This fellow from the UK convinced me to give Mollum a try: Tackling Comment Spam on Drupal.

Mollum was created by the guy who founded Drupal and Talk of the Sound is a Drupal site so this made good sense.

We also added in a module that blocks anonymous comments that contain hyperlinks (which is usually what spammers added to their comments).

Commenting may change a bit and you might occasionally be asked to complete a captcha but this should help block spam freeing us up to approve legitimate comments quicker.

Blog Editor or Weblog Client are synonymous terms for software you run on your local machine (desktop) that lets you post to your blog. In some cases, the Weblog Client can even manage your weblog entries. You might think of Weblog Clients as the equivalent of email clients such as Outlook and Eudora Mail but instead of pushing "send" you push "publish". Essentially, the Blog Editor or Weblog Client allows you to write a post even if you are off-line; then, the next time you connect to the Internet, you can publish that post.

Blog Editor or Weblog Client software offers several advantages over posting directly into the blog via a web browser: the ability to save drafts, a nicer interface, fancy formatting features, features like cross-posting to multiple blogs, faster uploading and addition of photos, the ability to keep local backup.

To learn more, read What is a Blog Editor or Weblog Client?. Then read Top 5 Reasons to Use an Offline Blog Editor.

RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS Feed includes full or summarized text or audio attachments (podcasts) and video attachments (video podcasts). By subscribing to an RSS feed readers get timely updates from their favorite websites and can aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, mobile device or any computerized Internet-connected device.

Wikipedia has a helpful entry on RSS that tells you what RSS is all about. Google/YouTube has some good videos that explain RSS and RSS Readers. For a quick, light-hearted overview, watch RSS in Plain English. For a rich, detailed how-to guide, watch What is RSS? from the Peoria, AZ school district.

How do I pick an RSS Reader?

There are many choices available but the first decision is whether to select a web-based or desktop-based reader. Each offers different benefits.

The purpose of a blog post title or "headline" is to get potential readers to read the first line of your content. Write a captivating and intruiging title and you’ll draw people into reading it every time. Remember, just as in a traditional newspaper, blog readers tend to skim headlines to find posts that appear to be important to them. The right words in the title are the difference between being read and being ignored so don't rush.

Headlines these days are just as important as the post itself — with users skimming through their large list of RSS feeds or social media links, the headline is your only chance to grab their attention. Headlines for blog posts matter on multiple levels - they are what appears in search engine results, RSS feeds, links from other bloggers, social media sites, web site archives. Often, the only thing that people see and the sole thing that people make the decision to visit your post on.

Why Register?

• Commenting: You cannot comment without registering. By registering, your comments appear immediately, your account name appears besides each comment and you get your own blog.




• Blogging: Any articles or "posts" you submit to your blog will appear immediately on the home page in the upper right corner under "Last 10 Articles" where it will remain until pushed down the list by more recent posts. Blogs will be promoted in several ways: in the left rail as "featured posts", in the list of RSS Feeds, in category-based aggregators in the Table of Contents in the right rail, sorted by subjects like Sports, Politics, and Education.

Will People Know Who I Am?