Category: Administrative

I guess it’s been a few weeks since we’ve had one of these, and I have some business in Winchester, VA, so I’ll be gone for a while and you can keep yourselves occupied talking about me while I’m gone.

In case you missed the weekend post about our battle against spam, I was averaging more than 50,000 spam comments/day, and some of you were getting caught up in the spam filter and I got tired of reading all of the spam comments to find yours so I changed the settings on the blog to require that you use an email address when you make your comment – and you have to have a previously approved comment to make it to the forum. I also closed all posts over ten days old to comments. I hated to do that, but I’ll probably turn it all off after the holidays when the spam lightens up a bit.

If you’re having trouble getting the blog to accept your email address or sign in name, like MCPO and Pinto Nag, just email me the email address you’re trying to use and the screen name you want and I’ll set up a profile for you – that seems to cure the problem. But, you’ll still have to get your first comment approved. I’m sorry that we have to do this, but I was overwhelmed Friday and Saturday and had to do something drastic.

I hope you all understand.

I’m still going to be around and posting, but I shut down comments on all of the posts over ten days old in an effort to get control of the spam. So far this month, we’ve dealt with 391,000 319,000 spam comments, so I’m hoping if I narrow down the targets, we’ll get less. It ought to result in fewer of your comments going to spam, too. So I’m just trying something.

Yeah, I’m complaining about spam again. Some of you are getting caught up in our spam filter, and I can’t help that. Well, I could if I wanted to troll through our spam comments – we had 933,000 spam comments last month and 81,000 in the last two days, so you see my dilemma. If you let me know in a timely manner that our spam filter ate your comment, I can dig it out, but please understand that none of you are being moderated without being told of it beforehand. if your comment gets eaten, it’s probably because of the Three Stooges Effect where you’re commenting the same time as we have a flood of spam comments and you get tossed along with the spam into the folder for that.

And, I’m also letting you know that TSO is currently working on that update I promised a few weeks ago. I’ve seen the first draft, so it’s coming, trust us.

It looks like a slow news day – Fox & Friends spent the last ten minutes talking about some Hollywood guy who crashed his car and died and how the Obamacare website still doesn’t work, so I’m going to IHOP for a pork-packed breakfast. Since the nearest IHOP is in Virginia, I’ll be out a couple of hours. So here you go – an open thread to cuss me out for being AWOL.

Some folks seem to want an open thread today so they can swap “No Sh!t” (wink, wink) stories.  Well, here ya go.

Pile it as high and deep as yer lil’ hearts’ desire.  (smile)

Not much going on in the news, so I guess I’ll leave a place for you guys to talk among yourselves.

By the way, Twist needs some prayers, I won’t tell you why in an open forum, just send him and his family some if you’re so inclined.

Here’s your chance to talk about whatever is on your mind. You can drop off links to news you want to discuss, or links to your own blog, exchange recipes, cuss me out for being absent – but Mom is visiting this weekend, so my attention is diverted for a while – knock yourselves out.