignominious milestone today. More than 5000 comment spams have now been flushed from the Akismet spam trap.

And only about 4 or 5 false positives in the whole shebang.

Thanks, Akismet, as we proceed toward five figures.

-k-

Technorati Tags: akismet

Doubly Blessed

Posted on February 24, 2007 by ken

This morning, there was something to be flushed from the Akismet spam trap, indicating that my recent move has been a success.

Inadvertently tagged in the ordeal was PJ, who was retrieved with one click, and now has the distinct and timeless honor of being the first commenter here at my new digs.

w00t!

-k-

Oh, and incoming links weren’t borked for long enough for me to lose my spot in The Technorati Top One Billion.

ten billion butterfly sneezes

whistle through your teeth and spit

Tag Archives: Akismet