WhackyNation

My apologies to a number of WhackyNation readers who posted comments that went to the moderation file this morning.  I screwed up and clicked the wrong button and sent them off to a spam death instead of approving them for public viewing.

There is no censorship here.  So please repost, especially the person from Boise State who had a request of me.  Hopefully your re-post will go to the moderation file and not automatically to the spam file.

Comments have been turned back on for WhackyNation.  They have been off since the Fall when the site became the target of spammers.

The first time you comment, your comment will wait for moderation by me.  Once I approve your comment the software will remember you and your future comments should appear instantly.

I’ve given up on Tiga, the stylesheet for WhackyNation it’s first year.

I moved over to Abstrakt3c 2.0 tonight … and it will take me a few days to fine tune the site.

Thanks ahead of time for your patience …. and your support.

It’s good to be back after more than two weeks in Hawaii.  Good break.  Got to meet Donald Rumsfeld and hear him speak to a small group.  In person, he is an incredibly gentile, humble human being, a great public servant. There was horseback riding on Lanai as well as snorkling off a catamaran and the beaches near Kona.  A house on the beach in Maui.  And dinner with close friends in Oahu. 

But now it’s back to WhackyNation.

Of course, while away I thought I’d attempt to update the WordPress software to 2.3 when there was a warning that my favorite theme, Tiga, had some incompatibility issues that a patch was supposed to fix.  Did the update, uploaded the patch, and voila, the site blows up.  I allowed myself to stay on vacation and not stress through a debug.

Thanks to Lou for keeping the site current and for suffering through the broken site.  You’re a great colleague, Lou.

I kept reading the posts of my fellow Northwest bloggers, but I didn’t post myself.

And, oh, yes, I am not surprised that Goracle won the Nobel or that Danny Westneat loves rail or that Postman hasn’t held Darcy Burner accountable for her tight association with MoveOn.org.

Give me a few more days to catch my breath and I will be back to giving them hell.  It’s good to be back.

I apoligize in turning off comments until I can strategize better against the spammers.  During the past week, WhackyNation has been inundated with more than 20,000 pieces of spam.  I have been spending all my time dealing with the issue.

I have some ideas to combat the spammers, but due to my schedule it will take me a few days to execute.

I appreciate your patience.  These spammers are a nuisance.

Apologies to all who posted comments between Wednesday mid-afternoon and Thursday morning.  I clicked on the “Delete all Spam” button before checking for legitimate posts.   I inadvertently deleted your comments.

The anti-spam software has been working well these past few days … a little bit too well.

 I found some legitimate comments and trackbacks in the spam database.  I was fortunately able to de-spam them, but they were posted with a delay which takes away the “instantness” of blogging.

If this happens to you, accept my apologies.  I am trying to get the bugs worked out.

Regular blog readers may have noticed a few problems with Whackynation the last 24 hours.  Software update problemos.  Blogroll sometimes appears and not.

Working to fix.