¥åßßå and I have been discussing b2evo's poor handling of comment/trackback/referrer SPAM. The 'slam-the-door-in-your-face' blacklist isn't ideal. Black-lists, white-lists ... it's all a gray area and SPAM is something that makes people see red :>.

What color is your anti-spam parachute?

The goal here would be to come up with a much better way of handling SPAM. We've tossed around some ideas and some of them are covered here. I think we should ADD to this, as we move forward, because the concept of improved SPAM handling is universally appealing and would rocket AM! to the forefront of a "must-visit" site, if we were to successfully come up with a plug-in/hack that provided hassle-free, superior anti-SPAM measures.

So ... what would make a system "superior"? We've identified the following list (to which we invite additions/subtractions/discussion):

A Superior Anti-SPAM System

• It must be 'visitor-friendly'. (i.e., rules out bobo, moderation, disallowing links (<a> tag) and capcha methods ... as all of these either makes visitors jump thru hoops or restrains them, in some fashion.)
• It must consider and weigh a variety of parameters, in an effort to determine if a comment/trackback or referrer is "spammy". (i.e., we're thinking of a predictive, stochastic percentage that indicates the probability of something being 'spammy'). A list of those criteria follow, later on.
• It must be easy to administer and must not prohibit admins from posting whatever they want, however spammy it may appear.
• It must be adaptable (i.e., as SPAM tactics and methodologies change, new parameters need to be added in an easy fashion.)
• It must LEARN and grow stronger as more SPAM attempts are made and SHARE this learned information within a "trusted" network of like installations.
• It shouldn't drain CPU resources, with regard to CPU time and table space, so as not to become too burdonsome for the blog engine.
• Probability cutoffs should be user-set for the handling of SPAM (i.e., less than 45% probability ... gets posted, between 46%-80% ... gets set aside for moderation (and then LEARNS from admin decision, so that future %-range for moderation becomes more narrow); and >81% probability, dosn't get posted (and admin can review to see if system accidentally mis-categorized a non-SPAM post/comment/trackback).
• It should INVITE SPAM ... (the more SPAM received, the stronger the defenses), and limit energy and bandwidth used by SPAM messages (for SPAM, just say "Thanks for your comment", rather than a 303 error), let SPAMMERS think they've succeeded. Bend, but do not BREAK. (Hence ... "Willow" as a code name.)
• It should log and categorize SPAM attempts, both to confirm SPAM blockage and volume, but also for admins to analyze and tweak the system to make it better.

These are just some of the ideas that need to be built into the system.

SPAM Factors

Below are things that make a site/comment/post and/or trackback more likely to be SPAMMY and situations in which they AREN'T SPAMMY. For every thing that LOOKS like SPAM, there's generally a situation in which it ISN'T SPAM.

