Blogs @ William and Mary

I just wrote a guide to setting up a WMBlogs.net blog to use Defensio to manage comment spam. New (and current) bloggers should definitely do this… it’s only a matter of time before evil spammers find your blog. The plugin is already installed when you create your blog, but you still have to activate it and obtain an API key from Defensio.

Since my last post, I’ve added more functionality. It’s easy to grow when you’re a newborn!

• Farms-spectagular Theme Pack  has increased the number of themes available by a couple orders of magnitude
• Added New/Updated/Active blogs widgets to this metablog
• Changed the theme here. That header image was distractingly huge! This new theme was easily customized with a W&M image to boot

I’ve also contacted the folks at Defensio to double-check where we fit in their licensing scheme. Defensio is a promising alternative to Akismet. Both are automated comment-spam-fighting tools. I’ve used Akismet with great success, but unfortunately for multi-user applications they want a monthly fee. Unless I’m reading the licensing wrong, I think we can use Defensio at no charge unless our host here becomes wildly popular.

There’s still plenty to do, but the lack of problems so far is keeping me excited & hopeful.