syrinx

So! Welcome to the new (old) Syrinx site! In order to restore comments I've had to reconstruct the site on another web host. For the moment the old site is still there, but I've put in a redirect to this new site. So you may notice funny URLs for a while.

I'll leave it like this for a bit until I'm sure everything is functioning properly, then I'll have the domain tranferred to this new web host.

tags: syrinx comments administartion webhosting

A quick update to the amazing disappearing comments: our hosting company has insisted that we upgrade our Drupal to avoid security issues. I wanted to avoid THAT, as I spent a lot of time getting this site to look just the way I wanted. Upgrading will necessitate my reworking the Syrinx theme, not a simple process. Also, the Drupal upgrade process itself is quite tedious, especially since we're a few versions behind the latest and greatest.

tags: syrinx drupal security upgrade versions administration

This site is currently under a slow spam attack. Some stupid spammer is posting comments with scintillating titles such as "free amatuer online porn pics" several times a minute. Of course, none of it gets published because of the spam filter we have. This filter has a convenient "suspected spam" list that allows me to delete the offending comments in one swell foop.

Unfortunately, it's not quite sure about these comments and just puts them in the moderation queue. This queue doesn't have the swell foop functionality, so I'm having to delete these messages individually. On a slow Internet connection. So far I've deleted over 200 spam comments, but they're still coming in. It's very much like walking up a down escalator: you eventually get there, but it takes far longer than it should.

tags: syrinx site spam filter

I've been thinking that with the increase in posting and the widening of the forum topic list, the relevance of the front page of this site has decreased. It's become a long list of mostly unrelated previews. What do the members here (or anyone else who wants to chime in) think of reserving the front page for site news, such as this very note, or the addition of new members or content? The rest of the site's content is easily accessible through the top navigation, and the latest entries are always in the right-hand blocks. Individual blogs can be accessed from the block on the left as well. Also, there are two ways of keeping informed of new content: email notifications and RSS/Atom feeds. There seems to be little reason to have every new entry pop up on the front page. It creates some confusion as well, as it's not obvious that these posts are coming from different people and different parts of the site. Any thoughts or opinions on this matter?

tags: syrinx configuration site

I've just finished putting the finishing touches on the Syrinx Drupal theme. I think it worked out quite well, and fairly accurately represents my design sensibilities.

Of course, nothing software- or design-related is ever really finished, so there will be the inevitable minor adjustments here and there. But for the most part, this is how our site will look for the forseeable future.

tags: syrinx drupal theme