1. Content: When the post or comment contain words and/or phrases like "penis, incest, 'nice site', cialis, viagra, etc." this makes it more likely to be SPAM. (However, a visitor or poster might just be writing about how he's tired of seeing "cialis" SPAM messages all the time).
2. Same Email Address - Different Name: Lots of SPAMMERS re-hash a fake email address and this might indicate that a message is more likely to be "spammy". (Or ... stk might be leaving you two comments, but use "Scott" one time and "stk" another)
3. Invalid Email Addy: Lots of Spammers use made-up email addresses. If we can easily test for this, then it would help identify a comment/trackback as 'spammy'. (However, not 100%, because maybe a visitor is afraid to leave his REAL address and leaves one like 'John-nospam@hisRealSite.com' or a made up one instead)
4. Repeated Comment URL[color=red]/IP[/color]: If you're being hammered with SPAM, it's likely that a the same URL will be repeated in quick succession. Need to look at time intervals and if this is happening, there's a greater liklihood that comment/trackback is spammy. (Of course, you might also have an avid fan who likes to leave lots of comments, too, so it's not 100% and need to take into account X comments over Y time)
5. URLs known to be spammy: This is where the blacklist will come in handy, BUT not a 100% sure it's spam kind of blockage. (What about mis-reported blacklisted sites? Or a URL that has been re-assigned to someone else? PLUS ... blacklist only contains KNOWN spam sites ... need something more proactive that can determine spamminess of some site it's never seen.)
6. Words in URLs: Certainly, URLs that contain certain words provide some measure of the spamminess of the site. (But it's not 100% as some people just pick crappy URLs for their site)
7. Changing IP Address: In a recent hack, by ¥åßßå, he's implemented an IP-dependent HASH for each of the field names in the comment_post.php and feedback.php files. IF a spammer loads the comment form with one IP, but tries to post with a proxied IP ... they will be unsuccessful, because the field names won't match. (very tricky guy, our ¥åßßå ;)) (But, it's possible that a dial-up connected poster loses his connection and returns to post with a different IP assigned)
8. Using old file/folder names: If one changes the htsrv folder name to something else and/or the comment_post.php filename to something else, and a spammer comes along, tring to use /htsrv/comment_post.php ... then there's a really strong liklihood that it's SPAM. (Can't really think of a situation where it isn't)
9. Wrong post ID: If there posting a comment/trackback for a different post ID than they searched for, browsed to, etc., then the comment/trackback is likely to be SPAM. (likewise, I can't think of a situation where it's not).
10. Links in Content: When there are multiple links in a comment (<a> tag allowed), this increases the liklihood that the message is SPAM. (Of course, you might have a determined poster who's citing his argument with lots of juicy links, too).
11. Offsite call of comment_post.php: If the referrer isn't your own site, but rather, some other location, then someone is trying to remotely comment and exploit the comment_post.php file. (However, lots of visitors don't send referrer information AND referrers CAN be spoofed ...)
12. Admin post/comment may look SPAMMY as hell: Regardless of how spammy an admin post/comment is, b/c they OWN the blog ... they should not be hampered by an anti-spam system. Likewise, priority should be given to members, but when running a "get a free blog" system, there needs to be admin moderation for member posts above a certain %-spammy threshold.
13. [color=red]White URL/IP Check:[/color] A comment/trackback is much less likely to be SPAM if the url/ip of the visitor has been accepted by the admin in previous comment/trackback. (Of course, the SPAMMER may have recently sent a flood, one or more of which got by the SPAM check, so the check would need to include an "older-than" clause ... like older than a week or something)

These "ideal system" characteristics and "is this SPAM or not" %-probability assignations represent WHERE WE ARE TODAY. If you can add more ... PLEASE DO. I will update/refine this list so that when we end up making this plugin-hack ... it will ROCK the SPAMMY world. :D

Page 2 updated 17^th March

Ok, this is a list of test that are running, as more tests are coded up I'll add them here. Feel free to add to this list if you start any tests

IP/post ID key

Ok, this is a really simple test, when the comment form is called a hidden input is added that contains a key based on the ip & post id. When a comment is posted the key is checked for and has 4 potential results :

1. No key - this pretty much means that we have a spammer who's using crap software
2. Wrong IP - Although this has a high probability of being a spammer, it could just be a dialup user who lost their connection.
3. Wrong ID - Again, this pretty much means we've got a spammer.
4. Invalid key - This probably means we have a spammer who's trying to guess how the key works!

By storing all of the keys as they are issued (along with other data such as post id, ip etc) the original IP will also gain a "spam karma", this karma would be used as part of the final figure.

Reset button

This is another simple test, it just checks for param( 'reset' ) if it exists we've got a spammer

commented input box

A variation of the key, the input box is commented out in html, this checks if the value is sent, if it is it pretty muchs means spam software.

CSS

I haven't implemented this one yet, but basically I'm going to use css to "remove" the 'name' input box from the form (either with display:none or by positioning it a couple of million miles off the page, or z-indexing it below content) and replace it with another box (for the normal user), if $name is set then this is a spammer

Expanding the blacklist concept

Well, I've finally totally emptied my blacklist :O, what I have in place is an expansion of it's methodolgy. Instead of having a true/false blacklist I now have a list of all the ip's, url's and common spam comment content. When a comment is received (along with some of the checks above) it is checked against these lists. If it's found in any of the lists then it is marked as "spam" and put in a little table all of it's own. During the shakedown period I'm also "moderating" any comments that get through these checks (so far none have ..... but I've only had 3,000 spam to judge by) at the time of writing I have the following :-
1450 spammer IP's
30 spam base domains
112 common spam comments
When I get a chance I'll add a page to my blog so that you can see the relevant lists.
You can find the lists here List of wankers, please note, the "counts" aren't completely accurate as yet, they're often far lower than the reality.

