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New Comment Verification YAY!!!! Plus new problem *sigh*
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:01 am    Post subject: New Comment Verification YAY!!!! Plus new problem *sigh* Reply with quote

The comment verification is very cool. I wrote about it on my blog and included suggestions for making it better (dontcha know, us users are NEVER happy?) It's nice to see BlogHarbor adopting this technology which has demonstrated its usefulness on many other blogs.

One thing that is weird though, is the verification appears whether or not the reader has logged in. I can clearly see the need to verify the anonymous reader (and thanks to you guys, I was delighted to be able to turn on anonymous commenting this morning) but why the logged in one?

However, I need to report a weird problem this morning. After posting the above article, I remembered that I wanted to add a link to another article I wrote a month ago. So I went back, added the link, and clicked save. Changes Saved, said my admin panel, but the link was gone! I added it again and clicked save again. And again it disappeared. I tried it a third time just to be sure... no dice.

Something's wrong, and I'm not sure what. Can you help?

-- your favorite-est user, Abacquer
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Huh. That's weird. It seems to have magically fixed itself. Or was that you fixing it for me, John?
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-- Abacquer, A.K.A. Chuck Seggelin
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah! I wasn't imagining it. There is definitely some weirdness going on that manifests as a delay of (approximately 10) minutes between making a change, and having the change appear on the blog and in the control panel.

For example, I just deleted a comment. The page that said "Comment Deleted" showed the comment still there in the list of comments. So I tried to delete it again and got "no such comment" error.

When I view my main page the comment is missing. When I go back to the article the comment is still there.

Very strange. Sounds like old data is being cached somewhere. Are my readers also going to have to wait 10 minutes to see comments they add?
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-- Abacquer, A.K.A. Chuck Seggelin
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Robin



Joined: 07 May 2005
Posts: 94

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:26 am    Post subject: Comment verification Reply with quote

Also very glad to see the new comment verification feature, and maybe I will try out anonymous comments.

But as abacquer says, it seems very inconvenient to make users w/ reader accounts who are already logged in enter the verification string. Would love to know if there is a way we can either alter the code to only apply to those without accounts, or alternatively, turn the whole thing off until there is a way to only display it to users without accounts.
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:43 am    Post subject: Re: Comment verification Reply with quote

But as abacquer says, it seems very inconvenient to make users w/ reader accounts who are already logged in enter the verification string.

We agree that it may be inconvenient, but as a result of the comment spam attacks last week it was necessary for us to immediately implement a method to prevent automated attacks.

Regardless of whether the spammer sends his spam as an authenticated user or not, both methods were susceptible to automated attacks. The CAPTCHA allows us to immediately protect both anonymous and authenticated comments from being susceptible to automated comment spams.

Would love to know if there is a way we can either alter the code to only apply to those without accounts, or alternatively, turn the whole thing off until there is a way to only display it to users without accounts.

It is not possible at this time, but we do expect to be able to add additional controls to this feature in the future. For now, we wanted to immediately protect blogs and the network against the kinds of spam attacks which were seen on many blogs last week; we saw cases where thousands of comment spam were dumped on a single blog overnight...
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:47 am    Post subject: Re: New Comment Verification YAY!!!! Plus new problem *sigh* Reply with quote

However, I need to report a weird problem this morning. After posting the above article, I remembered that I wanted to add a link to another article I wrote a month ago. So I went back, added the link, and clicked save. Changes Saved, said my admin panel, but the link was gone! I added it again and clicked save again. And again it disappeared. I tried it a third time just to be sure... no dice. Something's wrong, and I'm not sure what. Can you help?

Yes, we can help and our developers are already working on solving this one. We should have this remedied soon.
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Robin



Joined: 07 May 2005
Posts: 94

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:11 am    Post subject: comments Reply with quote

I reply to every comment left on my blog, and have to say that I'm not looking forward to having to enter the string every time, especially since it is very hard to read the black characters on the black/white background -- much more so than with other captcha programs I've seen.

I am looking at a verification string now on my blog that includes a question mark, and you can barely make out the dot over the background pattern. It is also hard to distinguish between the lower case h & the lower case n.

