I have been accused of being a curmudgeon by more than a few people who know me well. Perhaps I deserve it, based upon the intensity with which I approach writing. Also, I too often fall into the trap of seeing the world as a set of problems needing to be solved rather than an experience to be enjoyed. Though it is likely true that I am not a prototypical “happy” person, it would be horribly inaccurate to assume that I am unhappy. I hope that the “not unhappy” side of me also occasionally shows through in my posts.
I truly appreciate the many opportunities and challenges life has thrown my way. I am lucky to have found so many people who have influenced me in so many good and important ways, not the least of which are my wonderful wife and daughters. I am also extremely lucky that I have met so many people who have taken the time to challenge my ideas and thereby teach me important lessons. Many of these people who have made me a better thinker and writer are those of you who have taken the time to contribute comments to this blog or send me notes via e-mail. Truly, thank you.
About a year ago, “Grumpypilgrim” and I had a well-established routine: we traded ideas and book recommendations by email on almost a daily basis. I suggested to Grumpy that we should start a blog to see if anybody else might show some interest in the sorts of topics that interested us. Grumpy was a wee bit tentative. With the incredibly generous help of Nick Smith (of www.nicksmithdesign.com), however, this blog made its first appearance on the Internet back in February 2006. We didn’t begin posting with any regularity until March, 2006. In those early days, someone we didn’t know personally sometimes actually posted a comment. Grumpy and I celebrated many of those early comments with commemorative phone calls (grumpy lives in Madison and I live in St. Louis).
One by one, we invited other people to join us as authors, people who shared our passion for writing and who shared our interest in the sorts of topics and ideas we feature on this blog. Currently, fourteen different authors have appeared on the blog. What they bring to this blog (as you can see from the “About” page) is a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds that are manifested in their writings. The authors write because they love to write. As you can see from the site, we don’t advertise. Therefore, this blog does not make any revenue with which to compensate the authors for their dedication. What you see at this blog, then, is a labor of love by all concerned. For some additional background on why this blog exists, check out one of my earlier posts, “Why I Blog.”
It occurred to me that some of the readers might be interested in knowing how much this blogging community has grown since March, when we had 53 visits for the entire month. Through the month of November, 2006, this blog is receiving a daily average of 1,500 visits. More than 5,000 pages are downloaded daily from the site. This surprises and delights me, of course. I am pleased that the topics that have long interested me have been presented here in a way that so many others find worthwhile.
Through the history of this blog, the authors have written more than 500 posts, which have received in excess of 2000 comments. During that same time period (March, 2006 through the present), the blog has also received more than 6000 comment-spams. This ever-increasing amount of spam might require us to take some steps to combat the spam. I certainly hope that whatever steps we are forced to take (we are considering several possibilities) will not in any way discourage anyone from joining us with their comments.
In closing, I wanted to use this Thanksgiving holiday to thank each of those people who have taken the time to contribute posts and comments to this blog, as well as those who have visited this blog or recommended this site to others. I have been overwhelmed by this little success story, and I truly appreciate that this writing community exists.
We’re just getting warmed up here at Dangerous Intersection. There’s a lot more to come.
Thank you once again for being part of this endeavor.
Erich
Most spammers just send blind post packets to the server. That is, they don't bother to load a post before sending a response.
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May I suggest a simple math entry requirement? Generate a few dozen single-digit addition and subtraction problems as gif files with encoded names, and require a potential poster to provide the answer in a short field. This will stop all but the most obsessively motivated spammer.
It may be good enough to just present text problems, since this is not a high profile spamming opportunity. Just as long as the hidden field with the answer cue can't be parsed for the answer (use a lookup table).
Rotate the lookup table daily (the relationship between code and answer) to prevent anyone permanently associating a key with an answer.
If this appeals to you, tell me what language and database, and I can write the code.
Or (and this was my last thought) just use one of the many prepackaged anti-spam tools for wordpress. Had I thought to RTFM, I might not have thought and written so much here. Well, Submit Comment…
You guys obviously have a great site here. I suggest you folks try and branch out a bit more, if you already haven't. By that I mean explore some of these other websites, or create a dozen more, one for each author or something like that. Just kinda brainstorming, I stumbled upon you guys and I like what I see so far. It's very possible that I could have never encoutered this site, I think. The spamming seems to be a fact of life, but I think an "evolving" website may combat it. By that I mean possibly moving the home page, adding another main portal with an equally (or better 🙂 ) title. Or, you can just keep it a nice little place too. I'm kinda torn now. Good Luck, Happy Turkey Slaughter Day (i dont know what that last comment means but it felt right)