I'm still working on all of this, and I still have a few little tricks up my sleeve to stop these wankers once and for all. Unfortunately most of this would be 100% easier in 1.8+ as it's far more geared to the sort of stuff that I'm currently implementing. An unfortunate side effect of running these tests is that I no longer report anything to the evo blacklist, however, it'd be very easy to implement reporting for new spam base urls automatically as they are added to my own lists.

At the moment I still create new entries on my lists manually, mainly because I've been concentrating on methods and testing, but the next stage is to automatically create new entries for any comment that fails ## number of tests. in this way the anti-spam measures will "learn" from the spammers themselves. As a measure of their effectiveness, the wanker who started spamming everybody with the bogus google links was stopped by the fact that he used "known" spam content and also used a few known IP's.

I'm also trying to work out a method whereby the lists could be shared amongst "trusted" blogs so that the net is cast wider, which would help trap new spam before it gets a chance to pound every blog it finds. Basically, if one blog traps a bit of spam that exceeds ## threshold then it would inform the other blogs, in the "trusted" list, of the details of the new spammer (ip's, url's, common content etc). Then, if the same spammer hits any of the other blogs they're already geared up to stop them.

There's, obviously, still a shedload of work to do, and, as I mentioned earlier, I have a few other tests that I want to run as well. The more ways a spammer can "trip up" the better. My eventual goal is to have no antispam blacklist and no moderated comments.

We have made our first contribution to the b2evolution OpenSource project: $20US.

This may not seem like a lot, but as Yabba and I both agreed that we'd give back 10% for any b2evolution work that came through AM!, we're keeping to that promise. (This represents 1/2 of the payment for work we did in Jan, integrating "Waterblogged" into the front page of Ohio Boating.

• 12-Feb-2006 - $20 (1/2 Waterblogged -> OBN)

As a team, we have contributed a total of $20.00 US, in support of the b2evolution project.

I'm sure we'll see the AM! website roll onto the "donor" list (just as soon as the French General gets a round tuit). Hopefully, before the infamous "beta" release. :|

I was approached today about what prices were to host a b2evolution blog with AstonishMe! It got me to thinking that we should come up with some sort of "b2evo hosting plan pricing schedule" and link to a special post from ads (no blinking animated GIFS pleas) within AM!

My initial thoughts ...

1. Bare-bones hosting plan ... hosting at $$/month ... thanks, yer on yer own (assuming HH has a cPanel for customers to manage their accounts, set up email, ftp, etc.
2. b2evo plan ... hosting at $$/month ... which includes (list of features), a current version b2evo install, membership to AM!
3. Then add-ons:
   • $100+ for customizations to an existing skin
   • $250+ for completely new, totally custom skin to customer's desires
   • $50 for transferring an MT blog (contact us for others

This particular individual (contact pending), runs on blogger and apparently, hasn't been too happy since Google bought Blogger a couple of years ago. Anyway, she complains that her site loads slowly and was looking for a new blogging software package ... got turned on to b2evo and AM!

Thoughts?

Well hells bells and taco shells. I believe we don't have to have a logo contest after all. :D I came up with one (out of necessity) and you know what? IT ROCKS. It's simple, conveys "astonished" in a very appropriate way and just looks cool.

The lastest rendition of the mock up of the www.goodboating.net front page can be seen HERE.

I've zipped up the files for you, Yabba, and put them in the goodboating subdomain on AM. Summat like here, I think ... (not 100%, but more like 85% ... it's late, damn near 2AM). :o

Have a look at a couple of things, if you can. I did a rounded corner deal on the H2 headers, but I kluged it together. I've got a faded image, wanted %text for accessibility ... and needed two corners in addition ... tried to do a <h2><div><span> thing to get all three images in, but had alignment issues on the <div>, for some reason. (Couldn't seem to get the BG image into the corner, was like there was a border or summat hiding it). Anyway ... that's one.

The other is the right sidebar title fades. I made a shorter version, which will "fade-to-black" in the sidebar ... called them, but it's still pulling up the OTHER ones, for some reason.

I had a HELL of a time getting our logo, CSS rollover in ... one of those ... :o ... why isn't it working things. (till i realized i fergot to close a curly brace immediately above ... ACK. :|

Urm ... I think it validates. (checking) ... strict, yes. Only warnings on the CSS, no errors, and most are bgcolors and simple stuff.

