That’s right… we now have the PollDaddy Plugin running on all Blogivists blogs. What this means is that once you set up a free Poll Daddy account, you’ll be able to easily post Poll Daddy polls in your blog posts.

Instructions:
Once you set up your free Poll Daddy account, find the button that allows you to create a new poll. Poll Daddy will walk you through the simple steps and options on setting up your poll. Once you save all of the settings for the poll, you’ll be taken to a page with some code for the poll.

Ignore the code that you’re presented with, and in the right sidebar you’ll see a box for “Wordpress Blogs”. Click on that box.

The next page presents you with three options. You want the option that says “I host my own WordPress blog (version 2.5 or higher)”. When you click that option, you’ll be given a short strip of code. Copy that and paste it into your blog post.

Save… publish… and vote!

With that said… please vote in this poll.

Last night we upgraded our software from Wordpress MU 2.6.5 to Wordpress MU 2.7 and we think everything went through smoothly. You’ll notice a LOT of changes in the way the backend looks and feels, so you may want to take some time to surf around and get comfortable with the new system.

Now that the software is completely upgraded, we’ll be able to go in and do a final clean up of plugins and themes.

This means you’ll begin to see a lot of new plugins and themes in the coming weeks.

Thanks for hanging in there with us during these changes!

-Eric Odom

So, instead of trying to overwrite the plugins with a new version, I decided to overhaul the spam blocking system. I took out the old spam filters and implementing a new set of features. These are very aggressive spam blocking measures that I hope will cut back on the spam we say day in and day out.

The spam fighting hacks have three major components.

1) Captcha – Anyone not logged in is now required to fill in the Captcha word in order to even submit the comment. Now, I understand this can be annoying for people who are not registered members of our community, but it’s far more annoying weeding through 35 pages of comment spam, so I think the benefit outweighs the negatives.

2) Trackback Database – If the spammer does somehow get past the Captcha, or if they set up an account to spam us without us catching it, they’ll have to hope their URL’s have not been checked into the trackback database we use. This is not just a database we use; Rather, it’s a database that thousands of Wordpress users chack against and report to. So if a spammer’s URL has been flagged before, it’s going to get blocked out and the comment will be marked as spam.

3) Comment Links – It’s perfectly OK to have a link or two in a comment. Heck, I do it all the time. But it becomes questionable to have more than two links in a comment, and from now on we’re watching for this. Our system checks for comments that are heavy on the links as they come in, and if they have more than two links, they get bypassed.

We’re working on a few more options to help combat the spam, but I think these three will help dramatically decrease the amount of spam we’re dealing with right now.

Stay tuned for more updates on this!

-Eric Odom

First of all, regarding the server move that happened Friday night, it went pretty smoothly for the most part. We think we got all files and databases moved, and we think the domain structure is also fully intact. We are experiencing some slow downs on the backend (after you log in), but I think we’ll be able to iron those problems out this week.

You might notice significant decreases in the number of themes available. In fact, the theme you’re using may be taken out of the system during the next few days. The reason for this is that we’re getting ready for a major overhaul and software upgrade, and most of the themes we’re running are old, outdated, buggy and overall problematic to the site’s performance and visual appeal.

Chances are high that during the last week of January, there will only be about 20 themes available on Blogivists.com. Don’t worry though, we’re going to be installing some new themes that are much more modern, user friendly, up to date, bug free and visually appealing.

The same goes for plugins… many of our plugins were outdated. Some of them weren’t even supposed to be running with our current version of WordpressMU, so there was potential for serious damage within our code.

We’ve stripped out almost all of the plugins that were running on Blogivists.com. We’ll be taking a look at our current situation, the fixes that are coming with WPMU 2.7, and based on our findings, we’ll upload new plugins that will better fit our needs.

The support system will also go through a complete revamp. Instead of the old ticketing system, we’re now going to be using BBPress for a discussion forum setup. The cool thing about BBPress is that if you’re logged in to yoru blog, you’ll automatically be logged in to the forums and will have the same profile.

This should all be cleaned up, completed and ready to roll out in early February.

Thanks for hanging in there with us while we go through these changes!

-Eric Odom

I know, the exact opposite of what we push day-in and day-out.

For a good reason: Blogivists is moving from one server to another, and, as is the case with server-moves, there is the potentiality of data loss if users attempt to blog during the transition. Meaning… that 1am post you’ll spend the better part of your Friday night putting up? – gone, for naught.

So, why the server-move, right? Good question. Consider it a major tune-up. It’ll increase the stability and accessibility of the site. And that’s a good, no – great thing!

So the short end of it is: DON’T BLOG at any point during the move, beginning Friday (1/23) at 10pm CST and ending Saturday (1/24) at 10pm CST.

Yes, a full 24 hours. Instead, watch a movie, read a book, or go out with your friends.

We’ll see you back here Saturday night!

Featuring our own Publius Forum, Defense Mechanism, Madison Classical Liberal, Let Them Eat Cake, & The Conservative Muse.

With the continuing intrusion of government into the private sector and plans for further economic planning supported by Democrats and Republicans alike, the month of December has seen the need for a more principled defense of free markets.

Thank you, Madison Classical Liberal, for your commentary and insight throughout these troubling times. Readers, if you haven’t already, check out his blog!

We’ve added 20 new themes on top of the other 120 already available.

The process is really quite simple, and well worth the investment to get all your Facebook contacts driving up traffic on your blog.

1. Sign into your Facebook account. 

2. Then go to your profile page.

3. Next, find the row of tabs beneath the wall tab starting with “Update Status, Share Link,…” and click on the downward collapsible arrow to the far right. 

4. Select “Import”.

5. Once there simply copy and paste your blog’s URL into the prompt marked “URL”.

Facebook will now upload all your posts into a note form and automatically import any future posts, requiring absolutely no effort on your part.

Luckily, blogivists has a plugin that gets rid of them before they can even appear in your inbox. 

It’s called Spam Karma 2 and it’s pretty effective. In order get it working, one has to first activate the plugin. So let’s do that:

1. Within your control panel, click on “Plugins” (located on the right-hand corner of the page).

2. Scroll down to the “Spam Karma 2″ plugin.

3. Click on “Activate”.

And you’re done!