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Thank You Commentators

September 2, 2008 By 1 Comment

Just wanted to pass along a quick thank you to the top five commenter’s for the month of August.

  • Andrew
  • Sierra
  • Trisha
  • Ian Stewart
  • Justin Tadlock

I really appreciate you guys and gals for sticking around and being part of the discussions which take place on the blog. I can handle blogging into an empty chamber but having some commentary around makes blogging a much more fun, engaging experience.

This blog post was an entry in the blogging challenge created by the Perfcast Podcast.

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Is This How Comment Spam Works

August 23, 2008 By 6 Comments

As I was checking out my Akismet spam filter one day, I noticed a comment that was labeled differently than most of the other ones I’ve seen. This comment linked to a site called BotMaster. According to the site, BotMaster sells a service called Xrumer that comes bundled with Hrefer which is an automated link-building tool. BotMaster claims that the tool has nothing to do with spam and that its primary purpose is to build links and search engine power to your site.

These are funny claims considering a comment which was created by the BotMaster software appeared in Akismet as spam. This is the first time I’ve come across an actual site selling services/software for link building purposes. The software will set you back $450.00 but that seems like a high price to pay to have whatever site you are promoting to show up in Akismet as spam.

I am not trying to actively support or advertise this service but rather, highlight the fact that these things do exist. This makes me wonder how much spam is generated on forums and blogs with software such as this. Anyone else come across botmaster within their own Akismet interface?

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For You Comment Trolls

August 4, 2008 By 4 Comments

I can’t help but think of Ernest acting the role of Akismet in this scene.

Wow, what a classic movie that was. I’ll admit, it scared me when it was released to the public but not anymore! Anyone else enjoy the Ernest series of movies?

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New Look In Store For Jeffro2pt0

July 29, 2008 By 7 Comments

After traversing the realm of WordPress themes the past few days, I’ve come across one which is an oldie but a goody. It’s called WP-Magazine. More specifically, the 2-column layout. I enjoy the featured post block as well as the layout in general. The Jeffro2pt0.com homepage will end up having some similarities with what used to be called a portal page. I’m not a big fan of the gray color scheme which is why I will be porting my current color scheme into this new theme. I’ve hacked my current theme (Shifter) to death and now it’s time for me to start over with a fresh code base and go from their.

The new site design will focus on the content as well as the community. Since most of the interaction on the blog takes place through the comments, you can rest assure that I will be taking special care of that section in the redesign. I plan on keeping a similar look and feel as I currently have within the comments section, but I’ll be adding a WYSIWYG text editor for the comments, larger text sizes, CommentLuv support, the ability to quickly reply or quote a specific comment, comment editing, the ability to subscribe to comments and more.

I don’t plan on having the new design ready any time soon, but I think I’ll have it online somewhere between the week of August 10th or sooner. As for Jeffc.me, I’ve been having some Addon Domain issues as of late and until I can export my personal posts from this site, into the personal blog, I won’t be doing much of anything.

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Letting Spam Loose For A Day

November 29, 2007 By 5 Comments

Akismet Logo

Mark your calenders because on December 15, 2007, WordPress user’s across the blogosphere will be turning off Akismet. Ok, not really. But Jesper Rønn-Jensen has decided to do it. He calls it, Spam Filter Free day where he will disable the Akismet anti spam tool on his blog for 24 hours to figure out, just how much work Akismet does for him. It’s an ambitious project and I can only imagine how much time it will take to clean up the mess after the event is over with.

I’ve seen numerous bloggers writing posts which state that Akismet is asking for us to disable our spam filter on this day and then report back to them with the results. This is not the case. Akismet merely brought Jesper’s post to the forefront and asked if anyone else would be willing to go through with it. If so, Akismet would love to hear back from you.

I’ve decided not to go through with the project. Like so many others that commented on Lorelle’s article, (Are You Willing To Go Naked For One Day For Akismet) I can see just how much work Akismet has saved me from doing by looking at the spam filter statistics. So far, Akismet has protected this site from 4,528 spam comments. I’ve left my blog alone for more than 24 hours and when I come back, I have to sift through over 100 or more spam comments to see if Mike was flagged as a spammer. Akismet is not perfect, but it does a damn fine job of blocking a lot of spam.

So will you be going naked on December 15?

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WordPress Comment Reply Plugin

October 18, 2007 By 6 Comments

East Reply Plugin

One of the greatest things about blogging, especially on your own blog is the discussion that takes place through comments. Here at Jeffro2pt0.com we have taken the approach of manually typing in <strong>@CommentAuthorName</strong> as our means of typing out a reply. After typing this in time and time again, it begins to become irritating.

While searching the plugin database on WordPress.org, I came across WP-EasyReply. This plugin when activated presents a REPLYNEW link near the commenting text area. When you click this link, all of the comments that came before yours are automatically entered into the comment form along with a blockquoted version of their comment. This is similar in how a forum works when you want to reply to specific person and it automatically quotes their comment.

WP EasyReply In Action

I thought this was great. However, I didn’t see the need of appending the same comment over and over again throughout the discussion so I went inside the plugin code and deleted a few things. Now when you click the link, it automatically outputs the @AuthorName in bold which is what the user’s of this blog and myself have been doing for quite some time now.

The only problem with this plugin is that the link only appears for me and no one else. I am currently working with the plugin author to see if the reply link can be manipulated so that it is displayed for the general public to use. I’m also trying to talk the plugin author into wrapping up his plugin into a one line php function like so many other plugins. This way, users would be able to place that line of code anywhere they wanted to within the comments.php file giving blog owners the chance to display the REPLY NEW link anywhere they see fit.

