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You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / Quick Tech Note Regarding Comments

Quick Tech Note Regarding Comments

by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)|  October 20, 201611:15 am| 40 Comments

This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance

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Folks,
I just fixed an issue that made some comments disappear for a user or two. And that made me want to reach out to everyone so that I can improve your Balloon Juice commenting experience.

So – when/if a comment disappears or goes into moderation, please use the contact form to send me a note and let me know:
1) Your nym
2) the time the comment was made
3) the words used
4) the email address you used with your nym for the comment

I’m finding that comments that disappear don’t really disappear – they trigger the blacklist and go into the trash. Which gets filled up with real junk and then emptied. This is triggered by keywords; some made things go to moderation, some to the trash. If you let me know what you said, I can try to fix this annoying issue.

So really, it hasn’t been FYWP some of the time, it’s been poorly-constructed blacklists to stop spam and assholes, mostly assholes.

ETA: Omnes/Steeplejack/Adam, I think I fixed the issue from yesterday but should you re-encounter it, please let me know!

Additional information: I removed sheeple last night; I just removed Watson. So both should work now. Rejoice!

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Previous Post: « Where we are at
Next Post: Almost blue »

Reader Interactions

40Comments

  1. 1.

    sharl

    October 20, 2016 at 11:50 am

    Test: is ~ Watson ~ still on the blacklist?

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    October 20, 2016 at 11:59 am

    That’s happened to me a few times. If it occurs again, I’ll contact you directly as suggested.

    I have an unrelated question about using the archives. Suppose I’m going in search of a post that I know was sometime around August 14th. When I go to Archives – Select Month and choose August 2016, it takes me automatically to posts from August 31st and then I have to use the side arrows for previous post dozens, if not scores or hundreds of times, to reach the date I want. Is there an easier way to home in on the date of a thread, even approximately?

  3. 3.

    sharl

    October 20, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    Hahaha, just did a test to see if W4tson* is still on the blacklist; yup, it is, as evidenced by my comment disappearing into the void.

    [Speculation has centered on the idea that one or more folks with admin access to WordPress’ blacklist put W4tson there due to the “Elevatorgate” incident involving Rebecca W4tson. If so, seems like quite a knee-jerk response on the part of whomever made it a banned name.]

    I don’t think it’s not worth e-mailing you about Alain. It does make me wonder though: just what other stuff is in that blacklisted word collection that more reasonable people wouldn’t have put there?

    *replace the ‘4’ with the letter ‘a’ to translate that from the feeble L33t5p34k I used to get around the block

  4. 4.

    sharl

    October 20, 2016 at 12:02 pm

    test: W4tson

  5. 5.

    sharl

    October 20, 2016 at 12:04 pm

    Huh, two of my comments eaten – kind of expected it the first time, but not with the second comment.
    ‘Tis a mystery…

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    October 20, 2016 at 12:21 pm

    It happened to me yesterday – I tried 3 times without success. Adam (I think) fished it out of where-ever it went.

    It looks like he actually fished out 2 of them here (#295 and #302). All of them simply vanished when I hit the “Post Comment” button. I am usually pretty decent about figuring out the spam words, but not there.

    Chrome on Winders.

    Needless to say, it’s extremely frustrating when it happens.

    Thanks for your efforts with this.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    Miss Bianca

    October 20, 2016 at 12:29 pm

    Sheeple. Sheepl. Sheeple.

    (Just testing, Alain, not baiting!)

  8. 8.

    JR in WV

    October 20, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    Some of the most difficult problems I ever had to troubleshoot were with controlling data, not actually in the code. First one was assigning generated pointers to business names so that a business and its history of naming could be reliably tracked, using a file of name change data.

    The job, which was a straightforward batch COBOL job wouldn’t run to completion, it “had an infinite loop” I was told. Well, that’s because some brilliant business owners changed their names from Fred to Charley to Tom to Dick … to Fred again. So my program never found the final current name. This was in 1985 or ’86.

    So having problems with a list a human built of words/phrases that control processing presents the usual problems of debugging, but since it isn’t code, we have more trouble than usual. The rules aren’t those of the coding language, they’re what were built between the program and the lists.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    October 20, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Look at the URL of this post. You’ll see it starts with balloon juice, followed by 2016/10/20, followed by the name of the thread. Just delete the name of the thread from the URL and only use the first part. That will get you all posts from that particular date. Just change the date in the url and you get threads for whatever date you put in.

  10. 10.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    October 20, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:

    What WaterGirl said. Entering
    https://balloon-juice.com/2016/08/14/
    as the URL will get you a front-page-like list of all posts from that day.

  11. 11.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    October 20, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @WaterGirl:
    @Steeplejack (tablet):

    Many thanks to you both! That works!

  12. 12.

    WaterGirl

    October 20, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    @Steeplejack (tablet): So what did you do to trick FYWP into thinking that was not a naked URL?

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    October 20, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @WaterGirl: FYWP looks for the h t t p : etc characters all in a row. If you put empty HTML tags in there, it won’t know it’s a URL and it won’t try to linkify it (and thus won’t set off the “too many links” stuff when that stupid plugin acts on it). I assume SJ used some other HTML to change the font.

    Let’s see:

    https://www.balloon-juice.com

    Will it work?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    October 20, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    @Another Scott: https://balloon-juice.com

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    October 20, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    @Another Scott: I tried that and you can see in #12 that it did not work. What are you using for your empty HTML tag?

