5 posts tagged “wordpress news”

Most WordPress blogs are protected by the best anti-spam triangle of comment spam defenders: Bad Behavior, Spam Karma 2 and Akismet.

However, little or nothing is available to help prevent registration spam.

Registration spam differs from comment spam as it comes through the WordPress login form, not blog comments. WordPress blogs which require registration to comment, contribute, or participate have little or no protection from spammers hammering away at their registration forms.

There are WordPress Plugins for contact forms which include spam protection such as WordPress Contact Form with Spam Protection Plugin Project Page, based upon Ryan Duff’s popular WordPress Contact Form. But a contact form isn’t your blog’s registration, thus doesn’t help.

There are several WordPress Plugins and hacks which will block registration attempts based upon a blacklist. The problem with this is that you have to put the blacklist together and keep it updated. Spammers are constantly changing their IP addresses and other information to get past blacklists which seem to be obsolete before they are published. This method is a nice band aid, but it isn’t effective in the long run.

There are also some hacks to the WordPress code you can use to put a form of CAPTCHA or test into the Registration screens from Exile from Groggs and Raz-Soft. This involves changing the core programming code for WordPress, something few want to do.

There is also the Themed Login WordPress Plugin which allows the administrator to “theme” the WordPress login, adding words and design elements to customize the look, but it doesn’t add any way of testing the registrant for validity.

There is an idea on the WordPress Ideas pages for improving WordPress registration protection in the core programming. Because this issue applies to so many, any WordPress blog with more than one blogger, required registration to comment or contribute, and private blogs, I think it’s a good idea.

My recommendation would be to get Akismet to cover registration as well as comments.

As a last resort, many are hunting for a WordPress Plugin that will add a CAPTCHA or quiz test to the registration login form for WordPress. I’ve not found one. Have you?

Is this an issue that you have to deal with on your WordPress blog? If so, and you’d like to see something added to the WordPress core programming, let your voice be heard on the idea post for improving WordPress registration protection.

Site Search Tags: wordpress tips, akismet, bad behavior, spam karma, comment spam, registration spam, anti-spam, security, blog security, wordpress security, captcha, prevent registration spam, blog registration
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

A WordPress Podcast Meetup will be Friday, July 20 at 1PM at the Crossroads Cafe, 699 Delancey Street (close to the Embarcadero and Pier 38) for WordPress and WordPress Community Podcast fans in anticipation of WordCamp 2007.

This news comes from The WordCamp Report, a great source for information on WordCamp 2007. Authored by Charles Stricklin of the WordPress Community Podcast and Patrick Havens, it is stuffed with a growing number of posts about the upcoming event in San Francisco.

I can assume that there might be some live reports from the conference on this blog, too.

Recent posts include:

• WordPress Podcast Meetup
• Lorelle VanFossen is Speaking?
• Who is Donncha O Caoimh?
• Who is Charles Stricklin?
• Who is Mark Jaquith?
• So who is Matt Mullenweg?
• WordCamp 2007 Registration Closes… no wait its back up!
• The Casting Call

Site Search Tags: wordcamp, wordpress, wordpress conference, wordcamp reports, wordcamp news, wordpress news
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

James Farmer of Incorporated Subversion and Edublogs announces WPMUDEV Premium.

Before you run thinking this a terrifying new language, WPMUDEV stands for WordPressMU Development Premium, a “custom” version of WordPressMU, the extraordinary blogging platform that has morphed into that which runs Edublogs, similar to WordPress.com.

James Farmer and Andrew Billits have put together WPMUDEV Premium based upon what they developed with Edublogs and their associated blogging services, like learnerblogs for school students, uniblogs.org for university and college students, and eslblogs for those involved in teaching English as a second language and English as a foreign language.

WordPressMU is not appropriate for those who wish to have multiple blogs or the average WordPress blogger. WordPressMU is designed for memberships, associations, groups, and companies to bring blogs to their members and employees.

Before WordPress.com was Edublogs, the first fully functional version of WordPressMU to be put to the test. WordPress.com has built up their WordPressMU model to include over 1 million bloggers and many WordPress.com VIP Hosted blogs including several from CNN and Yahoo. Farmer and Billits have taken and expanded the WordPressMU program to host four different free blogging services with tens of thousands of bloggers from all over the world and all ages, and they want to bring that expertise to other groups and businesses for a modest support and development fee.

James Farmer and Andrew Billits have developed a variety of hacks and customization features, along with some excellent WordPress Plugins for WordPressMU into a support package deal. All the work has been done, including over two years of development and testing. With so much of the work being done, there is little the administrator has to do other than administrative monitoring and decisions. The hardest work will be recruiting new bloggers - oh, and explaining what a blog is.

