Why you need to CAPTCHA comments
February 1, 2011
One of the great things about WordPress sites is the ease with which you can publish stuff and receive comments from your readers.
One of the worst things about comments is the fact that your site gets abused by spammers.
Before SI captcha
As you can see from this image, I was a bit slow to enable the SI Captcha plugin. So far the ratio of spam to valid coments is 4 to 1. But I’m going to write this post, review the comments and I’ll be back with updated figures. Note: I could trash the comments but then I won’t have a record of the sort of rubbish I get.
After reviewing the comments
Now with SI CAPTCHA
So what’s the solution? Well, SI CAPTCHA does it for me.
There’s no real need to configure it. Just install it and your posts are protected from spammy comments from anyone who is not a registered user of your site.
I don’t believe I need Akismet. We’ll see in a few weeks time.
Many, many weeks later (July actually)
Well, I’ve just done another count. There were only 4 new comments – all SPAM… but it shows that SI Captcha was doing its job for comments. But there are 97 spammy pingbacks!
So my new question is, how do I stop the SPAMMY trackbacks or pingbacks?
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WSOD using STC login/connect
January 22, 2011
I’m slowly working towards tracking down the problems with mod_security and Simple Twitter Connect.
Today I got the WSOD on this site while trying to Login using Twitter (or do anything Twitter related)
This post explains what was wrong and how I fixed it. Read the rest of this entry »
STC with/without tiny URL
January 6, 2011
Am I doing something wrong? What’s happened to my Tiny URLs?
Is it something to do with this question?
Why does the settings screen warn me that I don’t have a URL shortener plugin?
Answer to Why doesn’t STC have an URL shortener
Simple Twitter Connect does not implement a URL shortening service in favor of letting other plugins implement one for it.
WordPress 3.0 includes a new shortlink method for plugins to implement this properly.
A shortener plugin should implement the “get_shortlink” filter for it to be detected. WordPress 3.0 will be required for this to work.
The WordPress.com stats plugin implements this, and it provides shortlinks to “wp.me” URLs. If you wish to use another shortener plugin, tell that plugin’s author to implement this same standard, and the plugin will automatically be detected and used by Simple Twitter Connect.
But I don’t get that message?
Aha, I think it’s a time delay. Let’s try this.
- Publish the post
- Wait briefly until Twitter Publisher has populated the Tweet this: text area
- Then click on Tweet.
If you are updating a post then you need to Update it first.
Steps to create a Wonder of WordPress website
December 9, 2010
If you don’t want me to do it for you then you can try following these steps to create your own WordPress one-page Wonder website.
Good luck! Read the rest of this entry »
WoW – a WordPress one page website for 20 ten(ner)s
December 3, 2010
I’m just setting up another WordPress one-page Wonder.
This will show you more of the things that you can put into your own WordPress one-page website.
With a bit of luck this post will get Tweeted to the Bobbing Wide twitter account. Oops, I think it went to my personal twitter account.
Order the Easy Payment option.
£50 pounds down payment
followed by 3 further payments of £50