Since the original Democrats at Work post has so many comments, I thought I’d add another for fresh commentary on the wickedness of the Democrats. And fellow travelers. Remember, you can’t spell “Democrat” without “rat.”
Democrats at Work Part Deux
wordpress
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
On Being Freshly Pressed
- Image via Wikipedia
Like most folks on WordPress, I see the Freshly Pressed blogs each time I log in. If a title or graphic interests me, I will go and check it out. I was recently pleased to see one of my own posts listed as Freshly Pressed.
There are two main effects of being Freshly Pressed. The first is that the hits to the blog go way up. Second, that post is flooded with comments.
In regards to the blog hits, it might interest some to know that it is a spike in two ways. First, there was a massive increased of hits from previous days. Second, the hits are a spike in that they are very large on the pressed post but there is little spread to the other posts. As such, it seems that people come to see the post and then most depart without looking around much more.
I did notice that the hits were greater on the second day of being Freshly Pressed. But this might be due to the day of the week rather than due to the second day being a spike day. I suspect that the long term impact of being pressed will be very modest or even minimal. My 15 minutes of blog fame, so to speak.
As far as the comments go, I suspect that people are mainly drawn to comment on a Freshly Pressed post out of a desire to funnel traffic to their own blogs. This is, of course, sensible and all part of the blogging game. However, some people are clearly interested in the post itself and have some interesting and relevant things to say. As with the hits, the comments also seem to be a spike. They increased dramatically and center on the post. While I did get some extra comments on my other posts, the comments are clearly focused where they can do other bloggers the most good-on the Freshly Pressed post.
I’m reasonable sure that the hits and comments will soon return to their previous quantities: good, but hardly remarkable. On one hand, I will be sorry to see my fleeting minor fame fade away. On the other hand, being Freshly Pressed is a bit like hosting a free beer keg party: people you don’t know show up, tap the kegs and leave…most likely to never be seen again now that the kegs are dry. While having such a party is fun for a while, having one everyday would get a bit tiring.
In any case, I appreciate the folks at WordPress picking my post and I am glad that so many people stopped by to read, comment, and plug their own blogs.
Kensington Expert Mouse
- Image via Wikipedia
When I was a poor graduate student, I wanted to get a Kensington trackball(right) for my Mac. However, the price was way too high for my budget and I settled for a cheaper trackball. Eventually, I forgot about the Kensington when I bought a Microsoft trackball. While people are supposed to loath Microsoft, I found the trackball to be almost perfect for me. Then it finally wore out and I got another one. When that one wore out I found that Microsoft no longer made them. I looked on Amazon and saw that I could get one for a few hundred dollars. While I loved the trackball, I was not in love with it and hence decided to pass.
Looking for a good replacement, I remembered the Kensington. I saw that the Expert Mouse (which is actually a trackball and not a mouse) was on sale at Amazon, so I got one. When it arrived, I installed the software and was prepared for it to live up to the glowing reviews I had read. However, my experience was horrible. The scroll ring seemed incapable of actually scrolling-I would move it and the scroll bars would go up or down seemingly at random. When I clicked on the lower left hand button (set for a single click) it would cause the scroll bars to move and would also sometimes “jump” to other fields. For example, when trying to blog in WordPress it would scroll the main text area, then the categories would suddenly start scrolling up and down. The same sort of thing happened in the Start Menu: I would try to click on a program icon but the click would cause the scroll bars to move up or down randomly instead.
I was not happy and was ready to send the mouse back.
However, I realized that the problems seemed like the mouse was somehow getting two sets of signals and seemed “confused.” I suspected that perhaps the custom Kensington software was somehow at odds with the standard mouse software. To test this, I uninstalled the Kensington software and the problem was solved: the scroll wheel worked flawlessly and the scroll-click problem had ceased.
So, if you run into this problem, uninstall the software. If you want to custom configure the trackball, you can install the software and then remove it after setting the preferences. Interestingly, the button assignments I did using the Kensington software stayed even after I uninstalled the software.
Overall, I really like the Expert Mouse. However, many people are not fond of trackballs, so be sure to give it a try before you buy. Assuming, of course, anyone still goes to a store to buy mice/trackballs.
A Feast of Spam
![SPAM! [don't buy]](https://i2.wp.com/farm1.static.flickr.com/82/262091025_9825a64b68_m.jpg?resize=240%2C180 "SPAM! [don't buy]")
- Image by داود via Flickr
One of the many nice features of WordPress is that it provides numerous statistics. I happened to check my spam statistics today and found that 56% of the incoming comments were correctly flagged as spam. This has been roughly 8,500 spam “comments” since the start of the blog.
On the one hand, that seems like a lot of spam and might seem a bit surprising. On the other hand, a little reflection on the nature of the spam beast actually reveals that this is about what should be expected. After all, real comments require that a person actually go to the blog and type out a comment (relevant or not). Spam, in contrast, can often be generated automatically. As such, it actually seems surprising that only 56% of the incoming comments are actually spam.
Presumably blog spam works on the same basic principle as email spam: with enough volume profits are possible. Since the flood of spam seems as strong as ever, I infer that there is money to be made in spamming. Or, at the very least, people think they can make money via spam comments.
In addition to the idiot spam, there is also more intelligently targeted spam. This spam is for products or services that are somewhat connected to the blog post. For example, my post on tanning beds attracted spam from people selling these products and people running tanning businesses.
One thing I have seen recently is smart spam: spam that occurs in a relevant comment. Someone will actually present a relevant reply to a post and then insert a spam link. I don’t consider people linking to their own blogs to be this sort of spam, after all getting traffic from comments seems to be a legitimate approach. Presumably the people behind this believe that the effort will pay off and people will, for example, decide to go with a collection agency because someone posted a comment on a blog about the Iraq war with a link to that business. I suppose this can work, provided that the spammer is very fast in cranking out smart spam or if the spammers are paid very little per smart spam. I also suspect that some people smart spam for themselves. For example, a person might have a business and stick in spam as they are going about their normal surfing.
Suspended?
Those who visited this blog recently probably noticed that it had been suspended because of a TOS violation. No doubt there was some speculation about what terrible philosophy had earned the wrath of WordPress.com. It was, however, nothing so dramatic.
Like many bloggers, I use Zemanta to automate a lot of tedious chores, such as creating tags for posts and links within blogs. When I used Zemanta to create links in my blog on health care, it created a link to a diet pill web site that is on the “proscribed list” for WordPress.com. Thus, my blog was suspended. As I write this, I can see that Zemanta is ready to stick in the link to the diet pill site again. Obviously, I won’t be using Zemanta to create links anymore.
If your account is suspended and you have no idea why, check to see if Zemanta has added such a link to your site.
Also, here is what to do if your account is suspended.
First, when you try to log in to your account, your password will be rejected. You can, however, request that the password be changed by clicking the “I forgot my password” link. You’ll get a new one. However, if you do not have any blogs that are still active, you’ll have nothing to log into.
Second, contact support. The url is http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/. For a suspended blog you will need to fill out the form without logging in. This is because you can type in the blog url if you are not logged on; but must select a blog from a drop-down menu if you are logged on. Suspended blogs do not show up in the drop down menu.
Explain the situation (that your blog is suspended) and ask why. Be brief and polite.
Third, wait for a reply. In my case, I had to remove the offending link. I was able to get into my blog dashboard and went to the posts. There I entered in the offending url in the search field. I found it, deleted it and the blog was back up shortly.
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