Yes, there are personal attacks, I know. I am looking for some feedback for you folks who have your own blogs about your spam situation. I have pretty good filters, though some things slither through (and I use that verb pointedly). I am forever clearing spam out of the fliter.
In any event, if you chime in, let us know also what you are using for your blog. This, for example, is in WordPress, on a dedicated server.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
on ROME 24/4– Day 35 (-6): adventures in symmetry: “From a reader: “What are in the frames between the vestments?” Those are the priest’s vesting prayers. I’ll show more…”
on WDTPRS: 4th Sunday of Easter (Novus Ordo) – Mighty humble Shepherd, humble mighty flock: “Fr Z you are an inspiration in your knowledge about and love for the things of God and the church.…” on ROME 24/4– Day 32 (-9): Happy Birthday Rome!: “Holy cow that pasta. I wish we had smell-o-vision and taste-o-vision.”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “The German grind continues. It is in their nature.”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Scary about the women. What I mean is this: it would be disheartening enough just to find out that a…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “I wonder what’s going on with these women. Don’t they know that the greatest example of womanhood is Our Blessed…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Fr.Z sez: It is really sad that some people still push this rock up the hill. Reminds one of Sisyphus,…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Alas, those men pushing for ordaining women. STILL trying to get women to do all the work. My mother warned…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Dear Dcn PB, I don’t see how the reality can be described differently than by saying that the one sacrament…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Most people, whether pro or con, misunderstand the history and practice of the female diaconate. The deaconess was a separate…”
on Your Sunday Sermon Notes: 3rd Sunday after Easter (N.O. 4th of Easter) 2024: “I remember only the joke at the beginning of the homily: Priests get four weeks of vacation per year. Some…”
on “you must not remember your forefathers…” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “My children at one of the solid Chesterton Academies have been taught science and theology by an amazing young Catholic…” on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “What is it that changed about the Catholic Herald? Interesting interview by George Farmer. (If only the faithful could be…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Wonderful news about Candace Owens and George Farmer. Thank you for continually pointing out that Holy Orders is one Sacrament.…” on ROME 24/4– Day 31 (-10): The Parish™…. what’s next?: “Just Some Guy: Perhaps others will get back to you before twilight’s last gleaming.”
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A Daily Prayer for Priests
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
Father: I’m cheap. I use the free web-based Blogger.com (I’m still using Old Blogger, I have not switched to the Google based version). I never have spam on the blog. I do have a very strong firewall and anti-virus software set up on my PC. However, I think setting Blogger.com so that each commenter has to input the word verification before the post goes up stops the automatic spam trollers. You can restrict commenters to only registered bloggers or group members too if you want. I don’t have Ad Sense (Ads on my blog) I don’t know if having Ads on Blogger enables spam to get through or not.
I use Blogger but I am thinking of switching to WordPress (I maintain a couple of WP blogs for work) if I ever get to the stage at which I am making regular updates. Spam can be avoided on Blogger simply by disallowing comments. Unfortunately Blogger doesn’t have any cool tools like Askimet Spam to filter out spam comments.
You could add a simple math problem as Pontificator has. The operative word is “simple”….no algebra problems, please. He uses WordPress also. Blogger, which I use, has word verification…distorted letters which are sometimes hard to read (double r’s are sometime hard to distinguish from m’s, ditto for double v’s from w’s). Comment moderation can be a headache if your time is limited (if, ha!).
I have blogger, and I have word verification; that screens out most spam.
However, every once in a while some shows up; I guess someone is posting it live. I delete it.
Just yesterday, I noticed a new sort of spam, that worked through my site meter. I was scanning the referrals in the site meter (it’s an easy way to find out if anyone’s linked my blog, a bit of vanity on my part), and clicked on one of them. It turned out to be some sort of nonsense blog; nothing made any sense. I don’t know if it counts as spam, but there must be some reason it was there — my suspicion is that it was to get me to do just what I did. Weird.
Father, unlike most other bloggers I know, I use a commercial package called Expression Engine from pmachine.com. It’s a very powerful and extensible system that can be used for much more than blogging. It has extensive security features built in. I have image verification plus comment moderation and the combination of the two seems to work fine.
Fr. Fox, referrer spam is particularly pernicious. Thankfully ExpressionEngine uses a blacklist to blog spammers as well so many of them don’t even get into the site. Referrer spam is used to boost their Google search ranking.
Domenico: Yes, that referrer stuff is annoying. My filters catch virtually everything, however. It is interesting to read about what people are doing for their blogs.
To get better control over the flood of junk, I had to move the stblogs.org sites to an Apache server I administer personally.
That lets me customize Apache “mod_security” pattern rules to detect and block the submission of junk comments; it’s more efficient for the server than making the blog software spend time processing or rejecting them.
“mod_security” is tricky, though: incautiously defined rules can interfere with your normal use of the blog software.
I use Blogger and all the comments are sent by Blogger to my email account for moderation. Since my comment traffic is very low, it’s not a big deal. One of my readers is blind (I think) and his screen reader can’t read the word verification graphic, so moderation is convenient for both me and for him.
Fr. Z: I’m surprised you don’t have some kind of word verification.
I got “baptized” only about a month in when I posted a photo of one of our priests kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacrament during a holy hour for vocations and someone posted in a lewd comment (which was actually an advertisement for something sexual). I then turned on word verification and have not had any further incididents.
Dom: Thanks for that interesting piece of technical info.
I have a blog at http://latine.wordpress.com/ and since April of 2006 I received no spam, no comments, no traffic, nothing. I must be doing something right.
Okay everyone! Go look at Andrews blog!! You can learn all about the latin word for \”crane\” today, so put on your crane bills and get out your Lewis & Short!
o{]:^
I found the word verification on Blogger works a trick!