Wherein Chatty gets a thrill, but her hopes are dashed to the ground…then stomped on
Isn’t it funny how the opening words of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” keep proving to be true over and over again?
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”
Let’s start with “the best”.
(if anyone is only interested in finding out the reasons for Chatty’s recent technical problems, scroll down to “the worst”. Everyone else, please just read on – you’ll get to the bad part soon enough…)
Chatty has worked hard on her blog. She started it, with great hopes but even greater trepidation, on December 28, 2007 - at which time she had exactly two readers. One of them was Chatty. The other was The Wiz, bless his heart.
Slowly, Chatty got a few readers – mostly family and friends. But, it was a start, and she is grateful to them all.
Then, she got lucky, because June Cleaver after a six-pack was kind enough to give Chatty a “shout-out”. Please check out June’s blog, because she’s a hoot. Most of her posts have Chatty on the floor, clutching her sides and trying not to get a stitch from laughing too hard.
Another wonderful person who read Chatty’s blog, and then sent people over, is The Redneck Princess. This is another gal you should read – she finds humor everywhere! And Chatty does mean EVERYWHERE! About EVERYTHING!
These acts of kindness were followed by another one, from Mrs. G, who invited Chatty to host a “Slow Cook Thursday”. Mrs. G is wonderful, funny, kind, and supportive of new bloggers. She also takes great photos.
Then, through Jenn (Jenn is a wordsmith, and has wonderful dialogues with her children, among many others) she discovered Tink, who is also amazing. Check out her “twisted Tink” saga. This girl can really write an adventure! Her photos are also outrageously good.
Tink hosts the Weekly Word Challenge - a game Chatty loves to play with fellow bloggers every Tuesday, and through which she has made many more blog friends.
Chatty must also thank, from the bottom of her heart, Hilly of Snackie’s World, and Foo, who, between the two of them, gave Chatty the very first encouragement and necessary push to get her started. Without them, Chatty might never have found the courage to create her blog.
And then, there’s Bossy. Bossy is cool to the nth degree. Truly. Mere words cannot describe Bossy’s cool quotient.
And, while she is thanking people, even though Chatty does not know them personally, there are a few more people whose blogs are so excellent that Chatty is grateful to have learned even more about about excellence in blogging, just by reading them: The QC Report, The Pioneer Woman, She Just Walks Around With It, and Dooce. If you don’t already know about their blogs, you can find all of them in the menu bar to the right, under “Staples for your cyber-space pantry”.
So, because of personal friends and kind Internet acquaintances, Chatty has garnered a small group of people willing to read her posts more or less regularly.
Chatty was thrilled when (several weeks ago) she got 127 “article views” in one day! Of course, it wasn’t 127 different people – it was just a few people who stayed to read several of her posts once they were at her blog. Still, this was a wonderful thing!
All in all, Chatty averages anywhere from 30-100 article views a day. And believe her – Chatty is happy that these people find her posts interesting enough to read!
Then, last weekend, Chatty thought she had struck the mother lode! She had evidently been “discovered” – because she had over 400 article views in ONE DAY!
However, reality set in almost immediately, and Chatty started thinking about it. As blissful as the thought of genuine discovery was…when something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Well, duh…
So, we now move to “the worst”:
Chatty checked her “comments”. You must understand that Chatty is lucky to average 1-4 comments a day - sometimes more on Weekly Word Challenge days, and many thanks to her fellow players for that.
Sure enough, there were 32 comments, all marked by “Godaddy” as “inactive” – because apparently the Godaddy network recognizes spam when it sees it…
The “authors” were an unintelligible selection of keyboard strokes…the messages were non-existent, and….
Chatty realized she had been discovered, all right - but not in a good way.
She had been discovered by spammers.
Yes.
Within 5 minutes there were dozens more spamming comments.
Bummer.
So, Chatty called tech support at Godaddy, and Greg explained a few things to her.
First – the Internet is both a blessing and a curse. You can’t have one without the other. (Altogether now: It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.)
Second, spam is inevitable.
Third, you cannot stop spam – you can only try to control it.
Greg then walked Chatty through the process of controlling the spammers. It is by no means a perfect system (BOY HOWDY - SEE BELOW), but at least he gave Chatty some tools.
And, although Chatty only had about 100 spamming comments, she had THOUSANDS of spamming trackbacks.
Chatty didn’t even know what trackbacks were, but per tech support advice, she spent quite a lot of time deleting them, one hundred at a time.
It was amazing.
Apparently, most of Chatty’s spam is originating from Madrid, Spain.
As John Denver often said, “Who’d ‘a thunk?”
Henceforth, Chatty will be vigilant about checking “trackbacks”. She will expunge any IP address that looks “iffy”.
In short, Chatty is ON PATROL!
Yes.