I understand what you're trying to accomplish but as I have not allowed anonymous comments & have never had a single spam comment, I am really hoping to have the option of turning this feature off soon.
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:45 am    Post subject: Re: comments Reply with quote

Just as a preface, I want to thank you all in advance for your feedback. It is useful and appreciated. I do also want to reiterate my earlier comment that it was important to immediately protect all blogs from comment spam attacks by implementing a method to prevent these attacks from originating with automatic systems. We knew that this first attempt was not going to be perfect or a final solution, but it was necessary to put something in place immediately.

I reply to every comment left on my blog, and have to say that I'm not looking forward to having to enter the string every time, especially since it is very hard to read the black characters on the black/white background -- much more so than with other captcha programs I've seen.

I quite agree. This is something we will work on.

I am looking at a verification string now on my blog that includes a question mark, and you can barely make out the dot over the background pattern. It is also hard to distinguish between the lower case h & the lower case n.

Also in agreement here.

I understand what you're trying to accomplish but as I have not allowed anonymous comments & have never had a single spam comment

We analyzed the spam attack last week and it was quite apparent that the next attack would be against blogs without anonymous comments, and we even saw some "test spams" which were obviously the work of someone fine tuning an automated system which would create a Reader Account, and then use that account to post comment spam. So while it may be true that you had never had a single spam comment, it was not likely you would never have a single spam comment.

I am really hoping to have the option of turning this feature off soon.

As noted earlier in this thread, we do expect to be able to add additional controls to this feature in the future.
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 11:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

For example, I just deleted a comment. The page that said "Comment Deleted" showed the comment still there in the list of comments. So I tried to delete it again and got "no such comment" error. When I view my main page the comment is missing. When I go back to the article the comment is still there. Very strange. Sounds like old data is being cached somewhere.

Yes, that is a correct assumption, old data is being cached, at least as far as the permanent link goes.

There are actually two separate issues here, one with our control panel and one with the blog permanent link itself. We're working on the former and as for the latter, you can force the permanent link page to to drop the comment by going to the Article in the control panel, and clicking the Save button. That resets our cache counter by tricking it into thinking the article has been updated, and the permanent link will now have the correct comment count.

Are my readers also going to have to wait 10 minutes to see comments they add?

I can't duplicate this... Are you actually seeing this issue?
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 3:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No I was asking if it was something it was going to see, not saying that I had seen it. I did get one angry comment from a reader today, I'll spare you most of it, but the part that caught my attention was this:

Quote:
Incidentally, this is the third time I have tried to post this.


Sounds like some people are still having trouble posting.
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-- Abacquer, A.K.A. Chuck Seggelin
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 6:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I read that on your blog, I interpreted it that the user was being tripped up by the fact that there was now a CAPTCHA in place, not that there was something wrong with the commenting system. We're not seeing any anomalous behavior with the commenting system at this time.
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shenia



Joined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 58

PostPosted: Fri Sep 30, 2005 3:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

hello,

[oh my god] is what firstly came to my mind when I happened to saw the comment verification feature on my blog... it feels like...my birthday wish finally come true!!! these days I've seen many many blogs with this kind of feature and I never dared to dream that this feature would appear on blogharbor since you're using the "reader account" method... well, I don't know how to express my appreciation and gladness... all I can say is.. better late than never!

Now I can finnally turn the anonymous commenting on and let my readers post their comments in a much more comfortable way.

I really love this feature and BRAVO blogharbor!!! Twisted Evil
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cd



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 69

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 5:50 am    Post subject: "had" high hopes for eliminating comment spam Reply with quote

woke this morning to 78 instances, and increasing, of comment spam. how did they get around the verification process?
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 6:28 am    Post subject: Re: "had" high hopes for eliminating comment spam Reply with quote

I see that there is trackback spam on your blog but I do not see any comment spam...

We instituted comment verification, but since the Trackback protocol is an Internet standard protocol we can not change the way it works; i.e. we did not add any verification process to trackbacks, only to comments.
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cd



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 69

PostPosted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 7:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ok, you've probably said this before but how do i get rid of trackback spam, meaning how can i turn off this function, i already know how to delete them after they occur which although easier than in the past is still a pain in the...

thx
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