Comments Are No Longer Accepted Here

By Roland Piquepaille

Someone decided he didn't like the last item I posted yesterday, "Can Cell Phones Damage Our Eyes?" -- or didn't like me at all. It was probably because this item was picked by Slashdot, and because this person was jealous of the -- maybe -- five additional dollars I made through AdSense. So he has posted more than 500 comments by 7 AM this morning here in France. [Read more to know why I'm disabling comments.]

As all these comments were racist or injurious, but more or less random, I decided to eliminate them. But with Radio, from Userland Software, I have to individually check all the comments in order to delete them. Obviously, a "Delete all" or a "Check all" button would be welcome. Is there one in the works?

And of course, you know Murphy's law: when things can go worse, they do! Since yesterday, and for the next two days, my ISP is having a problem in the 15th district of Paris, which means I'm only connected half of the time at best, with several interruptions per day -- I've currently no connection as I'm typing this.

Then, as the attack continued, I opened Radio, and modified the parameters for comments, disabling them and automatic e-mail notifications -- because this attack was also filling my inbox. I published again yesterday's item, and now, there is no longer a link to a "Comments" field.

But the attack was still going on, and I continued to receive an e-mail every minute. I guess that the attack was done through a script which ignored that my preferences regarding comments had changed.

Right now, I'm no longer receiving e-mails because I've excluded the domain name where they came from -- the only thing which was not forged in these e-mails.

But all of this took me time and efforts, which was probably the intention of the attacker.

Several other blogging platforms ask that people register before posting a comment, but this is not possible with Radio, which has only two options: enabling comments or disabling them.

It's for that reason that I'm taking an extreme measure: I'm disabling comments on this blog. I simply can't afford to have a thousand of racist comments on this blog.

If you want to tell me something about the subjects I'm writing about, please send me an e-mail (look at the bottom right of every page of this blog to send me a message).

I know this is a drastic measure, but today it's necessary. If you think you have another solution, please let me know -- but not with a comment here :-)

PS #1: The Radio software is maybe not the best one for handling comments, but I've started my fourth year using it for this blog and it's intentional: I'm still happy to pay $40 per year to use this software. I'm using other blogging tools for other purposes, and they still have to learn from Radio in many areas.

PS #2: And guess why Robert Scoble, from Microsoft, is still using Radio for his "Scobleizer" blog? Just because it's a very good piece of software.

PS#3: It seems that the attacker has switched strategy by now -- 10:30 PM in France -- and that his script is focusing on trackback links -- more than 5,000 as I'm posting this.

Update (July 29,2005): The nice folks at UserLand Software have removed the 5,500 comments and trackback links posted yesterday. Thanks Lawrence!

Now, it remains to be seen if I have also to disable the usage of trackback links.

Update #2 (August 1, 2005): my yesterday's post, "Software Agents Can Help Time-Stressed Teams" was picked by Slashdot. Less than an hour after appearing there, the vandal who attacked me on July 27 was again at work. This time, he targeted the trackback links. Trackback links are now disabled, and Lawrence Lee cleaned the mess left by the pirate.

But until Radio provides a way to selectively approve comments or trackback links, these features will remain disabled.

Source: Roland Piquepaille, July 28, 2005

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