This is a joint project between Andrew Billits and myself that aims to find a way to provide complex custom plugins, materials, hacks and support for WordPress MultiUser (WPMU) for a fraction of the amount you’d have to pay a developer.

It’s already stuffed full of goodies; there’s the multi-database code that’s used on Edublogs (happily supporting 50,000 blogs on the one domain), mu-plugins to give you the lowdown on all your user activity (active users, posts, comments and more!), unbranded support videos for you to use on your WPMU site and a new bumper theme pack with uploadable headers a gogo.

And lots, lots, lots, more… which we’re going to be adding to all the time.

Plus there are comprehensive support forums to back up all of the code there.

Trust me, there is a lot of work involved in developing such a multi-user blogging system, especially with all the bells and whistles James and Andrew have put together.

WPMUDEV Premium is actually very affordable. They have a monthly pricing schedule which begins by the month at USD $50 and then scales back for a year of program and support for $250, a $350 savings off the monthly rate.

Here are the features with more on the way:

• Multiple Databases
• Mass Email Service
• WordPress Theme Packs
• Support for hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands…who knows how many blogs
• A Variety of WordPress Plugins which add more features such as:
  • Blog Activity Monitor
  • Administration Ads
  • Administration Messages
  • User Activities
  • Avatars
  • Friends (connecting blog users)
• Customer Support
• Upgrade Support

You can learn more about what is offered in their new FAQ and expect more information on WordPressMU Development Premium as this grows and expands.

Again, this is not for typical bloggers. This is for groups and businesses who want to bring blogs to their members.

Related Articles

• James Farmer Takes on Edublogs.org Full-Time
• Are Blog Comments Getting You Down?
• The Wonderful World of WordPress Products
• One Year Anniversary Review: Blogging About Bloggers
• Edublogs.org - Providing Free Blogs to Educators and Students
• One Year Anniversary Review: In the Beginning WordPress Begot WordpressMU Begot Wordpress.com

Site Search Tags: james farmer, wordpressmu, wordpress multiuser, multi-user blogs, andrew billets, wpmudev premium, wordpressmu development, wordpressmu premium, professional blogs, professional business blogs, corporate blogs, membership blogs
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Matt Mullenweg has made the WordPress policy on sponsored WordPress Themes official:

Before WordCamp all sponsored themes should be removed from http://themes.wordpress.net.

He’s not alone. Mark Ghosh on Weblog Tools Collection declared that he would no longer feature sponsored WordPress Themes on Weblog Tools Collection, one of the most important sources for news on new WordPress Themes.

In theory, this means that all WordPress Themes listed on the WordPress Theme Viewer, the official source for WordPress Themes, and those in the Codex WordPress Theme List which contain sponsored links, will be removed by July 21, 2007, unless their authors remove them first.

For more information on previous discussions of the issue of sponsored WordPress Themes, see:

• Plugin Authors Get No Love
• Weblog Tools Collection featuring Matt Mullenweg - On Sponsored Themes
• WordPress Idea Discussion to remove sponsored themes
• Sassy Lawyer - Sponsored WordPress Themes
• xMark Blog - WordPress Theme Sponsorship
• WP Designer - Deteriorating Theme Community
• WPDesigner - My Take on Sponsored Themes
• One Woman Show - On sponsored themes
• Buzzroid - Wordpress: Beware The Sponsored Link Theme - Do You Know Where Your PageRank Is Going?
• Matt Cutts - Text links and PageRank
• h4X3d.com - Theme Ethics
• h4×3d.com - Theme Ethics Part 2
• Weblog Tools Collection - Sponsored Themes
• Blog Herald - Sponsored WordPress Themes: A Great Business Model
• Spontaneous Monotony - Wordpress sponsored themes controversy
• Sassy Lawyer - I Vote To Remove Sponsored Themes from WordPress.org
• Webernet Architect - Tempest in a Teacup or Baby Momma Drama Over Sponsored Templates
• HeadSetOptions - The Other Point of View – A Designers Opinion on Sponsored Themes
• TailRank - On Sponsored Themes
• TailRank - Remove Sponsored Themes from WordPress.org
• Technorati - Sponsored Themes Tags

Site Search Tags: wordpress news, wordpress themes, sponsored themes, wordpress sponsored themes, sponsored wordpress themes, matt mullenweg, official wordpress news, weblog tools collection
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

There has recently been some confusion over the issue and types of WordPress blogs. Here is a brief summary to help you understand which is which, what you can do with each, to help you choose your ideal WordPress blog system.
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