I haven't done anything with the input text boxes - have a play. I still need to add (dunno 100x100, or 150x150) thumb->zoom images on some "sample posts" for a mock-up of the body content. Have a play there if you'd like, but I've got a pretty firm idea of the kind of thing I'm shooting for, but just not certain how to "contain them", as *i think* DIVS are out, b/c they won't slide by the boat really well.

The flowing text around that boat totally rocks, Squirt! (Noggin ... fin)

I've seen Nemo, too many damn times and did I say? It's late. :|

Cheers ... ... I'm on with Rachel tomorrow (today), as she's really stressed with a 3-hour presentation on Monday, mid-term sometime next week and a term paper the following Monday. I'll probably be thin on the 'puter this weekend ...

stk out <-----------

Adoring fans are flocking to Ben's new site and the response to the update is under?whelming.

See it for yourself (maybe) at his newest web location. (He'll love all the attention from us, when he looks through his server logs). ;)

Mind you, you'll need to have javaScript enabled, or the page will be nothing more than a JPG file. Also, you'll need the Macromedia Flash add-on, because you won't be able to read a post without it ... (of course, finding out HOW to read a post the first time, might be a tad difficult). AND ... though it's reported to "work flawlessly" in IE, I only get a "undetermined" javascript error in my IE version (6.0.2900.2180) when I try to read a post. :(

However ... if you're lucky enuff to be a member (and have commenting privileges) ... you'll be happy to know that your email is STILL shown on the page with a "mailto:" link.

Watch out for validation errors, though, because there are a "few".

Elmo gives "Lightality" a big thumbs UP, but then again, he's just a stuffed animal. My review is more harsh, but worry naught ... since very few can actually READ the entries, whatever point poor Ben wanted to make, will rest securely locked in his beautiful JPG website. :|

Ok, I've had a tad of a play under the hood of the download manager plugin and it now has two hooks.

If you want to log a download then use h[x]ttp://download/<file path/name>

If you just want to protect a file (such as images etc) from hotlinking then use h[x]ttp://protected/<file path/name>

All files just get uploaded to media/blogs/chat/protected/<path to file>

I changed the media dir to put it back in the webroot as the filemanager throws a fit if I put it above webroot (must remember to bring that one up on the dev list).

Coming soon :-
Two more "hooks" [am_dl_percent <file path/name>] and [am_dl_count <file path/name>] these will return numbers and can be used as straight text or part of an img url:-

This file has been downloaded [am_dl_count <file path/name>] times

<img src='h[x]ttp://skin/img/[am_dl_percent <file path/name>]percent.jpg' />

Ohh yeah, and I need to render h[x]ttp://skin/ as '' to allow for urls relative to SkinBase().

¥

I'm thinking that this would make for a good article for folks. I know, for me, I was actually "afraid" of upgrading, b/c I was gonna lose my core hacks and thought it was gonna be forever to get them back.

Having upgraded from Paris (our first b2evo install) -> Dawn and then -> v1.6 ... all recently, has taught me a better way to keep track.

Basically, what I do is this:

1. In a mirrored directory tree, I make a local copy of a core file that I'm about to modify and rename it _coreFile-ORIG.php
2. In my editor, I hack the file the way I want and save it as _coreFile-MOD.php
3. When I upgrade, I then have a list of my "hacked" files that I can use a differencing program (like WinMerge, which I use and like).
4. PLUS, I have the added benefit, if needed, of reverting back to the original file-state, if I really mess up my hackage or something.

Do either of you have a way of managing core hacks? (or suggestions/additions)? (This is really more a question for Danny and/or Ed, because I know that Blabba is a cowboy and probably doesn't have a method at all. :p )

The only thing that I've wanted in mine, is a relative level of importance (some core hacks are minor ... some critical). It would be nice to know which is which, so that WHEN I do upgrade, I can do the critical ones first ... though I usually do a parallel install with a copy of the DB and wait to go "live" till all core hacks are accounted for.

 function DisplayHelp ( & $params )
        {
        ?>
Docs go here.  
<?php 
}

                echo '<div style="float:right">';
                echo $this->get_help_link('#');
                echo '</div>';

                echo $this->get_help_link('#installation'); 

                echo $this->get_help_link( '#', '', true); 

Ok, the On Deck blog was starting to get a tad confused and untidy with the mixture of fluffy articles in progress and "chat" style posts between ourselves, so I decided that we should have a dedicated blog for those "I've been thinking" style posts.

