Yet Another WordPress Bleg: Comments Blacklist
Can any WordPress gurus help me out here? The vast majority of spam that hits this blog is filtered properly. But I seem to have zero control. In particular, none of the apparent ways to automatically keep certain types of comments off this blog are working. There is one type that is well identified by IP address, among other things. I’ve tried two ways to block this type from comments.
- I’ve put all that identifying info into the Settings > Discussion > Comments Blacklist text box. It did nothing. Those comments keep coming.
- Next I added the IP address to the Spam Karma 2 blacklist which did a whole lot of nothing. The comments keep coming.
What else can I try? I’m tired of manually deleting these comments and want them filtered to spam automatically. Is there another plug-in I should use? Am I not using the options I have correctly? Anyone who thinks they can talk me toward a solution, please send me a message.
WordPress Plug-In Plug: Editorial Calendar
If you’re not a WordPress blogger, this post may not be of much interest to you. In that case, try this one from the archives.
A friend from my Go playing days, Zack Grossbart, is also a skilled programmer and IT project manager. He’s led a team in building a WordPress plug-in called Editorial Calendar that is worthy of praise. In fact, it is the only plug-in I desired before I knew about it.
A problem that I (and Zack) recognized with the standard WordPress blog administration product is that the only way to view a collection of posts (past and future) is in one long list. If one schedules posts far into the future, as I do, a list is a very difficult way to manage them. You can’t quickly see which weeks or months are relatively full or empty. You can’t tell if your posts are on weekends or weekdays. Moving posts to different dates is a pain.
It occurred to me months ago that a standard calendar view would be far better. That’s what one would use if one blogged by pencil and paper, if that made any sense. That’s because it is intuitive. It leverages our natural ability to comprehend and reason spatially. When I learned Zack and company were building just that I was thrilled. Now that I’m using it, I’m very satisfied.
The Editorial Calendar allows one to view posts on a calendar (of course), to drag them from one day to another, to edit posts right from the calendar view, and to click on a date to enter a new post. How sensible! It ought to be in the standard WordPress implementation. Until it is, you can use it as a plug-in.
For more on the Editorial Calendar, visit its page, Zack’s blog entries about it, and watch the following short YouTube video.
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