Jiminy Cricket! What a nightmare this has turned out to be. No, I’m not terribly old fashioned and swearing. Jiminy Cricket is an actual website I had to visit during the moderation of over 350 comments, most of which were sorted into spam or trash bins. (It was spelled differently and had nothing at all to do with the wonderful character in Walt Disney’s classic cartoons.) If you are a reader of this blog and made a comment that got rejected, I’m sorry. And if one of the comments displayed came not from a reader but a spam-bot, I guess I’ve been had. No biggy though, I consider it my own fault. I installed the anti-spam plug-in Akismet by Automattic way back when I began this blog; but I never activated it because I couldn’t imagine the difficulty in weeding out the junk. Who knew a spam-bot could be flattering?
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an article. This is why: all the encouragement was very discouraging. I suppose tailoring an algorithm to post relevant comments on an actual article is difficult; so, most of the spam-bots attack your “About” page and discuss in general terms the overall look or quality of your website’s content. Needless to say, I just wrote off the whole mess and decided the trial hobby wasn’t worth the trouble. Only recently, my wife suggested I write something for the website, so I decided to plunge in and clean up the mess. As Jiminy Cricket once said, “You buttered your bread, now sleep in it.” ♥ What’s left is a handful of comments that were linked to innocuous websites or to none at all.
In the unlikely event some of the comments rejected out of frustration were legitimate, I’ll attempt to address them briefly here.
Look and feel
I use the Wordpress theme “Twenty-Ten” with slight modifications and additions to the source code. I generated all my graphics using Gimp 2.6.7. I do not typically use images to dress up my text because I don’t want to deal with copyright infringements. Also, I don’t want to join a culture where image is everything. Process only with your eyes, and be deceived. That’s a carnival magician. I’m trying to write a blog. I want people to process my writing with their mind and be unencumbered by accompanying images. I’ll consider breaking up large blocks of text in the future, but I’m more concerned that people gain understanding. I’m happy with the overall look and feel of the site and I consider Wordpress and Gimp fantastic resources for bloggers and website administrators.
Content and commentators
I do not mind people using my text in their own personal blog if they back link with mine. I am not currently on twitter and I do not know how to fix a janked-up RSS feed. In the “About” page I mentioned that I enjoy learning about web technologies; I never promised I would have time to learn about web technologies. I welcome opposing views, but do not want to open up the site to guest writers just yet. Comments are a suitable method for sharing your views and contrasting them to mine. I will allow any comment and or back link if it is relevant to the article under which it is submitted and has discussion value. I prefer to read your response to the articles I post and the ideas they cover instead of general observations about my writing style or website layout. I do not consider the “About” page of my site an article or post. Please submit your comment on the article that prompted it. I do not have a guestbook.
Moving forward
For now, I have activated a new plug-in called Picatcha by Picatcha, Inc. to limit the amount of spam this site receives. We shall see how well it works. I’m optimistic that it is the best and most convenient way to skirt the annoying and frustrating spam-bots. If you have difficulty leaving a comment because of this addition, your difficulty is insignificant compared to the frustration of wading through a sea of spam. I trust you can deal with it and I hope this does not deter you from reading or sharing your comments with me and other readers. I find the Picatcha method far less problematic than the squiggly and obscured letters of the simple Catcha method. In the end though, your frustration, however great, is preferable to mine.
Jiminy Cricket in Fun & Fancy Free (1947)
“Don’t cross a bridge or peak `round the corner until you’re there. Just learn to smile, and in a while, you’ll find trouble’s a bubble of air.”