¥

Here's a plugin idea I've been thinking about, but I don't know if it's possible or anyone would want it.

A rating system

The use case that I'm thinking of is plugins.b2evolution.net. It would be nice if I could post a plugin description there, then users could rate it. Out of 5 stars or 10 points, or better yet something that could be defined in the plugin settings (I give this post 645 out of 666 demons, or 37 out of 42 cups of tea). Each user rating could be submitted along with a comment. Or it could be done another way. But the post would always show the average of all the user ratings. You would also want ways to sort posts by rating. Maybe list the top five rated posts in the sidebar.

I don't know if there are plugin hooks that could make this happen. I guess you could use the Install event to add a rating column to the comments table, then use SkinTags to do the rest. What do you think?

Once again I just thought I'd bring all y'all up to speed.

Now that we've started to publish posts, and ping to the world, I've disabled all skins and feeds except the am skin and the rss2 feed until I have a chance to hack the other skins to use our "just show non members first page" bits, and the other feeds to just show teasers.

When I get round to it, I'll do a default install that we can use to show off our skins without having to hack them all to do the "only show non-members first page" bits and other stuff. I'll also start coding in the logic for "special posts" that show off the features of any skin etc.

Talking of plugins (and skins), since the beta seems to be imminent (lol, where have I heard that before?), should we hold off on releasing any skins/plugins until it's released? Otherwise we need to code for 1.6 alpha and 1.# beta as these will be the public releases that people will be using.

If we decide to release and code for 1.6 alpha then we won't be able to release certain plugins, Dannys weather plugin and our code plugin are examples of ones who's minimum requirements are higher than 1.6 alpha.

Anyway, as always, let me know what all y'all think ;)

¥

First off, just to help Danny get up to speed, Super Blog is an attempt to get a blog to be a forum without any core hacks.

Right, now you know as much as we do here's my thoughts :-

We need a way of differentiating between forum blog(s) and normal blogs, so far I'm going along the lines of :-

• Each forum = seperate blog
• Stubfile = superblog.php (or whatever)
• tagline = forum name
• long desc = form description
• full name = forum group
• Shortname = "forum"

My thinking is - if we use seperate blogs for each forum, then we can assign group permissions (in bo) which enables us to have "anybody", "members only", "staff only" etc, which is a major forum feature. I'm also considering making all posts protected, which will keep them out of the all blog (which I know we don't use here). If I did this then I'd create a pseudo login for "guests". I thought about using categories for the forums but then we'd have to piss about trying to hack in descriptions and all the permissions stuff.

I still need to work a way to make "posting" easy (ie, from front page with no choice of blog/cat [would be current blog]), and of course we'd need to enable plugins for comments (smilies, bbcode, code etc)

Ideally I'd like to make this a set of plugins, but I think the reality is that it's much easier to make an uber custom skin, but we'll see

Anyway, if either of you have any thoughts on the matter just let me know

¥

I couldn't resist trying this out

PS. Is this the right place to propose stuff like this, or should I just send an email?

1. Finish the backoffice part so that a site that only wants one set of weather settings can just store them in the database. If other blogs on the site want different settings, they can be done in the skin. Maybe the backoffice page can take their settings via a form, and generate the code they need to paste into the skin.
Edit: Done. This can all be done in the backoffice now.
2. Set up some kind of caching.EDIT: Done. My plugin now caches to the database.

Automatic update checker

Ok, this is gonna take a tad of work, but it'll be worth it.

We need to create a db table and admin page for uploading plugins/skins and entering them into the db with a "current version" number. I can code the logic required into our current plugins, it won't actually do anything until I code the update plugin but it means that they'll be "update enabled". We also need to add a file to all of our skins (so that the update checker can "grab" their version and check them as well).

I'm thinking of keeping this plugin as a current members only function.

I'll hammer on with the toolbar coding first though, as that's needed before the code plugin can be released.

