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May 09, 2006

Sodding Comment Spam

UPDATE 11/5: Today I got an email from Charlie Stuart, as stalwart a fan and supporter as a writer could ask for, and a good mate besides. Charlie informed me that he's left a number of comments here, but has not seen them published on the site. I have just now been trawling through my Movable Type "Junk" folder, which is sort of like a diner's grease trap, only with more pornography, sex, and drug ads, and found several comments, not only from Charlie, but also from the fabulous River Selkie, and even from luminous Gimmy! You guys should be able to find your comments posted where they should be. If not, let me know. I waded quite a way back through the grease trap (feeling not unlike Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, wading through the swamp, dragging the boat, up to his eyes in leeches and similar disgusting stuff), and found nothing but, well, leeches. I had no idea the spam filters in the MT software had been doing such an enthusiastic job all this time.

* * *

I'm currently experiencing a continuing tide of comment spam, all from one outfit, using a Russian hosting company. Exotic! While none of the offending comments are getting published, moderating them is a pain in the arse. I've just been tinkering with the tools Movable Type provides for tackling these problems. One adjustment is that commenters may, unless they're already "trusted" by the system, need to sign in to TypeKey to get in here. I realise this is a giant hassle. If you can't get TypeKey to work for you (and I know folks have had trouble with it in the past), please don't hesitate to send me your comment in an email addressed adrian dot bedford at gmail dot com.

One thing I'm thinking about is a feature in Movable Type in which you can have the system send out notification emails to people on the list so that folks know when there's a new post. I'm aware that I don't exactly post every day (mostly because either I'm not well in some way or I can't think of a damn thing to say), but for those times when there is a fresh post you could be notified as soon as it goes up. If you're interested, let me know, either in the comments, or in an email to the address I mentioned in the previous para.

* * *

One thing today: sent off my latest application to the Australia Council's Literature Board for a "New Work" grant. It's going Express Post, so should arrive in NSW no later than Thursday. The only difficult part of filling in these applications is coming up with a project you propose to work on with the assistance of the money, and then to provide a detailed outline of the whole thing, and how you propose to go about it. This always presents tricky thoughts: how do I propose to write a novel? Well, I sit down one day (after a lot of thought), open a new OpenOffice.org Writer document, type the title in the top line, then type the byline, then put the number "1" on a new line, and start the actual text on the line under that. And keep going, page after page, chapter after chapter, until the whole thing is done. There's not a lot to it (though frequently it feels bloody mysterious and even mystical). Just sit down and get on with it. It's hard to explain that to the Literature Board, which, you figure, must be after something altogether more involved than that. Anyway, I provided an outline for THE FAR UPTIME, saying I want to do a second draft of the book. Tricky thing about the outline: up until I wrote said outline, I had no idea how the (new version of the) story might go. Now I do. Amazing what a little pressure can do for your thinking processes.

I'm down to the final 35 pages, and yea verily, it is finally sucking, and needs a lot of work. Just at the moment, though, I'm baffled about how to fix it. Yes, I have some vague ideas, but putting the plot points together so that they lead to a good ending (not necessarily a "happy" ending) is presenting a bit of a poser.

And, in other news: headache. Crap.

Posted by adrian at May 9, 2006 06:46 PM

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Comments

Whether or not I'm signed in to TypeKey, I never seem to be trusted. All my comments result in the moderated message, every time. : \

Speaking of difficulties getting to you, as I posted in my own journal, I've tried emailing you three times lately, to both the accounts you have that I am aware of, from multiple of my own accounts. Did you get any of those emails?

Posted by: Cheyenne [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 17, 2006 09:31 AM

Spam sucks, I hope TypeKey helps.

Good luck with the AC Literature Board grant. I'm sure they get some pretty confused applications. Trying to detail the creative process to a bureaucratic organisation, what a task! I suppose one day soon they'll outsource the board to private enterprise and then you'll have to submit a detailed marketing plan and sales forecasts as well...

Posted by: dshan [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 10, 2006 05:02 AM

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