Category Archives: Discourse.net

The site is being hammered by trackback spam. A lot of it is coming from about a dozen repeating IP numbers, so I've implemented some site-wide blocking to take the load off MT, which seems to chew up cycles blocking spam. This isn't my forte, so if you find that your access has been blocked when it shouldn't be, please drop me a note.

Oh. Wait. If your access was blocked, you won't be reading this, will you?¹ Never mind.

¹ Unless you move to a different computer, or get a lease on a new IP number, anyway.

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The site seems to have been hit by three simultaneous problems in the last 48 hours. Oddly, they seem to be unrelated.

First, the site kept crashing. Dreamhost tells me this is due to abuse by one of the other users of the machine I share, and that they are dealing with it. I hope the site will speed up as a result.

Second, comments stopped working. This seems to have been due to a combination of problems, one of which was that the MT-Blacklist plugin uploaded a regex from the updates site that gave it heartburn. I've deleted it twice, and if comes back I will have to stop the automatic updates. Comments are working now — if you encounter error messages (as opposed to sloooooowness), please contact me.

Third, I've had some erratic google API issues, which I think are resolved now.

I’m in a conference room at Stetson Law School in Tampa today, having a very interesting meeting of the Florida Supreme Court Committee on Privacy and Court Records. So no blogging for now.

Meanwhile, have you visited the Discourse.net Zeitgeist? It’s a cute MT plugin that lists all the search terms that have lead someone to this blog in the last 48 hours. The more the people used the term, the bigger the type face.

Today's email brings:

Top Excellence Congratulations !

Your site Discourse.net, was selected to receive the Top Excellence Award, one of the most important award of the world. You have created a remarkably useful page, a shining example of the positive use of the Internet.

Visit http://www.topexcellence.com and see how to introduce the Top Excellence Award on your page.

Visit http://www.topexcellence.com/excellence/top/more.htm and see the Winner's Page.

I wish you good luck and continued success in all your endeavors.

Sincerely,
T. Cassio
Top Excellence Team

In Ottawa, one of the techies [OK it was the incomparable RSS Feeds By Subject. Of course if you just want the whole thing, full text RDF and XML feeds are available.

Discourse.net is a semi-finalist for the 2004 Koufax Award For Best Series for the various items I did on the Torture Memos.

Given how the voting went in the first round, it doesn't seem that likely I'll win, but it is nice to be in such good company.

You can vote for any one of the excellent candidates by leaving a comment at Wampum.