| This is the help page for the current version of the
Barelybad guestbook. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. The pair of blue-background rows you see at the top and bottom of this page appears at the top and bottom of the pages of the new guestbook. Here's what each link does. Click Help to return to this very help page. Click Guestbook to go to the top of the first page of the current guestbook.Click B A R E L Y B A D W E B S I T E to return to the very beginning of the Barelybad Web site. Click Back to Home Page to return to the Home page of the Barelybad Web site. Click Guestbook Archive to go to the archive of the guestbook from December 1996 to July 2006. Click Search Guestbook to search all the pages of the current guestbook, from November 2006 on. You can search the guestbook archive -- the messages from 1996 till July 2006, which are all on one long page -- by going there and using the Search or Find feature of your browser in the usual way. To search the entire Web site go here. Click Add Your Message to go to a separate page where you can add your message to the current guestbook. If you want to quote a previous message, simply copy it into your clipboard before you click Add Your Message, then paste it into the text box after you click it. Enter and Continue. You must enter a name, but you don't have to tell the truth. And you must enter some sort of message, because if you don't then there's no point in using the Add Your Message screen in the first place, right? The three remaining fields -- Your e-mail address, Your Web site URL, and How you got here -- are optional. For the last one, How you got here, I'm always interested in what brings people to my Web site. Was it a link or a recommendation from some other site? If so, do you remember who or where? If you used a search engine, do you remember the search term you used? You can clear everything you've typed by clicking the Add Your Message link again or by simply refreshing or reloading the page. As of right now, until I'm sure the spam bots can't get through, you can't use HTML tags. If you try they simply get deleted, so for example <b>bold</b> turns into bold, not bold. Also as of right now you can't enter more than 4,000 characters or 4,000 words. You can click here to get some idea of how big 4,000 characters is. I will permit HTML tags and longer messages after a few months of spam-freeness. Review and finish. When you've finished entering your message and you click the Continue button at the bottom you'll be taken to a page where you can review what you typed. If you're dissatisfied, use the "click here to GO BACK" link near the top (or just hit your Back button) and edit at will, then click Continue again. When you are satisfied, at the bottom of the review page you'll see the software's anti-spam filter. Observe the row of ten unique digits, then enter in the drop-down boxes the two digits that are underlined. (The theory is that whereas human beings will almost always be able to get this quiz right, spam-bots rarely will do so. Each time the software generates a new spam filter the order of the ten digits changes randomly, and, of course, the two underlined digits change randomly. To be honest, I'm not sure why the order of the digits changes, because no matter what the order is, it seems to me the likelihood of guessing the two digits is still 1 in 90.) If you do not enter the correct two digits you'll be told as much and given another chance. If you blow that one you'll be given yet another chance, but if you blow that third one you'll have to generate another two-digit code on the assumption that you're a spam-bot. If you are then please eat dirt and die. If you are not then maybe you've confused the 3 for a 5, which I did the very first time I tried this spam filter for myself. The example below doesn't work exactly right because no matter which two digits you enter you'll be taken to the top of the guestbook, but it does demonstrate the basic idea. I'm sorry you have to put up with this small inconvenience, but if I can't keep the spam messages out then there's little reason to maintain the guestbook at all. Once you've entered the correct code you'll be taken to a page that simply counts to 5 and then takes you automatically to a page explaining that your post will be finalized after I've had a chance to see it. Again, this is an anti-spam measure, and, again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience of such a delay. Also, once I'm convinced the spam-bots can't bash all the way in I'll release this restriction. Update of June 7, 2007: It's a good thing I instituted new guestbook software. Yesterday alone the guestbook received 178 spam posts totaling 147 kilobytes, and not one got through. Update of March 10, 2009: Yesterday the guestbook received 409 spam posts totalling 121 kilobytes.
As I said above, you probably needn't have read any of this help information, but now that you have I hope you feel the same disdain for the black-hats as I do. Whew. With all that out of the way, I hope you still feel free to
add
your message to the Barelybad guestbook. |