The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Blog Admin

  • Spam Comments

    spamReg

    Spam Comments: Blatant marketing ploy? We see that all the time.

    Anyone who has a blog is occasionally (or not so occasionally) plagued by spam comments. Most are easy to detect and they usually deal with products designed to make certain parts of you bigger, or the whole of you smaller.

    Sometimes things come through that make you wonder if the commenter is just link-mining, or really has no clue.

    For example. I received two comments last week (I alluded to this on twitter) from the same IP and email, but different Author names. The first comment said:

    A fantastic read….very literate and informative. Many thanks….where is your RSS button ?

    That is usually code for “I’m commenting on your blog just so there’s a link with my website’s name on it”. Especially because they’re looking for my RSS button. Ummm…it’s right there, dude.

    But, ten minutes later, another comment came in which made me question the spam rating of the first. Sort of.

    I strongly recommend that you turn the No Follow off in your comment section.

    I’ll watch Google Webmaster Tools, and if the links don’t show up after a couple of weeks — I won’t go back to that blog again.

    Another suggestion: you should have a Top Commentator widget installed.

    Do Follow and Top Commentator will ensure that you have a successful blog with lots of readers!

    The first comment seems like a standard Spam Robo-Comment, but the second seems like someone was alerted that their first robo-comment would be dumping into a blog that uses the “nofollow” on comment links (this is specifically to reduce this sort of search engine spam) and decided to up the pressure and throw a bit of passive-aggressive on top for kicks.

    Of course, the request for me to stop using nofollow is a dead giveaway. The sop to my ego about a successful blog would fit the formula “tell them something good, then bad, then good” except that they started off by threatening to never come back to my blog. To top off the fun part, their comments are on a post from November, 2005 and one from January, 2008. These posts do have Astrophotography in common, but the first comment, the one that said “A fantastic read….very literate and informative.” was on a post that was really just me linking to Badastronomy.

    So, we’ve got a big thumbs down all around. However, I will say that they responded to my email about whether these were Spam comments. They gave me permission (thanks!) to edit the comments in any way I chose. They’ve obviously not read my comments policy.

    I approved their comments this time, just to give me something to talk about, but if they come through again in a similar fashion, I think we’ll be spamming them with prejudice.

  • Why Coding is Hard, Even When It's Easy

    Keywords: WordPress, Quicktags, Cache,

    There are days when I totally understand why people are afraid of computers.

    Today is one of them.

    I started with a very simple task: add an additional quicktag to the WordPress editor for my own use. I’ve done this before. It’s really bloody simple. Just add an additional piece of code inside your WordPress blog. As long as you can do a google search and aren’t afraid of digging around in the code, this is a snap.

    Or at least, it was a snap back when I did it the last time. This time it didn’t work. It should have worked. I double checked my syntax on the 5 lines of code that I freaking copied and pasted. I double checked the WordPress codex. I double double checked the code again. I banged my head a few times. I swore and cursed. There was no noticeable change happening because of my addition.

    Finally, I did what any coder would do, I started to try and effect any change that would evidence my having altered the code. I started commenting out important parts of the file I was working in. Still nothing. Did WP need to be “refreshed” or “restarted”, I thought to myself.

    Then, I thought of the cache.

    The goddamn cache was maintaining the old javascript.

    I had banged my head on this simple easy child-like task for two hours and all I needed to do was clear the cache.

    Argh.

    Don’t forget to clear the cache.

  • Comment Spam (again)

    I’ve been getting a flurry of comment spam again. Amusingly, it is mostly hitting another of my posts that jokes about comment spam.

  • Help! Asking for CSS/PHP Help…

    You may notice that the previous post on the main page totally screws up the blocking with the one before it. I am a sufficiently noobish CSS person that I don’t know how to make it right. Anyone want to help me fix this?

  • 1,000th Post!

