Status update

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

I’d like to say I haven’t been posting because I’ve been busy migrating the website to new spamproof software. Actually I’ve been busy at work, and I’ve been holding back so Steve DeLassus won’t have ever-changing content to migrate.
Here’s what I can say: The new software is good. Very good. It’s faster than b2. When you post comments, you can title them. The search engine blows everything else I’ve seen out of the water. Not only is it fast, it also searches posts and comments separately, so when a thread veers off topic, it’ll still find it (and point you to the right place). You can limit your search to certain categories, and you can specify whether you want an exact phrase, all words, or any of the words. If you vaguely remember me saying something four years ago about optimizing config.sys in DOS, you’ll be able to find it pretty fast with this new stuff. A lot of blogs out there have tons of great information in them, but finding it can be difficult. I may not have quite as much great information, but what I do have will be easy to find, and I’m hoping that once you find something you like, finding more stuff like it will be easy as well.

Popularity is based solely and entirely on page reads. I think this is more scientific than the karma scores, and it may cause some old, forgotten stuff to be unearthed thanks to search engine traffic. We’ll see.

I’ll be able to close certain threads off to comments. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m sick to death of the Mormon thread. My sanity needs that feature.

And finally, registration will be required to post comments. You create a user ID, you tell the system your e-mail address, and it e-mails you a password. I know this won’t be a universally popular decision. I see it as a necessary evil, to keep spambots away. It’ll also tend to discourage people who come here and snipe. The upside to that is the system doesn’t make e-mail addresses public. You can e-mail other users, but my system sends the mail, so you never see the person’s address. This may or may not be easy to disable, and I’m torn on whether it should or shouldn’t be.

Overall, I think it’s going to be a huge improvement over the status quo. The speed will be good, and the lack of spam will be good. And if I’m not having to deal with spam and abusive people, I’ll have more time to generate content–both from not having to go delete the stuff and chase people away and from a lower level of frustration. I think that’s a good thing.

It’s not quite ready yet. But I’m hoping to make the cutover sometime this weekend.

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10 thoughts on “Status update

  • January 22, 2004 at 8:59 pm
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    Can’t wait. I would rather give up some convience in having to register/login to post comments as opposed to wading through the increasing spam. You must way the trade offs. In this case the trade offs are very good.

  • January 22, 2004 at 9:04 pm
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    Good luck with the migration and upgrade. Once it’s up, tell us about how it went. Or have Steve do it.

  • January 22, 2004 at 9:51 pm
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    Guess I’ll have to stop reading this site. I only come here for the spam…

  • January 23, 2004 at 2:51 am
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    [crawling out of Dave’s server…]

    Well, we’re close. I have a script that migrates Dave’s data (currently 1051 posts and over 4800 comments, or so MySQL tells me) over to the new system. Except for a couple of touch-ups that are easier to do manually, that part of the job is pretty much set. All that’s left is some setup work at Dave’s end and we can cut over.

    And we’ll miss you, Gatermann… but there’s always the comment threads on Slashdot.

  • January 23, 2004 at 4:38 am
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    Thank goodness for Slashdot, were all the smart comments are left…

  • January 23, 2004 at 8:16 am
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    Sounds like a winner all around, and no, I don’t mind having to create a user ID to post one bit 🙂

  • January 23, 2004 at 3:26 pm
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    A minor and momentary inconvenience…

    Hey, Tom! I’ll forward you some of mine! …but only the best. …and Biggest. …and…

  • January 23, 2004 at 10:16 pm
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    Thanks Dan, I just love spam. I burn them all to dvd so I can look at them over and over….

  • January 24, 2004 at 8:05 pm
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    I\’ll look forward to seeing the new site.

    It\’ll be interesting to see if the new one passes the \"Google test\". In my experience, web sites\’ search engines, even big corporate ones, don\’t yield good results. I can usually find better results by searching Google for information on a site than by using the site\’s search engine.

    Now I need to get to work on that Procmail rule for Spam Assassin to forward my spam to Gaterman so that he doesn\’t run out ;).

    • January 26, 2004 at 11:47 am
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      Just remember, spam is best served with pineapple.

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