There has been a change in commenting at the Den.
From now on, every time you enter a comment, you will be required to put in an anti-spambot code (A.K.A. Captcha.)
This code is a string of randomly generated numbers presented as an image. It is readable by humans, but not machines. (This is something called a Turing Test, named after English mathemetician and computer scientist Alan Turing.)
In other words, those spambots are hosed.
I realize that this may present problems to a few readers who are blind or visually impaired, and who rely on text readers to navigate the web. For that, I truly apologize. If you wish to post a comment, please feel free to e-mail it to me at thief AT thiefsden DOT net.
Now, for the techies...
The captcha patch I am using, S-Code, was designed by James Seng, who I want to thank for his ingenuity and help. I had some technical problems during the install, which I traced back to the fact that I was using Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist, which had taken over commenting. Thus, in addition to applying James' patch to Comments.pm, I also had to patch Blacklist.pm. (Thanks to jca at James Seng's weblog who suggested this.) Unfortunately, no piece of technology being perfect, I am seeing some weird code being displayed at the bottom of my comment pages.
MT::App::Comments=HASH(0x810a494) print() on closed filehandle MT::SCode::OUTFILE at lib/MT/SCode.pm line 50.
MT::App::Comments=HASH(0x810a494) print() on closed filehandle MT::SCode::OUTFILE at lib/MT/SCode.pm line 50.
In addition, I cannot run mt-blacklist to get it to work without it generating the following error:
An error occurred: Global symbol "$q" requires explicit package name at extlib/jayallen/Blacklist.pm line 3112. Global symbol "$app" requires explicit package name at extlib/jayallen/Blacklist.pm line 3113. Global symbol "$app" requires explicit package name at extlib/jayallen/Blacklist.pm line 3113. Global symbol "$q" requires explicit package name at extlib/jayallen/Blacklist.pm line 3120. Global symbol "$q" requires explicit package name at extlib/jayallen/Blacklist.pm line 3121. Global symbol "$app" requires explicit package name at extlib/jayallen/Blacklist.pm line 3124. Global symbol "$app" requires explicit package name at extlib/jayallen/Blacklist.pm line 3124. Global symbol "$app" requires explicit package name at extlib/jayallen/Blacklist.pm line 3134. Compilation failed in require at mt-blacklist.cgi line 29.
If there is anyone out there who is well-versed in Perl or MT who can help me out, please contact me by e-mail and I can send you my source code and any other relevant information.
UPDATE 04/05/05: Problem Solved. Thanks to Jessica for the tip.
Posted by Thief at August 8, 2004 05:01 PM