a.o updates
All background stuff, but the end target is to make it easier for me to edit entries. I started working on that, and ran into the incorrectly escaped quotes problem which needed some programming, and then noticed the database is clogged with hundreds (maybe thousands) of spam entries which just made me sleepy to think about.
Duplicated database to a temp db for working: check.
Modified database, program, updater to use a more rational schema than the crap I had originally: check.
Fixed the entry form escaping quotes: check.
Cleaned up existing escaped quotes: check (see also: check).
Removed about 1500 spam entries by searching for obvious spamness: check.
Installed anti-spam filter: check, and surprisingly effective already. This is the kind of thing that’s clogging up the database; since last night I’ve gotten these. My code adds “:SPAM:” in the entry so I can see it worked, and if that test goes well, I’ll just have them quietly deleted.
Modified daily updater: check, but haven’t tested it yet.
To do: my admin interface.
March 4th, 2009 07:40
…and then you start on IADL? Or has the romance drained out of that relationship and y’all are sleeping in separate rooms now?
March 4th, 2009 08:19
….fuck. It actually hadn’t occurred to me that a.o could be spamstruck. I’m so sorry for you.
March 4th, 2009 17:24
Switfy: I hate to say this sort of thing ahead of time, lest I feel beholden to do something I don’t feel like doing, but yeah. That’s the plan. I’m working out how to do some interactive UI stuff in preparation for that.
zwit: Yah, but I have a slick way around it. The form’s clearly not being filled out by a human, it’s just a bot that finds forms on the web and drops spam into it and hopes it’s going somewhere. All I had to do was add an invisible field to the form, and flag the entry if it’s filled out. The bot sees the field and fills it, but a human wouldn’t.
March 5th, 2009 16:03
Fuck, that’s pretty ingenious.
I’d suggest discarding any submissions where /any/ field is filled out; that way you can weed out all of the crappy entries in one swoop.
March 5th, 2009 19:17
Got the preliminary bits on the admin interface done, and it’s pretty neato:
http://www.amusing.org/admin.php
It doesn’t actually edit anything, but it scrolls through the active submissions as if you were editing them. The idea is, I’ll click on one to mark it as good, and when I click “go”, it deletes everything not marked. This is worlds better than the interface I’m currently using.