Basin skin

First off, great skin Danny :D, validates as strict and the css (although it has a shedload of warnings) validates as well :D

You did have a tad of an error with your black/white code, but if you change it to this it works :-

<div class="bPost<?php if ( isset( $black) and $black ){echo 'Black'; $black = false; } else { $black = true; } ?>" xml:lang="<?php $Item->lang() ?>">

(Damn, that code plugin rocks ;))

One other thing to note, until I convert the comment form to our random fields version it won't work here, so you'll need to use the astonishme one to make comments (not finished nebula skin so comments wont work from their either)

We also need to hack in the custom css/title stuff and do the info icons for this skin (lol, and I bet you thought it was finished huh Danny :p), but that's all custom to here and wont affect the released skin

Then we just need one of you to write a fluffy article to go with the skin

Am toolbar

I'll (hopefully) have this coded up and working on the code plugin by the end of the day, it should be the last of the work required for it. It's mainly a matter of doing all the js logic, but I can steal some of that from the quicktags plugin.

Anyway, I hope you two lazy arses enjoyed sleeping whilst poor old me worked my fingers to the bone :|

Have fun

¥

How about using a mix of hard-coded links and category listing for the sidebar?

Presently, when you go to "Home" you see:

Categories

ALL (Newest->Oldest)
Articles (0)
  Antispam (0)
  CSS (0)
  Web Design (0)
  XHTML (0)
Blubberton (0)
News (1)

Yuck! Seems like visitors should see somthing like what's below, instad.

I'm not quite sure how to do this in b2evo and it's quite different from our own menu system on Randso, as I just have a simple cat/sub-cat thing. We could do that here, using the types (plugins, articles, etc) as the main cat ... but then each main cat would ahve to have the same (and a really long list) of sub-cats (by topic) ... which doesn't seem either efficient or make for a very good list of cats on the sidebar.

Was thinking a FLAT cat structure where the main cat is the type and the topics are "extras", when making a post.

Will that work?

Front Page

I'm not sure what to do here. We have a "home" blog, but really, what is the content going to be. It seems we either need a static front page ... maybe it can be a "home" blog, with a few never-changing articles "about us" type stuff. OR we could go the other way and make it a blog all and have it update anytime we add new content anywhere? Dunno.

Regardless of content, we need to add some pleasing graphics or summat to the page, so it looks a tad nicer and inviting (looks very plain right now).

<?php
echo 'hello world';
echo 'smilies are fun ;) :) :( => :O';
?>

<script type="text/javascript">
window.alert('the [xb] tag in bbcode produces [b]bold[/b] text ;)');
</script>

Competing In the Same Space?

Ben Lupton ... owner of Lightality

Claim: "Bringing a Rich Experience to Blogging"

Goal: To try and make skinning just as easy and feature packed as creating a post. This will be achieved by attempting to design a "CMS for skinning" by including a "Lightality" tag inside the blog properties. (I think he means 'tab' ... but who's quibbling with the master?) The tab will include the following sections: About, General, Settings and Look-and-Feel - which, in turn, will include: Color Themes, Layouts, Posts & panels.

When: Christmas Eve ... because "I'm heading for a month-long holiday to Europe" (Watch out there Yabba ;) )

Claims to have the Lightality Skin released on Oct. 24th, 2005, but waiting for Christmas release so can work on 'problems' and CMS. A preview of the CMS can be found here.

1) (4/3/2 Columns) - only seen pics of 3 and his site is 2.

2) (Show/Hide, Add/Remove, Drag/Re-Order Panels) - 1 & 3 yes, 2 yields scads of dotted boxes.

3) (Blog, Category and Author Avatars) - Seen 1 & 3 ... not 2

4) (Customizable BGs/Layouts/PostSkins/Styles/Themes) - unknown

Some untold stats:

• He claims on the Oct 24th that his site works in IE 6, but not for me.

Okay ... here is a test of the STK pop-up system. This is only a test. For the next 60 seconds ... or however long it takes for you to read the contents of this box ... or however long you keep your mouse hovered over the box (and don't read a thing) ... this box will remain open, revealing detail not included in the original document.

The content is set to "pop", when you hover yer mouse over the little icon. There are currently 4 icons, each with a differently styled background and such:

I also wanted to find one for "extra geeky detail", but haven't settled on a graphic yet. Where are the smilie faces?

Okay ... stk out!

• He has a trackback icon, but no trackback address (or permalink address for that matter) shows on individual posts. When you click the trackback link ... it indicates you need to log in to leave a message.

