Updated July 10, 2005:
I discarded many antispam restrictions on July 8, and I hope that commenting is becoming easier.
The tradeoff is that I will probably discontinue “trackbacks” — the feature that you may see on some XGW pages, where other bloggers (and spammers) can automatically publish links to their own sites.
While my software successfully prevents spammers’ trackbacks from being published, I am still receiving 900 trackback spams per day — and I am being docked for the bandwidth consumed by those incoming spams. The bandwidth theft does not yet exceed my monthly allowance, but things are trending in that direction. There is a technical means to block bandwidth theft, but that block (along with an overly aggressive limit on commenters’ hyperlinks) was preventing legitimate comments earlier in the week.
In short: If you write a blog and you wish to post a trackback on Ex-Gay Watch to a related page on your own site, please post a comment instead. Better yet — join in the discussion.
According to Eartha Melzer’s article on The Blade:
“The Tennessee Department of Health has sent a letter to Love in Action notifying the group that it is suspected of operating illegally,…” (1)
“…the [Tennessee] Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities has also begun research on Love in Action and is writing a letter of inquiry to the facility to determine whether an official investigation is warranted.”(1)
More suprisingly, ex-gay promoters have also raised questions about Love In Action and forced treatment. According to the article, Throckmorton “…believes that Love in Action is mixing ministry with treatment and that people can be damaged by sexual reorientation therapies offered by unprofessional practitioners.
“Throckmorton emphasized that while a parent might compel a teen to attend church, a professional counselor is bound to obtain informed consent from a client and should not treat a minor solely because his parents are upset about his sexual orientation.”(1)
“[Dr. Mark Yarhouse, Regent University] said that it is unethical to treat a minor against his or her will.”(1)
The Melzer’s article also speculates how LIA is able to bill insurance companies.
Norm!
(1) “>https://www.washblade.com/2005/7-1/news/national/tenopen.cfm
Well, now… maybe not death row.
I just think it would be appropriate to have all the spammer’s personal information listed on the web: home address, phone number, cell number, social security number, work address, parent’s and sibling’s info, etc. etc.
If they had absolutely no privacy whatsoever and were bombarded every day with annoying interuptions (and I for one would help make that happen) then I think that would be fair punishment.
It has become virtually impossible to post here. I’ll read the posts, but I won’t waste the time trying to comment.
Raj, it would help me out if you could provide specifics:
Are your messages going to moderation or are they being deleted? If they are being deleted, what time of day and how often?
I do see that you’re reposting the same comment numerous times after the first one goes to moderation. Each succeeding duplicate message goes to moderation. Instead, please be patient with the first one.
I promise to log in more often to release moderated messages.
Thanks for trying to get things running more smoothly Mike.One thing seems odd — the “you’ve been sent to the moderation queue” mentions it’s because the poster hasn’t been recognised. I assume with TypeKey and previous posts I would be… but whenever a post with links (ie a post of the form that’s been requested) happens… I join that queue.Apart from being a PITA, it must be frustrating for the XGW gang to be bogged down releasing them.
Mike, the comments seem to be going to moderation, but I can’t tell.
I understand that the site is being spammed, which is a severe problem, but significant delays in posting legitimate comments make discussion difficult. Other sites require a commenter to enter a “security code” (usually six digit) before the comment will be posted. You might want to consider that.
You could try runnning comments through Haloscan or another commenting service. I had very similar problems when trying to run WordPress on my site, and ended up switching to Blogger over it, but Haloscan seems to keep things in line.
I use haloscan which has worked very well for me. Somehow they seem to avoid the spam problem, but then nobody reads my blog.
As for trackbacks, I doubt that many people will miss them when they’re gone. They haven’t really take off the way many of us thought they would.