    Evil EyebrowThis is the One Thousandth Posting to the Evil Eyebrow! It seems only yesterday that I was writing the Pi’th anniversary entry. They grow up so fast [sniff].

    I thought long and hard about what to do in celebration of this momentous event, discarding numerous drafts, staying up late at night, tearing my hair, rending my breast, etc. This was to be the 1,000th edition of my signature blog; it must reek of what the blog is all about.

    Therefore, I present to you a way to capture all that The Evil Eyebrow stands for:

    Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services.
    He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?”
    The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”
    There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”

    That is the world’s funniest joke.

    Here’s to 1,000 more entries for the Eyebrow!

  • Evil Eyebrow Comment and Moderation Policy

    Smashed Keyboard
    Photo Credits to Jhuebner

    I feel the need to post this because I want everyone to be very clear about my blog. This is my very own personal playground and I will run it anyway I damn well choose. That includes the current policy of placing every commenter1 into a queue for approval if they haven’t previously had an approved comment. That also includes changing policies without notice.

    I reserve the right to manage my playground in a manner that is pleasing to me. This means arbitrary deletion or spamination of any comment I feel like. To date, in the 3 years and 3 months this blog has been running I’ve approved every single comment except one (that one I couldn’t figure out if it was spam or topical, eventually I came down on spam). Even weird, crazy, obscene and profane comments get approved (see this Lost post).

    I make an effort to approve comments in moderation as quickly as possible, but it may take some time if I’m not near a computer. I do not obsessively check my email or my blog when I’m doing something fun. If you sit in the queue for a length of time that makes you think I don’t like you or that I’m trying to suppress you, I assure you that you’re projecting. Take a breath and come back tomorrow.

    I maintain my right to snark back at people who snark at me. It’s not personal. After all I probably don’t know you. If you keep it polite, I will reciprocate.

    If you need more information, my policy is substantively similar to John Scalzi’s with the exception that I will never alter your words without permission. Your comment will be either approved or denied. Rarely will it be denied (as I said, I don’t believe I’ve ever denied a legitimate comment). I have no reason to keep people from expressing their opinions on my blog, even if those opinions are diametrically opposed to mine. So bring it on, but reap as you sow, if you catch my drift

    1“Commenter” is defined by my blog software as a name and an email address. If you change the way you enter your name or the email address you place in the comment block, you’ll be dumped into moderation hell.

  • RSS Happiness!

    I just goes to show: Once you’ve punted and begged for help, somebody might fix your problem.

    Anyone reading this over a feedreader, please let me know if the posts are again deprived of formatting or images or paragraph breaks, etc.

  • RSS is Making me Go Gray

    If you read the Eyebrow through a feedreader, you already know that the images, formatting, bullets, etc., do not come through. You get an undifferentiated mob of text, which is highly unsatisfying because I have gone though HUGE efforts to provide you with delicately formatted content. It upsets the content to be squashed back together. It cries.

    I’ve been trying to fix this problem off an on for months now. I have now officially given up. I’ve posted a question to the WordPress Forum about this issue, but if you have any insight into this, I’d be delighted to hear it.

    The killer thing about this is that it all seems to be working. The feed (http://www.jbwr.net/web/bp/billblog/index.php/feed)1 looks like it is supposed to. The feed is going out to all of my subscribers, so why aren’t they getting more than just plain text!?2 Argh!

    1Don’t get on my case about the crazy URL. One of my to do list items is to shift the Eyebrow to a lower directory on our server, but it’s a low item on the list
    2Did you see that? I used an interrobang!

  • Plutopia! Call for Papers!

    I’m still looking for volunteers to expound about something related to Pluto! I’ve got three, who else is in?

  • Plutopia!

    One month from today is the 2nd anniversary of Pluto’s demotion from Planet status to lowly Dwarf Planet/Kuiper Belt Object. I’m thinking of doing a blog carnival, or having guest bloggers on board that day for a random series of tributes to our favorite solar body named after a Disney Character.

    Any takers?