The Great WU Spam Debacle—Some Further Clarification

Thanks to Paul for giving a heads-up about the unfortunate loss of some archived comments. I thought I'd add some words as the resident WU tech-support guy to try to paint a slightly fuller picture of what happened, and hopefully allay some concerns.

First of all, the recent site redesign had nothing to do with the loss of some of the archived comments. The two are totally separate issues.

The story really begins during my two-year hiatus from active participation in the site, during which I failed to pay the close attention I should have to the functioning of the site, and so I didn't notice a massive, tumor-like mass of spam growing on the site. The problem wasn't the spam that appeared in the comments. That was only the tip of the iceberg. The real problem was the member list and the member profile pages. Many of you might not even be aware these existed... but the spammers were very aware of them. And thousands of them were registering as members every day so they could get a member profile page on which they could post spammy links in their "bios". By the time I noticed the problem, a few weeks ago, we had a quarter-million spammers registered as members.

Having that many spam members was having serious, negative consequences for the site. First, having up to 10,000 spammers registering a day was putting a big strain on the server and was slowing down the entire site. Second, the google bot was busily trying to index all these spam member pages, but was getting increasingly confused about what was the real content on the site, and was frantically indexing and re-indexing, provoking our webhost, at some point, to block the google bot entirely from the site.

So we were kind of hosed. Blocked from google and slowly being drowned in spam.

To fix the problem, the first thing I did was to block new member registration. Then I made the member profile pages non-public. Finally, I decided that all the spam members had to be deleted. The problem was how to delete the spammers while preserving the legitimate members and their comments.

I figured that the one unifying feature of all the spam members was that they hadn't left comments on the site. Instead, they had been posting the spam on the member profile pages. So I instructed the server to delete all members who had left no comments. The server churned and churned for a looooonnngg time. Finally, when it was all done, there were a couple hundred legitimate members left. And that, I thought, was the end of the matter. We were free to move forward with a clean slate.

Until Dumbfounded pointed out that a lot of old comments left by unregistered members had disappeared.

It was never my intention to delete any comments. In fact, I thought I had told the server specifically to preserve all the comments. But I'm guessing I wasn't specific enough in my instructions. I told the server to delete members who had left no comments, but I didn't say anything about NON-MEMBERS. So maybe the server interpreted my command to mean that it should delete everything EXCEPT members with comments. So all the non-registered guests got purged. That's my best guess as to what happened. Though I'm really not certain of this. The lesson is that whenever you give the server a broad, system-wide command to delete stuff, strange things can happen!

So there you have it. The Great WU Spam Debacle of 2012. At least the spam problem is far more under control than it was. So we've been left a little bruised and battered by the whole experience, but we're still standing. My apologies for the screw-up. Hopefully we can accumulate lots of great new comments to replace the old ones that are gone.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 16, 2012 - Comments (29)
Category: Weird Universe

Loss of Comments

Friends--thanks to the alertness of one of our core WU-vies, Messr. Dumbfounded, we have learned of a grievous but ineluctable Comments Implosion.

When Alex reconfigured the site and banished all the spammers, he implicitly authorized a purge of all past comments made by non-registered commenters.

A goodly number of those comments came from honest readers who had just not bothered to register. They were part of the legitimate conversation concerning previous posts.

Now they're irretrievably wiped.

We regret this accidental purge. Fully half of the pleasures of this site lies in the conversation following each post. We were thrilled to have this conversation archived for the enjoyment of all readers.

But if you recall the horrible spam problem, there seemed to be no other solution.

For now, we are still allowing comments by unregistered folks. We don't want to put up any extra barriers between readers and their public responses. But comments from unregistered folks are always less secure than those from registered WU-vies.

Thanks for your understanding and continued support.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 16, 2012 - Comments (6)
Category: Weird Universe, Alex, Reader Recommendation

What’s Changed?

Anyone who can spot something different about the homepage today wins a one-year free subscription to Weird Universe!

But in all seriousness, it's been 3 or 4 years since the site design was refreshed, so we thought it was time to tweak things a little. Biggest change was to make the top banner smaller, so that everything could be moved up a bit. The left column for the blog posts has also been made wider. Bit of color has been added to the background, etc.

