Because I’d done a hard install the first time around, this meant I couldn’t use the one click install application. Thus, in order to use it and make my life easier in the long term, I had to start fresh. Naturally, it had been a while since I’d done any backend work on Dark Culture, so I forgot the cardinal rule of updates. BACK UP, BACK UP, AND BACK UP! ALWAYS! I did not. Thus, I lost anything that had been posted to the new version of Dark Culture. Let’s forget about the last 10 years of content that is sitting somewhere gathering dust waiting to be restored and probably never will.

So what does this all mean for Dark Culture? Not a whole lot, really. Frankly, my heart hasn’t been in Dark Culture for a while now. I enjoy doing the podcasts and occasionally posting news, but that’s about it. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a review and truth be told, Dark Culture has been half ass for a few years now. And that right there makes me sad. Dark Culture was always a labor of love. I tried making money at it, but it just never happened. I could never get enough advertising to simply pay for the hosting. Readership suffers when you make major changes or are down for long periods of time, so I can’t imagine all that many people read it on a regular basis. Statistics tell me that when I upload a new podcast, I get some good traffic – even if no one comments or gives me feedback. However, the way search engines a’plenty spider my site, it could just be fluff traffic and not anyone legitimate.

*sigh* So what will become of Dark Culture? I recall spending countless hours working on the site, updating, chasing after writers, laboring over content…I remember staying up until the sun rose on some nights. I can’t put that kind of effort into it anymore and frankly, I don’t want to.

Because Dark Culture was one of the first websites of it’s kind, I inspired numerous people to start their own webzines. That’s nice, but they’re a whole lot more excited about it than I am and they put in the effort. The writers I once had have all gone separate ways and wouldn’t come back if I asked them. I suppose I could find new writers, but just as it was then, it’s hard to find people who’ll work for nothing. Writing credit on a half ass webzine? I wouldn’t do it either. So here I am, at yet another cross-roads with Dark Culture. Part of me doesn’t want to let it go because I still hold some ideals for it. I’ve always dreamt of what it could have been, but never will. Besides, I’m not all that active in the Goth scene anymore – at least, not as much as I used to be. I still enjoy the music and hearing new bands, but I’m less inclined to write about them.

Oh, this all makes me so sad. There was a point where Dark Culture was an amazing website, but it’s a shadow of it’s former self now. It’s been broken so many times, I don’t know if it can recover. I guess I’ll continue to make podcasts. Those make me happy and I love doing them. Now, to find the time.

Over the years I’ve had numerous close calls with almost losing everything. Today I lost the latest incarnation of Dark Culture, but luckily this blog is in tact. It’s funny how our priorities shift over time. It also reminds me to back things up more. I mean, I was actually sweating while waiting for the site to re-upload. I thought, what am I going to do if I lose it all? I almost cried thinking about it. This blog is so much a part of me that I can’t envision living without it. I mean, if I had lost it, I would have lived, but I would have been really fucking depressed about it.

A sigh of relief. I’m going to back up this blog once a month and never scare the shit out of myself again.

I decided that I would not only go through all 25,000+ comments, but create a keyword blacklist containing words commonly used by spammers. For example:

Adderall
ambein
Ambien
Amoxicillin
animal sex
atenolol
Avandia
Biaxin
birkoff
Bontril
Carisoprodol
Celebrex
Celexa
Cephalexin
CheapAdobePremiumSuite
Cialis
cipro
Codeine
Cyclobenzaprine
Cymbalta
Diazepam
diethylpropion
Diflucan
Doxycycline
Effexor
Eltroxin
ephedra
Ephedrine
fabiola
fabiola-qz
feechka
Fioricet
Fosamax
hananim
Hydrocodone
ionamin
kistov
klonopin
Larcik
Lexapro
Lipitor
Lortab
meridia
mimaxa
Norvasc
oxycodone
oxycontin
paxil
percocet
Phendimetrazine
Phentermine
Prednisone
Propecia
protonix
provigil
Prozac
Reductil
Ritalin
rohypnol
Sibutramine
Soma
Synthroid
tamadol
Topamax
Toprol
Tramadol
Ultracet
Ultram
Valium
Valtrex
verasova
Viagra
vicodin
Wellbutrin
Xanax
xenical
Zithromax
Zocor
Zoloft.
Zolpidem
Zovirax

As you can see, I listed 82 words. You might also notice that 98% of those words are names of drugs. Of course, this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Spammers (crafty lot that they are) will bombard your comments boxes with links, keywords, and gibberish. And because they hardly use the same IP twice, banning IP addresses is useless. Furthermore, even though I could ban the several thousand IP addresses held within 25,000 comments, it just wouldn’t make sense in the long run. You see, Internet Service Providers sometimes use blocks of IP’s for their users and often rotate them on a regular basis. It’s not like any one person has the same IP over their lifetime…it’s not like a home address. I could ban a block of IP’s, but I might be blocking whole groups of people who aren’t spammers. Which might not be bad or rather, wouldn’t actually matter.

In all the 25,000+ comments that I moderated, there were only 4 that I approved. Two of which were questionable, but not so much that I would block them. It’s sometimes hard to tell. Spammers are sometimes real people who get paid to post links as much as they can, anywhere they can. They get paid via click-thrus. When someone clicks their specific link, they make something like 10 cents or something per click. I’m not sure how it works. It’s a shady business anyway. And because they realize there are people like me out there taking a stand, they’ve learned to become sneaky. One specific comment read:

[...] Cinka is very entertaining. Check out the latest and greatest post on Fly Home Like a Rock Star. See below for a quick excerpt of the entertainment: [...]

I found this example amusing. Made to look as though they were informing me that they’d linked back to a certain post. Which hopefully means I’ll approve the comment allowing them to comment more in the future, like an open door. The grand purpose of all this is to get web-traffic; which in turns means commerce.

So why don’t spammers stop spamming a particular site after they see they’re not making any headway? Because it doesn’t matter. The majority of SPAM is automated. I’m not certain of the logistics, but I do know that the method is computerized and the application doesn’t care if the comment gets approved. It’s job is to simply post, post, post. With hundreds of thousands of comments being sent out every day, if 10% don’t go through, they’re still ahead of the game. Thus, lowly bloggers such as myself simply have to deal with it. And even with bells and whistles, you can’t stop SPAM completely. You can hinder it slightly, but defense is the best offense. Vigilance and determination. Up until yesterday, I’d completely ignored my SPAM, but when you spend 4 hours wading through it, you tend to get a fire lit under your ass.

My 82 keyword blacklist will help, but as I reached the final 2000 comments, I realized that SPAMMERS also use common words you wouldn’t want to blacklist. Words we use everyday. Blacklisting everyday language would mean the two legitimate commenters wouldn’t be able to post anything. I don’t get a lot of comments here. I never have. In fact, with any regularity, there really are only two people who comment: My sister and Nevla. Even though I know more than two people read this blog, they’re the only ones who comment. Thanks guys! Makes me feel special. My blog is only mildly entertaining and not enough to drive in masses of traffic. I don’t know how I feel about that.

I receive an email every time a comment come in. WordPress holds unapproved comments in a queue until I can deal with it. I’ve cleared my inbox, I’ve cleared the queue. I’ve cleared the slate and can really start to get a handle on this. Of course, it’s a daily task. I’ll have to moderate SPAM everyday. I feel like Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid…I know I’m licked, but I’m going out in a blaze of glory.