The Day I Looked Forward to Casinos, Drugs, and Penises

A few weeks ago, this blog was hopping with comments and massive traffic. It was exciting. I threw myself into the joy and spent way too much time monitoring the blog and rejoicing in the sudden popularity. And, as I knew from past experience, it soon died down. My blog stats leveled back out from […]

Blog Exercises: Sharing Without Context

I got a trackback to one of my posts yeseterday. I was so excited that someone thought what I wrote was worth sharing. Eager to read what they wrote about my article, I paused in my busy schedule to race to their site to find out if I’d changed a life, influenced them in some […]

WordPress Anniversary: Comment Spam Lessons

It’s hard to believe that I’ve learned much from comment spammers over the years. I’ve learned that they are among the most hated folks in the world, yet you have to respect them as well. As I look back on ten years of blogging with WordPress on this 10th Anniversary year, I realized that comment […]

Blog Challenge: What Are Your Most Favorite Blog Post Failures

This week’s blog challenge is: Brag about your favorite unpopular posts. On your blog, write a post about your favorite published but unpopular posts, blog posts you thought should have gotten more attention than your blog statistics report. Tell us why you think these are worthwhile posts and why you think they didn’t get the […]

Blog Struggles: Recovering From a Traffic Spike

In The Day I Looked Forward to Casinos, Drugs, and Penises, I discussed the after effects of a massive traffic spike: A few weeks ago, this blog was hopping with comments and massive traffic. It was exciting. I threw myself into the joy and spent way too much time monitoring the blog and rejoicing in […]

Blog Struggles: When An Old Post is New Again

You never know when an old post will revive itself and become one of the most popular posts on your blog at the moment. I’ve had this happen many times. Sometimes, it’s expected. More often not. In the beginning, it would send me into a panic, just another of my many blog struggles. I will […]

Blog Struggles: Blogger’s Depression

It happens to everyone, including bloggers. You work and work, filled with enthusiasm, eager to embrace each day. Then something happens. For a blogger, it’s little things. A mistake found in a post months after publishing. You are embarrassed but no big deal. Then someone says something a bit sarcastic towards you, and not your […]

Blogging Prejudice: Aren’t We Past This Yet?

Blogger A blogged something offensive to Blogger B. Blogger B responded with “that’s not being a good Christian”. Huh? I can assume that Blogger B is a Christian, though the type and style of practice is not known. Does that automatically imply that Blogger A is a Christian? What difference in the world does this […]

WordPress Plugins Battling Evil

I hate to admit it, but there is evil on the web. And it is often aimed directly at bloggers. Comment Spam WordPress Plugins One of my greatest fears on Lorelle on WordPress is that Akismet will go off-line or suddenly stop working. If their servers go down, it’s nightmare hell for Lorelle. The number […]

The Debate Over Comments and Trackbacks

Which came first? The comment or the trackback? Or should I be more clear in my question? Which should come first? The comments or the trackbacks? I have long been a fan of separating trackbacks from comments. Comments are the dialog and trackbacks are the outside discussions, incoming links from sites discussing the topic on […]

Akismet Auntie Spam Firefox-Greasemonkey Page Viewing Script

My buddy, Engtech has come up with a neat Firefox Greasemonkey script which “shrinks” your screen view of Akismet’s comment spam page viewing. The Akismet Auntie Spam Greasemonkey Script for Firefox changes the way the comment spam caught by Akismet is viewed. Instead of viewing the whole comment spam, and scrolling down screen after screen […]

I’m Winning the Battle Against Comment Spam

I’m winning the battle against comment spam. Honestly. Living in the Middle East, I learned to live with the up close and personal issue of life with terrorists and suicide bombers. Among the many lessons I learned was the reality of the phrase “You can’t let terrorists win.” While the United States is still learning […]

Do You Care Enough To Keep Your Blog Comment Spam Free?

I was researching an article and ran into a blog that might have had the answer I needed, but I ran from it almost immediately. There were 74 comments on the post of which over 50 of them were comment spam. A quick scroll down the list of penis enlargers, casinos, free views of big […]

Will Stopping Overseas Online Gambling Payments Impact Bloggers?

There is a lot of news out today about the new US legislation passed to help end Internet Gambling within the US border. According to stock market reports, the international gaming companies are losing money as their share prices drop after the announcement that the US House of Representatives and Senate approved a bill this […]

Editing Your Blog Comments

I’ve written a lot about comments, how to handle them, respond to them, and some guidelines for posting comments. One aspect of comments rarely covered indepth is the issue of editing your comments. Not “your” comments left on other blogs, but the comments you receive on your blog. As a general rule, you can judge […]