Warning! The new WordPress feature is utter trollbait
April 26, 2008 at 11:17 pm (blog, blogosphere, discourse, race and racism, sexism, voice, women of colour)
So I was all excited about being able to find new blogs/posts through the new WordPress feature that adds related posts to the end of each post.
Then I found out that it was linking my blog with a blog by a white guy who claims to be a “racial realist” and writes a bunch of racist shit. Given that The Angry Black Woman has just gotten over a white supremacist attack, I’m pretty wary of any link between SWS and anything white supremacist.
So I left a comment on the announcement post, and came back to my dashboard to find a troll comment. Note the obviously fake email address and banal sexism.
CaptainReality
fake@ibm.com | 121.45.94.116Feminists are irrelevant losers. Their ideas die with them, because they’re invariably childless. They’re all so miserable and dour.
Anyhow, I’m off to make sure my daughter has dollies to hug and toy prams to push around so that she doesn’t become a miserable spinster like most of you lot.
So women of colour are, yet again, forced away from using a powerful networking tool because of actual or potential attacks. Hm.
Anyway, I’d suggest that most of you disable the feature. You can do so by going to the Design tab in your dashboard, clicking on Extras, and then checking the box that lets you disable the possibly related posts feature. I’ve also posted about it in the announcement thread (currently waiting for my comment to come out of moderation) and in the forums (if any shit starts there, I will start throwing knives), so maybe WP will change the feature altogether.
I’m going to make a comment policy too now, cos I now feel I need to specify that if you’re arsehole enough to use a fake email address your words must not be worth much in the way of dialogue, so you’ll be treated as a troll and blacklisted. And because this blog seems to be getting heaps more traffic lately, just off the whole feminist blogsplosion.
Edited to add: The comments policy is here. It’s not ideal, but it’s something. It’s also very late for me and I want to go to bed.
You might also notice a new Creative Commons License on my sidebar over there. Don’t be a jerk in comments and don’t steal my shit. That is basically it.
Edit #2: I’ve disabled the ‘Possibly related posts’ feature, but it doesn’t seem to be working. My blog is still showing up on the links at other sites.
Debs said,
April 27, 2008 at 3:13 am
I just noticed this feature on my blog and couldn’t get rid of it quick enough! Thanks for highlighting it - it’s a really really really bad idea, and whoever thought it was a good idea needs their head examining! Luckily, it’s easy enough to disable it, as you have found out. Thank goodness for that!
Hi, by the way, I read here often but have not commented before, but I’m still in a WTF? mood about this new feature WP is all excited about, so it’s nice to vent! Debs xx
tigtog said,
April 27, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I suspect disabling this feature doesn’t stop your blog being crawled by the tag-bots who generate the database used for the Related Posts feature on other blogs who have enabled it. It only stops the list of Related Posts being generated at the foot of your posts, nothing more.
WordPress should have an opt-in feature for whether people want the tag-bots to crawl their blog or not.
tigtog said,
April 27, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Sorry, additional thought: I know they say that disabling this feature will disable your posts appearing on other blogs, but I’m equally sure that it’s highly likely that they’ve bollixed the code that’s supposed to do that. Mullenweig has a little bit of a history about being half-arsed with initial releases.
Fire Fly said,
April 27, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’ve stuffed it up too.
Fixing the WordPress.com Possibly Related Feature « // Internet Duct Tape said,
April 28, 2008 at 12:37 am
[...] This is supposed to be a community feature, but as you may guess there’s already been crosslinks created between people who blog about racism/feminism and whit…. [...]
Dr. Mike Wendell said,
April 28, 2008 at 3:32 am
You can actually set your blog to only accept comments from those who have registered an account at wordpress.com. It’s Dashboard -> Options -> Discussion -> “Users must be logged in to leave a comment” I believe. That way, users will have to verify their email address before leaving a comment.
You’ll get less comments of course as some folks don’t want to jump through hoops to leave a single comment.
Good luck on getting your comment accepted on the announcement page. Matt and crew have shown time and time again that they listen to the users here.
Note to anyone using the wordpress.com for the class blog « Mktg2032’s Weblog said,
April 28, 2008 at 9:10 am
[...] She Who Stumbles has a write up of the implications of the automation, including their own experience of the ‘related posts’ drawing down trolls onto their blog, and how to shut down the ‘feature’. [...]
Fire Fly said,
April 28, 2008 at 9:55 am
Yeah, Dr. Mike, I get a number of comments from people all over the place who wouldn’t necessarily say anything if they had to jump through that hoop. Luckily this is the first problem I’ve had with trolls/white supremacists and with any luck it’ll be the last. So I don’t really feel the need to resort to that just yet.