However, there is a chance that Chatty will accidentally expunge the IP address of a loyal friend, acquaintance, or casual reader. Because, let’s face it, when it comes to techno-savvy, Chatty doesn’t have any.
Chatty apologizes for this in advance.
UPDATE!
Boy, did deleting all her trackbacks come back to bite Chatty in the butt!
As you know, she lost all ability to receive comments for 3 days!
This was because in deleting and banning the THOUSANDS of spamming trackbacks, she did, indeed, also ban the “legitimate” trackbacks. There weren’t many of them, and they were buried among the “bad” trackbacks – and Chatty is not kidding about the “thousands” here!
It took Godaddy two days to figure out the actual problem. It then took them several hours to MANUALLY hunt down the “bad” trackback IP addresses and place them on the “black list”, then hunt down and remove all the “legitimate” trackback IP addresses from the black list and re-enter them on the “approved” list - thus giving Chatty’s readers the opportunity to leave comments once again, while making it impossible for these particular spammers to hit Chatty again.
Kudos to Godaddy for their persistence and patience.
This was a huge lesson.
There doesn’t seem to be a way to handle trackbacks unless you are very computer-savvy, which Chatty is not. Because, if spam does occur, each and every trackback has to be “vetted” by Chatty, and she just doesn’t have the knowledge to do that - what with not being able to tell one IP address from another, and all…
So, Godaddy suggested that she just turn off trackbacks from now on, at least for the moment, which is what she has done.
Chatty realizes, from what little she has been able to read and understand, that trackbacks can be a valuable tool - but since Chatty has had such a rotten experience, and does not look forward to more of the same, she is just denying trackbacks until she can get a handle on the whole situation.
However, trackbacks have NOTHING to do with comments – which are OPEN, and always will be, because Chatty yearns for bloggy love!
Chatty wanted to take this time to thank her readers and friends in blog-land, but also to explain what happened to her, and to put all readers who have their own blogs on the alert about the trackback situation.
Spammers, robots and other CREEPS are out there, trying to prey on us. If you are not absolutely sure that you understand your blog settings - and your trackback situation - you might want to take a few moments to check it out, so that you can avoid Chatty’s recent debacle!
Thanks for reading, and most of all, thanks for commenting!
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”
Let’s start with “the best”.
(if anyone is only interested in finding out the reasons for Chatty’s recent technical problems, scroll down to “the worst”. Everyone else, please just read on – you’ll get to the bad part soon enough…)
Chatty has worked hard on her blog. She started it, with great hopes but even greater trepidation, on December 28, 2007 - at which time she had exactly two readers. One of them was Chatty. The other was The Wiz, bless his heart.
Slowly, Chatty got a few readers – mostly family and friends. But, it was a start, and she is grateful to them all.
Then, she got lucky, because June Cleaver after a six-pack was kind enough to give Chatty a “shout-out”. Please check out June’s blog, because she’s a hoot. Most of her posts have Chatty on the floor, clutching her sides and trying not to get a stitch from laughing too hard.
Another wonderful person who read Chatty’s blog, and then sent people over, is The Redneck Princess. This is another gal you should read – she finds humor everywhere! And Chatty does mean EVERYWHERE! About EVERYTHING!
These acts of kindness were followed by another one, from Mrs. G, who invited Chatty to host a “Slow Cook Thursday”. Mrs. G is wonderful, funny, kind, and supportive of new bloggers. She also takes great photos.
Then, through Jenn (Jenn is a wordsmith, and has wonderful dialogues with her children, among many others) she discovered Tink, who is also amazing. Check out her “twisted Tink” saga. This girl can really write an adventure! Her photos are also outrageously good.
Tink hosts the Weekly Word Challenge - a game Chatty loves to play with fellow bloggers every Tuesday, and through which she has made many more blog friends.
Chatty must also thank, from the bottom of her heart, Hilly of Snackie’s World, and Foo, who, between the two of them, gave Chatty the very first encouragement and necessary push to get her started. Without them, Chatty might never have found the courage to create her blog.
And then, there’s Bossy. Bossy is cool to the nth degree. Truly. Mere words cannot describe Bossy’s cool quotient.
And, while she is thanking people, even though Chatty does not know them personally, there are a few more people whose blogs are so excellent that Chatty is grateful to have learned even more about about excellence in blogging, just by reading them: The QC Report, The Pioneer Woman, She Just Walks Around With It, and Dooce. If you don’t already know about their blogs, you can find all of them in the menu bar to the right, under “Staples for your cyber-space pantry”.
So, because of personal friends and kind Internet acquaintances, Chatty has garnered a small group of people willing to read her posts more or less regularly.
Chatty was thrilled when (several weeks ago) she got 127 “article views” in one day! Of course, it wasn’t 127 different people – it was just a few people who stayed to read several of her posts once they were at her blog. Still, this was a wonderful thing!