If you want the same results here is the code change:
Original Code:
$posters.="@$com->comment_author - < blockquote >".htmlentities(@$com->comment_content)."< /blockquote >$lf$lf";

Changed Code:
$posters.="< strong >@$com->comment_author < /strong >

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A Big Heart Felt Thanks To YOU

October 9, 2007 By

Thanks To You

I’d like to say thank you to my sponsors. Just kidding. No sponsor has been dumb enough to give me money so instead, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my readers. This blog was started back at the end of May as a one year project to see where I could take it. So after four months into the project, let’s take a look at some statistics.

Subscribers:

This site now has a total of 103 Subscribers according to Feedburner. This number varies day to day but is steadily showing over 100 subscribers. Thanks to all of you who have subscribed either by email or by RSS. I truly do appreciate it as it tells me that what I’m writing is important or at the very least informative.

Conversations:

At the time of this writing, this site has a total of 348 comments on 227 posts contained within 13 categories and 1,147 tags. Some of the comments within this specific stat are actually trackbacks or pingbacks but for the most part, the comments were made by real people. One of the major goals that I am trying to achieve with this site is building a COMMUNITY. A social community at that. A community that contributes intelligently to the conversations that I start with each post.

Any time I publish a post on this site, I always look forward to checking my email to see if and who has contributed to the conversation. I realize that as a blogger, comments are hard to come by. That is why I try to thank everyone who leaves a comment as I’m appreciative of the time you took out of your day to stop by and say hello. So I’ll end this by saying THANK YOU to each and everyone of you who have left a comment on this blog since it’s inception. It’s nice to know that I’m not blogging within an empty room.

Akismet The Time Saver:

Every blogger seems to toot their own horn when they reach a milestone with spam such as Darren Rowse. I’ll be no different except to let you know that so far, Akismet has blocked 1,377 spam messages. Although a far cry from two million, Akismet has been one hell of a time saver for me. I will say however that, Akismet is not perfect and in recent weeks, Akismet has been missing spam but overall, it’s the best anti spam solution I’ve ever seen other than disconnecting from the net. So here is a big thank you to everyone involved with Akismet.

In Closing:

According to the logs, each month has shown a steady increase in traffic, an increase in subscribers and more importantly, an increase in user interaction. In the past four months, I’ve managed to develop virtual relationships with various people across various blogs. The next four months will be interesting as I continue to experiment with this blog and continue with my writing. I’ll write up another post like this when we hit the eight month mark to see where we have progressed. Rest assured that I appreciate every comment, trackback, pingback, linkback, bookmark, stumble, digg ect. that is given to me. It would be great if I could get paid to do this sort of work, but as it stands, this blog is advertisement and sponsor free. So in the mean time, what I mentioned above is what I consider blogging currency. From what I’ve seen so far, I’m no longer a blogging bum, thanks to you of course.

Readers First

Unlike most other sites or blogs, I don’t mind thanking those who have helped me reach this point. So in no particular order, I’d like to thank the following people. I apologize if you don’t see your name on this list.

Last but not least, thanks to all of you who have joined my MyBlogLog community, added me to Twitter and to everyone that I have associated with on TalkShoe.If you want to be removed from this list or if you would like for me to change the site your link is pointing to, let me know by leaving a comment.

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Break Down Of Communication

October 7, 2007 By 3 Comments

Ever notice how a good conversation on a forum or blog will usually take a nose dive? What was once an informative exchange of information turns into a slug fest with expletives being tossed around left and right with someone usually being referred to as a nazi. I’ve learned that the term for this breakdown in communication is called ‘Godwin’s Law’.

Back in 1990, Mike Godwin of the EFF noted a feature of online discussion groups: As a thread gathered steam, members would start hurling insults and inevitably someone would be compared to Adolf Hitler. Hence Godwins Law. The longer an online conversation continues, the greater the possibility of a reference to Nazis. Usually at this point, the conversation is over.

Although this video doesn’t highlight the comparison to Adolf Hitler, it does a nice job of showing just how communication breaks down.

Viewer Voices: Where We Respond To The Opinions Of Our Uninformed Viewers

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You Comment I Follow

September 22, 2007 By 17 Comments

You Comment I FollowI just wanted to let everyone know that after reading Brad’s post on getting rid of the “No-Follow” attribute within comments, I have installed the Do-Follow Plugin.

This plugin removes the No Follow attribute that is usually attached to links that commenter’s leave. Since that is no way to treat a commenter, those links can now provide you with a few more drops of Google Juice. If your a fellow blogger, do your audience a favor and install the Do-Follow plugin, which gives people one more reason to stop by and leave a comment.

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Ajax Edit Comments 1.1.1.0 Released

August 11, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Reader Appreciation LogoRonald Huereca has released a new version of his plugin, Ajax Edit Comments, which gives users and guests the ability to edit their comments similar to the way that comments can be edited on Digg.com The latest version includes a couple of bug fixes, most notably dealing with UTF-8 encoding.

The following issues were addressed in this release:

  1. Admin were able to edit, but non-admin couldn’t. This was caused by the timer offset in the WordPress admin panel.
  2. MySQL errors resulted in the comment unable to save. This was caused my blogs and MySQL database not in UTF-8.
  3. Some characters were being screwed up when saving to the WordPress database. This issue was caused by non-UTF-8 back-ends.
  4. The blog would be inoperable in Internet Explorer due to multiple session headings being called.
  5. Random loading comment failure on WP 2.2.2 installs.

The issues (with the exception of issue number 4) can occur on a case-by-case basis depending on blog configuration and character set.

Be sure to visit The Readers Appreciation Website to pick up the updated version or to grab it for the first time.

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