Tong Family

Finally getting around to this (and lucid enough to do it). Basically, comment spam is overwhelming all my sites. 24 of the last 25 comments were spam generated. If you’re having the same problem, here is what you have to do:
# Install Movabletype Version “2.661”:http://movabletype.org. This installs a comment throttler at least. There isn’t an installer, so read the upgrade instructions carefully. The tools I used BTW are smartftp and pkunzip to get the tar.gz files and then to upload them to tqhosting.com
# Install MT “Blacklist”:http://www.jayallen.org/comment_spam/. This tools is incredibly valuable as it prevents know spam from getting in. The main issue is that there isn’t an automatic way to update the black list. Sigh.
# Install MT Blacklist “Autoupdate”:http://www.jayallen.org/comment_spam/2003/12/update_your_blacklist_now. You have to install an /etc/cron job to do this, so more work. Fortunately, Mark over at tqhosting.com has installed cpanel which makes it easy to create such a job. It basically runs at a specified URL at a specified time. YOu can use “PHPEdit”:http://www.phpedit.net/products/PHPEdit/ to edit the file.
# Install MT “Textile”:http://www.bradchoate.com/mt-plugins/textile. This is a great way to make nice looking content without having to type in HTML. Also install “SmartyPants”:http://www.daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/ if you want the curly quotes to look nice.
# Install MT “Plugin Manager”:http://manager.mt-plugins.org/. This manages the many plug-ins that MovableType has now. It does require a bunch of libraries that you can find at “Cpan”:http://search.cpan.org/