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    October 20, 2016 at 2:11 pm

    @WaterGirl: I typed:

    htt[b][/b]s://www.balloon-juice[b][/b].com

    with the square brackets replace by the corresponding angle brackets.

    It works with any similar (allowed) HTML tag pair – just don’t put anything between them.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    October 20, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    @WaterGirl

    Just wrapping it with <code> and </code>—similar to blockquote—neuterizes the link-mo-tron.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    October 20, 2016 at 2:52 pm

    @Steeplejack (tablet): I did not surround http with the empty html tag. I put it in the middle of the http.

  19. 19.

    Steeplejack

    October 20, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I don’t use Scott’s method for URLs—I find it too complicated. You can wrap a URL with the <code> commands either on a separate line or within a text paragraph. Much easier and much easier to remember (for me, at least). You can even start by doing a blockquote command, then go in and change “blockquote” to “code.”

  20. 20.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    October 20, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    @Steeplejack (tablet):

    How did you change the font for your URL? I feel as though someone (maybe you) addressed this some months ago, but I can’t recall the command.

  21. 21.

    Steeplejack

    October 20, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    @Another Scott:

    I think you need to break up only the .com part (because FYWP will recognize a URL without the http prefix).

    And I find it easier to just replace the period with its HTML code:
    &#46;
    Much easier (if you can remember 46!).

    E.g., www.balloon-juice&#46;com

  22. 22.

    Steeplejack

    October 20, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:

    When you use the <code> command, FYWP changes the font (and, in the mobile version of the site, gives it a different-colored background—ugh!).

  23. 23.

    Steeplejack

    October 20, 2016 at 3:13 pm

    Testing the &#46; thing:

    https://www.balloon-juice.com

    That should come out as a correct URL in plain text that doesn’t work.

    ETA: And it didn’t do what I thought, and, to add salt to the wound, it went to moderation. Done fiddling.

  24. 24.

    Another Scott

    October 20, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    @Steeplejack: Ah, thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack

    October 20, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Well, I just tried the &#46; thing, and the comment went to moderation. Have no idea why and don’t want to fiddle with it. I swear it worked at one time! But I’m sticking with <code> for the time being.

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    October 20, 2016 at 3:37 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Test.

    Like this?

    /test

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    October 20, 2016 at 3:40 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: @Steeplejack:

    Cool. Thanks!

    And now, I feel the need to play around a little.

  28. 28.

    Alain the site fixer

    October 20, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Yes. Add the day and trailing slash to the url.

    So the archive link takes you to https://balloon-juice.com/2016/08/ just add 14/ to the end and hit enter; voila.

  29. 29.

    Alain the site fixer

    October 20, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    @sharl: email me the word you used that made it go boom (since you can’t comment it)

  30. 30.

    Alain the site fixer

    October 20, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    @Another Scott: Scott, do email me that info with your nym and email address; I’ll look into it.

  31. 31.

    Alain the site fixer

    October 20, 2016 at 3:47 pm

    @Steeplejack: I’ll fix that – thanks!

  32. 32.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    October 20, 2016 at 4:01 pm

    @Alain the site fixer:

    One note: on the mobile version of the site, <code> does not change the font to Courier, so if you only get rid of the funky background color any “code” text will be indistinguishable from plain text. May or may not be a problem.

  33. 33.

    Alain the site fixer

    October 20, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    Thanks for the background; the list is long and unordered except by time of creation. I just want to nail as many common issues like this as possible. Once I realized that the disappearing comment meant the blacklist had triggered and the comment was insta-trashed, it was a revelation as to what so many users have complained about as FYWP problems. So really, it’s FYFRONTPAGERS. lol

  34. 34.

    Alain the site fixer

    October 20, 2016 at 4:06 pm

    @Steeplejack (tablet): Thanks, I’ll make it symmetrical with the desktop site, although perhaps not before I go out of town for a few days.

  35. 35.

    Alain the site fixer

    October 20, 2016 at 4:07 pm

    I removed Watson and Sheeple from the comment blacklist, in case anyone missed that announcement.

  36. 36.

    The Other Chuck

    October 20, 2016 at 4:38 pm

    Let’s see if I’m visible now

  37. 37.

    sharl

    October 20, 2016 at 4:59 pm

    @Alain the site fixer: Per your subsequent comment, you removed “Watson” from the blacklist, so that addressed my specific (minor) issue. Thanks!

    FYI/FWIW, the speculation was that someone put Watson on the blacklist as a result of the Rebecca Watson – Richard Dawkins kerfuffle (nicknamed “Elevatorgate” by some – you can Google that if curious). I don’t know if that’s true, but it is plausible based on some of the flamewars I’ve seen where tech/techbros – and/or atheist/atheistbros – and gender issues collide.

  38. 38.

    sharl

    October 20, 2016 at 5:03 pm

    @sharl: Haha, after posting this comment I saw that Alain had fished my old disappeared “explainer” comment out of the blacklist filter, so this comment is superfluous, and it won’t let me edit it. Whatev.
    Thanks again Alain!

  39. 39.

    The Other Chuck

    October 20, 2016 at 5:20 pm

    The fact that people have to pass around “tricks” to be able to post something as simple as a fucking URL, let alone common fucking names, ought to be a bit of a red flag to fix the more general fucking problem, don’t you think?

    Fuck me, I’m turning into the tech version of shomi.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    October 20, 2016 at 7:53 pm

    @Alain the site fixer: Done. Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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