October 7, 2006 – 10:12 pm
Version 2.2 is available now! This update is released to fix a bug that prevents non-registered users from posting a comment (or “tag”) to the board, on default installations of WordPress. It should work correctly now.
The technical details are that the WP Discussion option labeled “Comment author must fill out name and e-mail” is checked by default when installing WP, and there is (currently) no e-mail field in the tagboard. For now, to get around this issue, the system will add a dummy address to anonymous taggers, but in the future I’m considering either (A) not applying that restriction to the tagboard entries or (B) providing an e-mail address field for non-registered users. Please let me know what you think would be the better solution.
Also, one other thing to note on the subject of WP Discussion options is that the restriction labeled “Comment author must have a previously approved comment” is also checked by default. If this is selected, the comments (or “tags”) to the tagboard will be held in moderation if that particular name has not had a previously approved comment (or tag). This will result in the tagboard appearing to not work for first-time commenters, until their tags get approved. The suggested workaround for this right now is to uncheck that option, but I’m also looking for feedback on that one. Would it be better to (A) ignore that setting for tagboard entries and/or (B) provide a separate checkbox (on the tagboard config page) for whether or not to apply that restriction to the tagboard.
I’d appreciate any feedback anyone has on those two issues. Thanks again for all those who have given it a try, especially those who have provided feedback. My apologies for the delay in fixing it; I’ll try to keep more on top of it from here on out.
UPDATE: Just followed up with version 2.2, which also includes a fix for the display of the tag count in the admin page, courtesy of this comment from the owner of the blogwae site. Thanks!
I’m thinking about what my policy should be for entries in my tagboard that are obviously tests. It’s understandable that I will get these, since I’m hosting and releasing that tagboard plugin here, and people will want to try it out.
Even though I know the people probably won’t care, I still sometimes feel bad about deleting them, but that’s better than just eventually having a tagboard full of gibberish, I guess.
Now I’m thinking of rewriting the last parts of my tagboard plugin that are held over from the original one that I based it on, so that I can release it under the GPL instead of the license it has now, but then again I’ve got so many other side projects on the backburner that I’m not sure that it’s worth it.
The following WordPress plugins / widgets that I’ve been working on are now ready for initial distribution.
See the descriptions at the following pages for more information:
I recommend using these with the “widgets” plugin, which will allow you just to drop these components in and configure them (arrange them in your sidebar, set various parameters, etc.) without editing any code.
All of these plugins have been tested both in WordPress 2.x and WordPress MU.
Enjoy!
October 7, 2005 – 10:14 am
Just wanted to do a quick post about the new spam system I am using: Spam Karma 2. It’s been a while since I looked around at spam plugins, but it was getting pretty bad for a while, and since I haven’t had much time to work on the blog dev stuff that I want to, I decided to try out this one that I had seen recommended in various places.
I’m still tweaking the settings and working everything out, but it seems pretty good right now, and it is catching 100% of the spam at the moment (which the WPBlacklist plugin I was using before was obviously missing). Spam Karma has a lot of interesting details about it which I’ll perhaps expand upon later, but what I like about it most is that it combines mulitple strategies for detecting whether a particular comment is spam, and assigns “karma” points (positive or negative) to a given comment depending on how it fares against all the different filters.
One of the many options it’s using is doing something like I was doing with my original spam plugin that I wrote myself: putting encrypted data in the form that is then checked on the server when the comment is posted, to verify that it was posted from the form that the user just loaded. Obviously they do this differently than I did, so my tagboard was not compatible with this approach, and this is why all the tags were getting moderated after I turned it back on. Until I fix it, I’m just going to leave the tagboard disabled (I never really liked tagboards too much anyway).
Another interesting aspect of it is that Dan tried to submit several tags which were getting blocked because of the issue mentioned above, but then after a number of failed comment attempts (by the same person/IP within a given window of time) it automatically added his IP and his domain (from the URL field) to the blacklist, so that even when he tried to comment in a normal post he couldn’t. I thought that was pretty cool.
October 6, 2005 – 3:13 pm
until I make it work with the new spam plugin.
The second beta release of the tagboard plugin is ready.
Also, an upgraded Top Commenters plugin is also ready - you will need this if you don’t want tagboard entries to count towards the Top Commenters rankings. No page for this one yet - soon.
Everyone who uses my tagboard plugin will now have to use my Recent Comments and Top Commenters plugin as well, in order to get accurate counts now. (Or modify their own, if they want to use others).
It’s finally ready! Since the time that I first mentioned it here, I haven’t really done anything about it, but Dan brought it to my attention that my post about it was #1 on Google for “wordpress tagboard” (it’s not anymore), so I figured that I better get on it. I ended up staying up a little later than usual last night and doing most of it, then I finished it off today.
Downloads will be available soon - it’s still in the “beta” phase for now.
UPDATE - OK, here it is. Be sure to leave feedback on any issues you encounter (or suggestions), either using it here on my blog or on your own. Remember that it is in “beta” mode, which means it’s likely that some bugs will pop up from time to time. The goal is to fix anything that does go wrong, and also include additional features (time permitting) that you suggest or I have thought of but just didn’t get around to yet, and then release the “official” 1.0 version. Thanks!