Wordpress Plugins

Slow Down Boris: WordPress plugin!

9 Comments

This morning, as I was sipping my coffee, I noticed that a frequent commenter had posted 4 comments in a row. I don’t mind people posting frequently. But there is a certain point where someone is commenting so much that no one has time to digest what they say or respond. There is a serious risk that commenter will just be ignored.

I had quite a bit of work to do, dealing with mixing from a jet emerging from cyanide containers, so I couldn’t organize a real post. But, I decided to take a little time out to write a new plugin, which has the working name: “Slow Down Boris”.

What this plugin does will do when it’s finalized is:

  1. Count how many comments a known frequent commenter has left in the past “N” hours. The tally will start at “0”, increase by 1 when a comment is made by the “frequent commenter”, and decrease by 1, if someone else responds.
  2. When a frequent commenters tally hits “3”, the plugin will hide the text in that comment from other users for several hours. Meanwhile, plugin will tell the frequent commenter to slow down, but let them see their own comment.
  3. If another user comments, the “count” for the frequent commenter will decrease. So, this should slow down any debates involving more than one person.

I may adjust the algorithm, and I’ll be creating an option panel so other bloggers can use it. So, if you have suggestions, fire away. Meanwhile, if you notice glitches, let me know.

This plugin is dedicated to my Muse of the day: frequent commenter Boris. I value Boris’s comments, but like many enthusiasts of “climate blog wars”, he gets a little carried away from time to time and forgets to let other people take their turn posting.

9 thoughts on “Slow Down Boris: WordPress plugin!”

  5. Wonderful and hilarious and good natured with it! Just, if we may, be careful with that cyanide. Climate blogs would be a much poorer place, as they were in the World Before Lucia. We don’t want to go back there. Knitting’s loss is our, and climate’s, gain.

  6. Thanks both Fred and Boris.

    I’m not handling the cyanide. Someone else is– I’m just doing calculations to support the safety plans.

    I’ll need to make the final version of the plugin. I always like to write a “proto-plugin” first. Then, I over the course of a week, I think of tweaks. I know I need to give bloggers an interface to add names of the people who… well… get carried away.

    I looked for a plugin with just the right features, but it didn’t seem to exist. There are
    a) spam filters that block people. I don’t want to do that.
    b) troll blasters that mock trolls or bann trolls. This isn’t a troll issue. If it were, I’d just bann, and
    c) true comment moderation. But comment moderation is time consuming. I’d break down and do it, but I dislike the delay time.

    So, I thought: “What do I really want to do?”

    Boris– sorry for the temporary scare when one of my typos made the name of the plugin show and left you thinking I was banning you.

  7. can we get the talk like a pirate plugin. arrr

    http://www.php-scripts.com/20070919/106/

    Lucia, recently I have read some illuminati of AGW who insist that 10-15 years of data
    are required before one could draw any conclusions about warming trends.

    Let’s grant that unsupported notion and agree that yes, one needs 10 to 15 years to ascertain
    a change in trend, and so now comes the question.

    If we change our policy, and aim for hansens 350 goal, how do we measure the success of that policy?

    1. If we measure temps and they shoot up for 5 years are the policies working? or is this noise
    2. If we measure temps and they decline, is the polciy working or is this random.

    Will people wait 10 years to see if a policy cools the planet?

    If you make control input changes to the climate and cant measure the response for 10 years, then
    you can imagine what kind of political arrangement is required.

    You end up with one pilot.

  8. If I’m trying to see a signal of 5 years, what’s a good trend? If I want to know what last year looked like, what’s a good trend? If I want to compare Sep 2006 to Sep 2007, why do I need a trend? If I want to know what the last 125 years was like, what’s a good trend?

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