Thank yous go to the dimwits who spammed our comments, over a hundred spam-comments were deleted between last night and this morning. The IPs the stupid dicks used were bogus and untraceable. More than that they also screwed up the ratings on every article they entered a comment. I just hope that they are happy.
Thanks to them also, I have disabled anon comments for now. If you want to comment, you need to register, then when you are registered and logged in, you can CHOOSE to post Anonymous comments, that way you protect your identity.
I hope that we will be able to restore anon comments in a week or so and hope that these fucks have left the planet by then or conveniently walked in front of a speeding truck.
Comments
Comment Spammers
The Internet is full of ‘hit & run’ artists who lack the nerve to put their names where their mouths are. It’s your blog. Registering to post on your site is painless, and you should not allow creeps to hijack it by posting without registering. Just my opinion…
Jim Freemon, USA
Comment Spammers
I agree with Jim. Registration is more likely to appeal to your regulars, and no-one needs to register using their real name, you can call yourself anything. But it is always an advantage to establish an identity for yourself, whatever name you choose. As we are, I reckon, a little group of friends, it helps to have that continuity when we meet up in this den.
Meggie
Comment Spammers
I agree with Meggie. Its more fun when you can get to know the characters as well .. makes it more personal.
Comment Spammers
It also adds to enhancing a sense of community and thus, responsibility, which I think makes the whole endeavor more positive.
Plus, if it keeps the pond scum from forming around the edges, it’s worth it 😉
Salaam Alaikum,
PM
Comment Spammers
I appreciate you making the effort to log in. It’s a pisser that these scum just hijack websites for their own benefit and no one elses, but we don’t live in a perfect world.
Anyway from what I hear from you, this is the silver lining. I’m sorry however that it inconveniences a lot of people as most of the users have voted before to leave it loose. Damn twits.
Comment Spammers
A sorta longtime reader from east coast of the US saying Hello to all.
Should say i just registered but never posted anon…
[Modified by: egnirc (egnirc) on September 17, 2004 06:06 AM]
Comment Spammers
*SIGH*…so those idiots have made it come to this. Oh, well. Just reinforces my opinion that “spammer” is a euphamism for “cyber-terrorist”. Too bad there are no e-Apache helicopters to blast the hell out of these ^%$#&$#!!s.
Comment Spammers
I’m sorry that happened. It just brings up the question: why is the world so full of shitheads?
I realize you must be really busy, but I’m interested to know what you think of the posting on Healing Iraq today, about brainwashing.
thanks
littlewhy
Comment Spammers
Littlewhy ..
I wont answer for Mahmood .. but I suggest you go back and read Bahraini Terp’s comments on this. All in the Pocket Aces in Plan Chop Chop ..
Comment Spammers
Take back your site dude! You and the other regular posters have the balls to put your name on a post! Its amazing what people will do anon! Things they certainly would not do in their own name. Idiots!!!! Have a great day and a better week!
Comment Spammers
I’m sorry this happened to you, Mahmood .. I’ve noticed though that sites where you register have less troubles, no trolls and more considerate friendly conversations and debates. Hang in there, it’ll all even out.
Comment Spammers
It’s fine with me, indeed I prefer it this way. It stops the spammers for you and imposes some small responsibility on commenters. Not a bad thing at all.
Please consider making it permanent.
The natural
Jumping buggeration on a pogo stick! As soon as Mahmood loses in his poll on whether anonymous comments should continue, we get it brought in for ‘security reasons’ – ie to stop spammers. Definitely the guy should run for parliament – a natural politician.
The above comments on how its nice to have a small group are all very well, but what happens if you don’t want to get up close and personal with someone (ie Steve), what then? No one likes a smug, self congratulatory clique.
Comment Spammers
I haven’t seen anyone post anonymously yet, which would account for an awful lot of silence on a number of matters.
I thought I’d try this out to see if anon commenting does work
Comment Spammers
D’OH!!!
Something to look into perhaps, Mahmood?
Re: Comment Spammers
Dear Littlewhy,
I read the article you are referring to. I was very much excited to know that even in the heart of Arabia, another person had thought of similar things. It gives me hope that the Arab people will take back their liberties, not with the sword, but with the pen.
“And the truth shall set ye free”
Re: The natural
I don’t know if you saw the Comment Spammers and the dirty work they left behind or not. I don’t blame Mahmood for shutting down the ANON posts for a while.
You can still POST ANON if you would like. You just have to sign in first. So you don’t have to get up close and personal unless you want too.
ciao!