Matt has responded to my comment, and my post on the forums, so hopefully the WP crew will be responsive and make some changes.
Gabriel... said,
April 28, 2008 at 10:04 am
Thanks for writing this and getting WP to respond. This is exactly what I’m worried about with bloggers writing about mental health issues. The last thing people in the first stages of their recovery need is someone showing up telling them all about the wonderful world of Sci3nt0l0gy.
Wordpress.com enables another new “feature” to far from universal acclaim at Hoyden About Town said,
April 28, 2008 at 11:56 am
[...] and anti-feminists, thus sending their readers to her blog. This is why she titled her post thusly: Warning! The new WordPress feature is utter trollbait. … » Problem [...]
the loft studios » The Loft said,
April 28, 2008 at 12:19 pm
[...] Welcome to the loft studios. This is supposed to be a community feature, but as you may guess there’s already been crosslinks created between people who blog about racism/feminism and white su…. [...]
lauredhel said,
April 28, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Shoot, this just showed up on another blog I admin. The links there at the moment were appropriate, but given the subject matter, there is a very large potential for completely inappropriate stuff.
Thanks for the heads-up, I’ve kyboshed it.
Bug Girl said,
April 28, 2008 at 1:29 pm
It’s so hard to bounce back from those nasty comments. It’s like having someone show up behind you and smack you unexpectedly at your computer
I have no helpful suggestions, other than a message of support as you deal with the hate. If you weren’t speaking truth, you wouldn’t upset them so much.
bluemilk said,
April 28, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Thank you for this info, MUCH appreciated, from another feminist who doesn’t want the pleasure of endless trolls on her blog.
Fire Fly said,
April 28, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Bug Girl,
It only upset me for a second until I realised how ridiculously outlandish the troll was. He might as well have been telling me how “stupid” my mum is.
I’m lucky I caught it in time so that no more trolls or white supremacists came along!
Make sure to blacklist the IP address at your own blog too!
the angry black woman said,
April 28, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Oh God, Captain Reality is a frequent troll on my blog. I have him moderated every way to Sunday so no one ever sees his racist comments but he is determined that *I* will see them, so he comments all the time. Finally I moved him out of the moderation thing and into the automatic blacklist thing, so I don’t even see his shit anymore unless I go to empty the spam queue.
Fire Fly said,
April 28, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Like I said, I have no qualms in blacklisting obvious trolls. And it really sucks that you have to put up with that.
New WordPress Feature Inadvertently Bringing Trolls Directly To You « …salted lithium. said,
April 29, 2008 at 6:23 am
[...] There’s also the problem with how the feature interprets your recommendations. How does it make sense, for example, if a ‘woman of colour’ writes about a violation of her rights, only to have a link to a racist blog at the bottom of her post? [...]
Add the features your users want, not the features you want them to have « Dana’s user experience blog said,
April 29, 2008 at 3:35 pm
[...] which is a good feature, and one that users wanted — but done it in such a way that it has really annoyed their users. Tony alerted me to this, and Lavratus Pradeo has a good, brief summary of what [...]
screamofcontinuousness said,
April 30, 2008 at 4:51 am
I’m having a similar problem. My husband and I are in the process of adopting and we are getting hateful comments and posts from people who have been hurt by adoption. The new “feature” just upped the ante on the hate mail. I turned it off almost immediately.
and I don’t see any problem at all with being opinionated.
New WordPress Links Feature May Expose Your Blog Even After You Opt Out « …salted lithium. said,
May 1, 2008 at 4:05 pm
[...] on her site). I chose not to participate for several reasons. For one, I believed the feature would bring trolls to their victims, and I found an example on “The Frame Problem” of someone writing against the Cult of [...]
Manoj Sterex said,
May 3, 2008 at 7:29 pm
I’m totally disappointed with WordPress to have stuffed an unwanted ‘feature’ into our blogs. And to top it all, if it isn’t working the way it is supposed to, its a total disaster!
Here’s my version of things!
About comments, enable ‘The comment author must have a previously approved comment’. That way, if a first-timer (like me) comments on your blog, you get to moderate it. And the next time I come back, my comments go live if you have approved my first comment.
Good day!
Fire Fly said,
May 3, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Hi Manoj,
Yeah, I’m pretty disappointed with the feature, but having turned it off I’m not worrying too much about it anymore.
As for comments, I’d rather just moderate them.
Wordpress.com — What’s happening? « Sterex said,
May 3, 2008 at 8:29 pm
[...] shewhostumbles.wordpress.com [...]
staticbrain.com said,
May 16, 2008 at 8:52 pm
More reasons to host your own site. I wonder how long it will take for wordpress.com to find ways around the fixes being implemented.