Hope the new look doesn't upset the regulars too much. I'll soon get around to applying the changes to the rest of the site (comment pages, etc.), unless there's a massive protest and everyone demands the old design come back.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 06, 2012 - Comments (17)
Category: Weird Universe

Get Your WU Fix by Email

Over the weekend, I added a form to the right sidebar that allows you to get daily WU updates by email. So if you happen to forget to visit WU, no worries. We'll magically appear in your inbox.

The delivery is made by Feedburner -- which, in turn, is owned by Google. Plenty of other sites use Feedburner. It's actually one of those features I should have added to the site years ago, but better late than never.

Feedburner promises they'll never give your email address to spammers, and I've never heard any complaints about the service in that regard. I have read some complaints about the service being a bit glitchy, but we'll deal with that issue when and if it arises. I tested it over the weekend, and it all seems to be working as it should.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 20, 2012 - Comments (2)
Category: Weird Universe

Floating Volcano

Change of plans for the first WU cruise. The Kate Gosselin cruise is out. Instead we'll be sailing on the Tropical Island Paradise, built by Yacht Island Design. It features its own volcano! Once a day the volcano will erupt, shooting out deadly fireballs and streams of lava.

Of course, we'll have to wait for the ship to be built...

(via Nourishing Obscurity)

Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 07, 2012 - Comments (5)
Category: Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Weird Universe

Cardiff Giant in search of temporary home

A few weeks ago, over at the Museum of Hoaxes, I described how I came into possession of a miniature Cardiff Giant. I then decided to send it on an around-the-world tour. This involves sending it to volunteer hosts in various farflung regions who show it the sights in their neck of the woods, send me photos of its adventures, and then ship it on to the next volunteer.


The giant is currently in Perth, Austrialia, and I'm looking for people in that part of the world willing to temporarily adopt him. "That part of the world" is meant, in the broadest sense, to encompass all of Asia, Australasia, and India. Because while I've got a lot of volunteers from the U.S. and Europe, I haven't got any from anywhere else. And I'd like the giant to see as much of the world as possible.

So I'm posting here to see if there are any Weird Universe readers in exotic locales who'd like to play host to the giant. If you're interested, let me know.

Even if you live in boring-old Europe and the U.S. and you'd like to host the giant, let me know also. Because eventually the giant will be touring these regions. (possibly very soon if no one from Asia/Australia can be found.) I'll add you to the list.

Just one word of caution. If you agree to host the giant, you HAVE to send him to someone else after a few weeks. If you decide to keep him permanently, you'll incur the Curse of the Cardiff Giant, which is too awful to describe in words, though it's rumored to be similar to that melting flesh scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 06, 2012 - Comments (3)
Category: Travel, Sightseeing, Weird Universe

Rick Altergott News

What has the brilliant cartoonist Rick Altergott--who created our fabulous site banner--been up to lately?

He's started a new online strip about a young woman's romantic travails. And he's offering free sex advice!

Episode 1 here.

Episode 2 here.

Sex advice here.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 15, 2011 - Comments (2)
Category: Sexuality, Weird Universe, Comics

We had a little hiccup

Paul's post about the combo pocket-knife/revolver attracted the attention of boing boing and gizmodo, and the subsequent traffic spike promptly crashed our server, taking us offline since last night. Our apologies. I think I've got everything working again. Please return to the regular weirdness.

Update: I see Paul beat me to the explanation. But one other thing I should note. I temporarily disabled "member tracking" in order to alleviate the strain on the server. I'm honestly not quite sure what this tracks, exactly, or if we ever need to have it on at all. But the webhost told me it would help to turn it off. So I did.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Nov 16, 2011 - Comments (2)
Category: Weird Universe

Back Online!

Sorry for our downtime! When we got linked-to by BOING-BOING and GIZMODO yesterday, it swamped us!

But we're back, thanks to Tech Wizard Alex!

Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 16, 2011 - Comments (1)
Category: Technology, Weird Universe, Alex

Comments Decorum

Friends and Fellow WU-vies:

I note that some comments are trending into personal vituperation. May I ask that all offenders tone down their remarks and respect our forum....?

Otherwise, the Righteous Hammer of Wrath will have to be employed.

Thanks!

Posted By: Paul - Tue Aug 16, 2011 - Comments (9)
Category: Weird Universe, Comments