• The email icon, when clicked ... opens up an email client (security breach?) dunno ... no "To:" addy is filled out ;)

• Commentors won't be happy tho. Although you must be a registered user to MAKE A comment, any idiot can right click and view source to get the email address of every commentor. :p

• Ergometrics suck. Can't determine number of comments (total doesn't show till you actually VIEW comments). Can't link any articles via a permalink b/c none is displayed (and prolly wouldn't work anyway b/c of the weird js interface). New time visitors will have fun figuring out how to READ the flippin article to begin with ... and of course, as previously explained ... those with IE6, despite his claims, won't get to even if they DO figure out the one, b/c of javascript errors.

Speaking of errors ... and i'm only hashing this again because I want to document the numbers: (XHTML) - FAILS on 'transitional' and what's worse ... no character encoding is defined ... 182 XHTML errors. (CSS) - Irrelevant, b/c XHTML is so badly screwed up.

Two more things: (1) TABLES layout? Gimme a break (2) Got JS turned off? Site is little more than a JPG image. :o

OKAY ... This guy scares me. Not just b/c of what he's like on the boards, but b/c i think his idea is really GREAT ... just his execution sucks (and of course, he has no real clue). What do you think of an idea like he's describing, where one can basically build an object-oriented skin from a back office tab? The big problem that i see with it: to allow the kind of flexibility that would suit 80% of people's personal wants/desires/needs ... the interface would be too cumbersome for the average joe. But still ... esp if color and images could be customized ... it would seem you could hit 50% of ppls needs and still have a lightweight, user-friendly interface.

OKAY ... enough on this. I gotta de-blubbertise myself for a while ... i feel yucky all over

Egomania, Australia - Only 18 minutes after a board member thanked Danny (AKA Personman) for his quick reply and indications that he would follow up on his suggestion, Blurbberton (AKA Balupyers Buddy) chimed in with way more than two cents.

Sources confirm that Blubberton, reeling from an overdose of narcissistic empowerment, which made him feel he had invincible powers of deductive reasoning, decided that the reason the the poster, a Reggie Ryan, wanted to pull up deleted posts was to "monitor what the students have been posting."

Calls to Reggie Ryan have gone unanswered, but at this point, it is uncertain why he wants to pull up deleted posts, or even if he is a teacher a the unnamed middle school. Although ... Blubberton was cagey enough to couch his introduction with a legally-binding, "i[sic]'m guessing" and from the vocabulary, sentence construction and spelling, one might surmise that this mystery poster is, indeed, employed by the unnamed middle school.

Regardless of facts, Blubberton launched into a potential solution, (constructed mainly of off-the-top-of-a-narcissistic-high-head, half-baked thoughts, with little substance). Then, he pulls an about face, declaring the matter even too difficult for himself to solve in 5 seconds. He returns (an unknown amount of time later) to add the periods to his afore-mentioned half-baked ideas ... all presuming, of course, that the unknown poster has the authority to SPY on his students and is seeking a resurrection of posts precisely for this purpose.

An exit poll, conducted at b2evolution headquarters, outside a small French Pub, revealed mixed results.

"That BlabberMouth," one said dressed for some strange reason in a military uniform, "He's an ass."

Still, we did find supporters, though only a few. One remarked, "I just signed on with b2evolution yesterday, so what do I know?"

Taking his final, misanthropic swipe at the b2evolution crowd, a quite heady Blubberton signed off his unsolicited solution for a drug-induced premise, by listing off the various features he's managed to employ on his site.

"Lightality (4/3/2 Columns) (Show/Hide, Add/Remove, Drag/Re-Order Panels) (Blog, Category and Author Avatars) (Customizable BGs/Layouts/PostSkins/Styles/Themes)"

[And a link] - http://blog.blubberton.bimbo.biz

Our own investigation reveals that only 23% of web visitors will actually figure out which buttons are necessary to push, before Blubberton's message can be read. Further, because 90% of the browser universe still relies on IE (and even if you push the correct button, when you use IE, only a javaScript error results and the message is NEVER seen. Consequently, we conclude that Blubberton's fantastic site, built as a testament to narcissistic need, will be thankfully hidden behind a curtain of js errors and invalid code.

The final parting shot is still peeling off partying (er, working) b2evolution developers tongue's - "I've helped you, now you go help someone!" (or, more properly said: I'VE HELPED YOU, NOW YOU HELP SOMEONE!"

Our best advice ... "Go git some help yerself, Blubberton!"

While you were sleeping like a baby