All in all, Chatty averages anywhere from 30-100 article views a day. And believe her – Chatty is happy that these people find her posts interesting enough to read!
Then, last weekend, Chatty thought she had struck the mother lode! She had evidently been “discovered” – because she had over 400 article views in ONE DAY!
However, reality set in almost immediately, and Chatty started thinking about it. As blissful as the thought of genuine discovery was…when something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Well, duh…
So, we now move to “the worst”:
Chatty checked her “comments”. You must understand that Chatty is lucky to average 1-4 comments a day - sometimes more on Weekly Word Challenge days, and many thanks to her fellow players for that.
Sure enough, there were 32 comments, all marked by “Godaddy” as “inactive” – because apparently the Godaddy network recognizes spam when it sees it…
The “authors” were an unintelligible selection of keyboard strokes…the messages were non-existent, and….
Chatty realized she had been discovered, all right - but not in a good way.
She had been discovered by spammers.
Yes.
Within 5 minutes there were dozens more spamming comments.
Bummer.
So, Chatty called tech support at Godaddy, and Greg explained a few things to her.
First – the Internet is both a blessing and a curse. You can’t have one without the other. (Altogether now: It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.)
Second, spam is inevitable.
Third, you cannot stop spam – you can only try to control it.
Greg then walked Chatty through the process of controlling the spammers. It is by no means a perfect system (BOY HOWDY - SEE BELOW), but at least he gave Chatty some tools.
And, although Chatty only had about 100 spamming comments, she had THOUSANDS of spamming trackbacks.
Chatty didn’t even know what trackbacks were, but per tech support advice, she spent quite a lot of time deleting them, one hundred at a time.
It was amazing.
Apparently, most of Chatty’s spam is originating from Madrid, Spain.
As John Denver often said, “Who’d ‘a thunk?”
Henceforth, Chatty will be vigilant about checking “trackbacks”. She will expunge any IP address that looks “iffy”.
In short, Chatty is ON PATROL!
Yes.
However, there is a chance that Chatty will accidentally expunge the IP address of a loyal friend, acquaintance, or casual reader. Because, let’s face it, when it comes to techno-savvy, Chatty doesn’t have any.
Chatty apologizes for this in advance.
UPDATE!
Boy, did deleting all her trackbacks come back to bite Chatty in the butt!
As you know, she lost all ability to receive comments for 3 days!
This was because in deleting and banning the THOUSANDS of spamming trackbacks, she did, indeed, also ban the “legitimate” trackbacks. There weren’t many of them, and they were buried among the “bad” trackbacks – and Chatty is not kidding about the “thousands” here!
It took Godaddy two days to figure out the actual problem. It then took them several hours to MANUALLY hunt down the “bad” trackback IP addresses and place them on the “black list”, then hunt down and remove all the “legitimate” trackback IP addresses from the black list and re-enter them on the “approved” list - thus giving Chatty’s readers the opportunity to leave comments once again, while making it impossible for these particular spammers to hit Chatty again.
Kudos to Godaddy for their persistence and patience.
This was a huge lesson.
There doesn’t seem to be a way to handle trackbacks unless you are very computer-savvy, which Chatty is not. Because, if spam does occur, each and every trackback has to be “vetted” by Chatty, and she just doesn’t have the knowledge to do that - what with not being able to tell one IP address from another, and all…
So, Godaddy suggested that she just turn off trackbacks from now on, at least for the moment, which is what she has done.
Chatty realizes, from what little she has been able to read and understand, that trackbacks can be a valuable tool - but since Chatty has had such a rotten experience, and does not look forward to more of the same, she is just denying trackbacks until she can get a handle on the whole situation.
However, trackbacks have NOTHING to do with comments – which are OPEN, and always will be, because Chatty yearns for bloggy love!
Chatty wanted to take this time to thank her readers and friends in blog-land, but also to explain what happened to her, and to put all readers who have their own blogs on the alert about the trackback situation.
Spammers, robots and other CREEPS are out there, trying to prey on us. If you are not absolutely sure that you understand your blog settings - and your trackback situation - you might want to take a few moments to check it out, so that you can avoid Chatty’s recent debacle!
Thanks for reading, and most of all, thanks for commenting!
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
I wonder what the heck a trackback is? WELL, as you requested I am running a test for you at potsblog...
Reply to this
I'm not techie either. I think I have mine set to not allow trackbacks---but, I get the info on a separate program, Statcounter. I don't know if that's good or not, but so far I haven't been spammed. Keeping fingers crossed.
Reply to this
Thanks Chatty for the nice words! You Da Bomb!! Glad the problems with your site are fixed. My blog isn't letting me access it tonight. ARGGHHHH!! Isn't technology grand?! Sometimes.... sometimes not so much.
Reply to this