For the delay in posting the new Donnybrook edition this week, y’all. Had a major automotive disaster over the weekend: apparently, either the timing chain or the camshaft broke, bending a few valves and leaving me without compression and therefore stranded until I could get a tow-truck out to drag the shattered carcass on back to the house. Been coping with that mess all week so far, which has of necessity shifted all other considerations to the back burner for the nonce.
To make matters worse, after consulting with the fine folks at Hosting Matters it seems almost certain that all those suspicious user registrations I mentioned last week are most likely the precursor moves for another catastrophic Russian hack attempt, a la the one that laid us so very low this past winter. So for now anyway, registration is disabled. I’m considering either just forgoing registration permanently or implementing a Captcha-type deal for user logins. I hate to do that, really; I know it’s a damnable pain in the ass, particularly for those of you who comment most frequently around here. So I dunno; we’ll see about that, I suppose. Maybe the absence of any login process at all for a while will be enough to persuade those nefarious creeps to look elsewhere to get their sick jollies.
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We’ll manage. Do what you need to protect the site from attack. I’m sure “they” would like to shut you up.
Agree. Captcha is a pain, but do what you need to do.
VanDerLuin (or however you spell his name…sorry) at American Digest seems to have no probs. Anyone can comment. Ya just gotta enter name + email and you are ready to roll.
WRSA does much the same, ‘cept Pete screens all comments before posting them for all to see.
What’s wrong with going in that direction?
If I had to do a captcha once a week or so no biggie.
Even if every day.
I hope not every time I check in though.
Even then, I’d still plow through it.
Any chance you could get a tie in deal? I know other sites get money from AMazon if you link through them to Amazon.
Isn’t anyone else running those programs (or Amazon, but I bet they’re assholes to deal with – Walmart I can buy as well.)?
Anyway, I give what I can when I can. I’m not poor, but two kids with college still to come and a wife and no job for 8 years means when interest rates goes to 0 and stocks get the WuFlu, it hurts.
Sympathies on the car woes. But look on the bright side: the cursed beast may be dead. Think of it as getting some needed surgery. There’s pain and expense now, but the ongoing pain is over.