Dealing with Comment Spam and Trackback Spam
Posted by Moses on Mar 29, 2007
Three Sticks has been inundated lately with comment and trackback spam. I conservatively estimate that I have to review and delete 300 - 500 trackback and comment spams per day. Obviously this is getting old. Since I tend to just scan through the comment / trackback moderation cue, it is possible that I have deleted legitimate comments / trackbacks. If I have, I apologize. I am taking steps to address this problem.
I’ve been using the AntiLeech tool to stop sploggers. This has been fairly successful. There are still a few sites that are stealing some of my content.
This morning I installed Bad Behavior which in it’s default setting seems to block approximately 30 - 50% of the spam I was receiveing earlier. This is a good start. I will also include Trackback Validator (a research project at Rice University) this evening to see if I can further reduce the spam load. Trackback Validator has an option for you to automatically transmit your spam logs Rice for further research. I really like the idea of supporting a university project. However if it doesn’t prove sufficient, I may also try Akismet. It’s free for personal use (ex. your site makes less that $5/per month).
The spam problem is really upsetting, because the most popular links in my logs are the trackback links. I may have to turn off the links after a set periods as I suggested earlier. I really don’t want to do that for 2 reasons:
- I’m still building up traffic to the site
- I want to site to be as open as possible and to help other bloggers build their own traffic by linking to Three Sticks.
However, if I am unable to remedy the situation I will close off comments and trackbacks after a set time probably between 14 - 30 days.
Update 4/2/2007
I went ahead and installed Comment Timeout to closeout comments, trackback and pings after a 45 days or 90 days after the last trackback, comment or ping is sent to the article, which ever is later.
I also added code to my .htaccess file to block TrackBack/1.02 which seems to be a bad bot that infects other computers enabling them to perform a limited denial of service attack on a website or blog.
To block the TrackBack/1.02 user agent I added the following to the bottom of my .htaccess file. I caution that if you are weary about editing you .htaccess file then you should use the established plugins above rather than attempting to edit the file. You can disable your blog by incorrectly editing you .htaccess file.
My Additions to My .htaccess file
# BEGIN SPAMMER
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent “^TrackBack/*” spammer=yes
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent “^lwp-trivial/*” spammer=yes
Order allow, deny
allow from all
deny from env=spammer
# END SPAMMER
I got the idea from MacMerc.com.
Tags: blogging, comment spam, solutions, spam, splog, splogger, technology, trackback spam, TrackBack-1.02
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Renewing Your Commitment
Posted by Moses on Mar 28, 2007
I am currently at a point in my life in which I am renewing my commitment in a number of areas. This is especially true in the case of my commitment to creating and living out a unique career path. As I mentioned earlier, I recently took a new job and while the job is certainly nothing to complain about, becoming an employee is not in alignment with my goal to create a unique career path for myself. Quite frankly the world is filled with employees. :-) I feel comfortable saying that as I have been an employee for approximately half of my life. In my soul, I am ready to do the work that I believe God intends for me to accomplish.
I did start down the path to a unique career. In August 2006, I quit my old job and began an intense period of self-discovery and healing. In the course of that work, I discovered my true purpose in life and began to take steps to create a new career centered on my God-given purpose. I also identified new projects that I would tackle as part of my purpose. During this process, I faced an income shortfall and responded by taking my current job as a Enterprise Architecture Program Manager. Unfortunately this deeply conflicted with some my newly developed beliefs about being an employee vs. being an entrepreneur and I allowed myself to succomb to some negative emotions. I was in deep conflict with myself and I didn’t know how to get back on the correct path. For example, after a month of writing, developing new relationships and tweaking my blog, I abruptly stopped writing for more than 2 weeks as I struggled to find the time and energy before and after work to read and write.
Many of you reading this probably face the same challenge. That is that you 8+ hour a day job with its 2+ hour commute and you have little time to do anything else, but eat, sleep and work. I can only imagine what it is like for parents with the infamous 2.5 kids and a dog. Hopefully they find time between their dedication to their children and their commitment as employees to have some time for themselves and their relationship.
Approximately 1 week ago, I decided that if I didn’t cast down those negative thoughts and renew my faith in God that in a year I would find myself in exactly the same place that I am today. I decided to focus on God and have faith that there is good that I can do for others in my current job as well as learning lessons that will improve my life. I realized that an entrepreneur in my position would be working actively to align resources to enable him to one day to focus solely on his core mission.  I also realized that as a Christian I could not cheat my current employer by working on her time so I must do whatever I need to do outside of my normal work hours. This may mean making sacrifices in terms of spending time with friends and family and missing those once in a lifetime events such as concerts etc. By understanding and accepting these realities I will fashion myself into a disciplined entrepreneur. This is the BE portion of the BE - DO - HAVE principle.
Once I established in my mind who I needed to be and the created the proper mindset I defined a set of tasks that I need to complete in order to achieve my goal. This the DO portion of the BE - DO - HAVE principle.
Chief among those tasks was to commit to not allow my blog to get stale again.  Establishing that commitment may mean staying late at work and writing there (off the clock of course) or getting up early in the morning to write.
Second, I will develop and implement a plan to raise the necessary capital to operate Miles Ahead LLC.
Third, I will refine and implement my career plan.
I have learned many profound lessons in the past few weeks. The first is that because we are human we will make mistakes and will often fall short of our noble intentions. This is ok.  This is a hard lesson to accept for someone like me who grew up in a household where mistakes were often met with severe punishment. The second is that the worst action you can take is to think negative thoughts about you or your actions. You need to forgive yourself and let go. I believe that this is easier for Christians because we know that Jesus died for our signs and in doing so granted us forgiveness. Christians can take comfort that if we repent wholeheartedly that we are forgiven. It makes it much easier to move on. Lastly, that there are always new oppurtunties so that you can always recover if you are willing to learn, be humble and be open to new possibilities.
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