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November 29, 2004
Another Spoon in the Insinkerator
A savage MTBlacklist bug will delete weblogs for no reason anyone can definitively identify.
And to think that once upon a time we all depended on the stone knives and bearhides of text editors and FTP to manage our personal sites. How did we get by without the convenience of tools that could convert themselves into content-deleting buzzsaws of death?
Anyhow, pass this one along because it's ugly and scary. If it doesn't get resolved, I'm not sure what I'll do. To illustrate the importance of MT Blacklist, of the 20 most recent entries in its database:
- The oldest was added six days ago on 11/23
- Half of those 20 entries were invoked at one point or another since then
- Those ten entries in the blacklist blocked a total of 225 attempted comment spams.
If we stretch the total number of blacklist entries out to 75 (the next increment that MT Blacklist will display for its entry list), it gets really nuts:
- The oldest entry was added on 11/13, just over two weeks ago
- 23 of the entries on the blacklist have been invoked since then
- Those 23 entries resulted in the blocking of 4,699 attempted comment spams
Over the lifetime of this MT installation (I installed it some time around mid-July), MT Blacklist has caught 9,147 attempted comment spams and allowed moderation of an additional 1,927:
- It's effectively stopped 11,074 comment spams
- The average number of comment spams it has stopped: 81.42 per day.
And despite its wonderful performance, I've still been "warned" by a self-appointed watchdog group because one of the blogs on puddingbowl.org had an unblocked comment spam that eluded notice and pointed at a pedophiliac site, and I still have to deal with one or two spams a day that don't get caught initially.
Comments
How did we get by without the convenience of tools that could convert themselves into content-deleting buzzsaws of death?
That made me giggle, which is impressive today...
If it doesn't get resolved, I'm not sure what I'll do.
Well, that one is easy: Don't delete any weblogs... :-) Seriously, though, I'll get it resolved soon.
Posted by: Jay Allen at November 29, 2004 7:03 PM