Mark
[Modified by: bonsaimark (markdoenitz) on September 20, 2004 10:15 PM]
Re: The natural
Actually, LB — I like this smug, self-congratulatory clique 😉 It is a breath of fresh air compared to so many Internet experiences.
But you really needn’t get up close and personal if you don’t choose. I doubt you can really be identified by your nickname — unless your beard is REALLY, REALLY long 😉
Salaam Alaikum,
PM
the truth
Dear Bahraini Terp
The thing is, you and Healing Iraq are rare as dodos. The kind of knee-jerk conditioning he complains about in his post is common everywhere–my best friend is a doctrinaire Catholic and a dedicated New Deal Democrat, but it’s all a result of his childhood conditioning. Like Healing Iraq has on his blog, you can’t reason someone out of something he wasn’t reasoned into. Maybe that’s a little too pessimistic; people can change their minds, sometimes. Can’t they?
littlewhy
wintersoldier.blogspot.com
Re: the truth
I’ve had to change my mind about a lot of things myself. As a male, I had a frightful mental exercise with myself a few years back, where I asked myself if I could ever be wrong about anything. Turns out I was wrong about a number of things. All that spared me was that in the midst of all the doubts, I had never done much that has haunted me.
Trust me, there are instances in my life where I realized I had said or done things based on incomplete or secondhand information. Like in college when I got into a “discussion” with a person of alternate sexual orientation and I flippantly compared Homosexuality to Kleptomania. Oops.
But in any case, I do hope that I can continue to learn and avoid mishaps like that.
Usually what happens, is that once you commit yourself to a cause or an ideology, its very difficult to be the lone dissenting voice when things go awry. More often than not, you’ll have some sort of investment that keeps you committed. It takes an awful lot of bad experiences for you to realize that it’s time to cut your losses. Some day, we’ll realize that we’re throwing good money after bad causes, but it will never be too late to turn things around.
Comment Spammers
Longest Beard ..
As far as I am concerned, PeacefulMuslimah, Chan’ad, Bonsai Mark, Bahraini Terp, Little Why, Longest Beard et al are all Anon posts. We have names that we blog under. Doesnt matter whether there is a Hussein, Bu Agoof or Mary Jane behind these names.
As for not wanting to get up close and personal sounds like a case of sour grapes my friend. There is absolutely nothing to stop you from fundamentally agreeing or disagreeing with the posts on this blog. Unless of course, you cannot find anything that deserves an intervention by your good self except the self congratulatory tone??
Re(1): The natural
And I am not smug and self-congratulatory. I’m rigid and dogmatic.
Steve
Comment permissions fixed
that’s fixed now, my screwup, I’ve set the permissions wrong and have changed that now.
please let me know if you experience any other difficulty.
mahmood
[Modified by: Mahmood Al-Yousif (mahmood) on September 21, 2004 09:53 PM]
Re: Comment Spammers
ooops! another bug to raise!
at it again…
it took the bastards two days to realise that I’ve allowed anon posts again and they’re at it again. so, sorry, had to switch off anon posts for now.
the price you pay for fame I guess…
Comment Spammers
Jasra Jedi
I am deeply, nay, deeply offended you left me off your list. Hey, i really don’t mind being in the same room as Malik and Steve. I would even help to separate them.
the J
Comment Spammers
the J,
I apologize profousely and profoundly for leaving you off. I was so overwhelmed by the greatness of your precense, and felt that I would be comitting grave injustice to you if i were to include you on par with the rest of us mere mortals. Thou are surely of a different league.
wth humilty and remorse,
jasra jedi
Google to the rescue!
Google has launched an excellent initiative to beat the comment spammers silly. They simply took away their main weapon, which is to drive their Google ranking up by comment/trackback spamming whole blogs and websites rendering the victim weblogs and sites almost useless. How did Google do this? They simply started a new html tag, which if the google spider finds in a link, it simply will not follow it and completely ignore it. This new tag’s use is: <a href=”http://www.example.com/” rel=”nofollow”>
Here’s the entry explaining it from Google’s blog:
How did I implement it here? Well, John Cox the creator of Xaraya rustled up a module for Xaraya so that if content is linked to the “nofollow” module, it will automatically add the nofollow tag into any link within that content. Therefore, now ALL comments on Mahmood’s Den and all posts in the Forums are linked to the “nofollow” module, hence these links will never be indexed, and therefore, no matter what the spammers do here, they simply will not drive up their ratings in Google (and soon Yahoo, MSN and others.) Hopefully the dimwits would get the message and stop the comment/trackback/referrer spam we’ve (and hundreds of other blogs as well) been suffering from.
Comment Spammers
I THINK THE WORLD IS FULL OF POTENTIAL SHITHEADS