More News On The Sploggin’ Front
Got a reply from Hostgator with regards to my DMCA complaint. It was one user with two accounts and they’ve both been suspended. Looking forward to seeing Google Adsense Inc’s response.
UPDATE: Got an apology from the user… in their opinion - he/she thinks that if site owners don’t want people to use their content, they should not use the RSS feed system on their website …and that they should not submit their feeds to www.feedster.com
Hello - i didn’t “submit” my feed to Feedster, and just because my RSS feed might’ve been picked up by them, it doesn’t make it ok for others to steal content from my site for commercial gain through their services.
Have submitted a complaint to Feedster.
I don’t know what RSS is, i can’t make sense of it. I’d ideally like it switched off if having it on makes people think it’s OK to infringe on copyright, but I don’t understand the benefits of it either.
I’m so sick of of these sploggers atm and i’m hardly the only one who feels that way. Bah. Just needed to fucking vent as it’s put me into a downright foul mood to spend so much time formulating the DMCA. The upside, is that i’ve learnt how to do one and it’s been good to see positive action taken.
UPDATE: Recieved good feedback from Feedster with suggestions on how i can take some measures to stop engines crawling the site.
Thanks Mrs.Lifecruiser for helping me to understand how the RSS feed functions better and how i can turn the ruddy thing off in Wordpress. Enjoying what i’ve learnt through the experience by choosing to do something about it and it appears that I still have a lot more learn!
I edit my posts A LOT too! Always reviewing my use language & proof reading all the time. I spend more time editing that i do writing, so i hope that’s not sending notices to others that “something new” has popped up on my site when i’ve just changed a few words or sentences around! :O
tpv
Captain Bumerang Lifecruiser said,
April 2, 2007 @ 10:15 pm
Excellent! Such good news. One obstacle for the splogger at least!
Bring your bikini and come over to have a refreshing bath in the Blue Lagoon in Iceland
Captain Icebar Lifecruiser said,
April 3, 2007 @ 5:52 am
One of the benefits is that you’re making it easier fo people to read your blog. Many people today has so many blogs/sites to read every day that they prefer to read it in an RSS Reader (common is Google Reader or Bloglines.com) where everything is gathered and you don’t have to jump to the blogs real address. The jumping can be time consuming if you read many blogs.
Though I understand your feelings. I’ve been toggling this forward and backwards a lot, shall I or shall I not have the RSS feed available for people? I like people to read my blog at my blog and no where else.
So far I have allowed the RSS feeds, but I also have noticed a few scrapers - most of them does link back though. “Funny” thing is, I found one TODAY that aren’t - so I’ve given him notice about further actions…. We’ll see if I have to file a DMCA or not.
If you’re sure that you want to turn off the RSS feeds, go to your WP Admin → Options → Reading Menu, and scroll down to the “Syndication Feeds” section and set the “Show the most recent 10 posts” value to 0 (zero). I think that will help.
Let me know if it worked out for you or what you’ll do now.
R’acquel: Thanks! I tried to put “0″ into the Syndication Feeds section, but it keeps on defaulting to “1″. I guess it’s a good start anyway. I’ve seen some sites which suggest hacking the php to remove it, although i’ve always been uneasy about the hard hack - i will consider reviewing it further. Looking forward to reviewing how i can utilise the robots.txt to allow only certain engines to crawl the site.
ramblin rose said,
April 3, 2007 @ 9:16 am
yes raquel bring your bikini… May I suggest the chamoi bikini… it will look rooly nice!! :0
R’acquel: Oh yes, the chamois bikini! 555 I think Mrs.Lifecruiser would love to have one of her own! *lol*
RennyBA said,
April 3, 2007 @ 9:54 am
RSS is a must - I’ve made my subscription on your blog too
R’acquel: Just goes to show how much i don’t know about making subscriptions to blogs via RSS Renny, as i visit your blog by clicking the hyperlink on my side panel the old fashioned way! Like, I must be behind the times!
Captain Icebar Lifecruiser said,
April 3, 2007 @ 10:02 am
OK, now I’ve checked it and it seems like your RSS feeds is only partly shut off, so it does not function exactly the way we want it to!
The only way to be totally sure is to connect via FTP and delete certain files in your WP installation at your webservers root directory, like in public_html.
Do this:
1) Make a copy of those files as a backup to put back again IF you should change your mind or something goes wrong
2) Delete the following files with EXACTLY these file names:
wp-atom.php
wp-commentsrss2.php
wp-feed.php
wp-rdf.php
wp-rss.php
wp-rss2.php
3) Check that everything is OK.
4) If it’s not: put those files back again
Good luck!
R’acquel: Cheers Captain~! Quite a thing this RSS, as while it’s got benefit, it’s so open to abuse at the same time. Gah! I’ve seen some blogrolling systems that say something like “new” to let you know when sites are updated - so i’m assuming that RSS is involved for things like that? My blogroll doesn’t have that feature, so i’m just visiting the sites in my links to catch up and there’s usually something new nearly everyday coz my friends tend to write frequently! Will need to read up on it to learn more but for now - i must return to my day job and get on with real work! *lol*
Irish Church Lady said,
April 3, 2007 @ 11:12 am
I agree that it is important to have RSS turned on so that people can read your blog through their reader. Then if they want to comment they click on it to take them directly to your blog or even to the particular post.
If I didn’t have the luxury of a blog reader (I use bloglines), I would not be able to read and or visit as many blogs as I do (or at least try to!). It’s as simple as, if someone doesn’t have a feed, I will not read their blog consistently. In fact I alerted Hootin’ Anni to the fact this morning that her feed was not coming through at all, consequently I wasn’t regularly reading her site. All fixed now!!!
I do hope you have time to come by and read my Australia post
R’acquel: Cheers ICL
I have read your wonderful post with your family connection to Oz, which i found very touching and began my reply until this issue fell into my to-do stack on top of my current heavy workload. *grrt* We have the National Folk festival in Canberra comming up this week and a HOUSE MOVE straight after it (OMFG!), so the stress load is through the roof atm. The house we’re currently renting was sold, we’ve been searching for a new place for 5 months, and with the property market being so bad for rentals (and sales) - we’ve had to settle for a property less than ideal. It has no heating system so there’s added costs in buying a portable gas heater that can heat enough of the house for the winter coming up. With my son’s diagnosis of autism, there’s been so much effort placed in getting him integrated with the local school in Leura - so we couldn’t move out of the suburb. At least we have some kind of roof secured over our heads, so that’s something to be greatful for and we can hopefully find something better after 6 months. Looking forward to gaining a clean break so i can finish getting around to your post and participate more adequately on the cruise! 
Like, i have about 50-100 whistles bags and a Crazy Hat to finish sewing before tomorrow ends!*eeeeeeeep* At least i’m enjoying this style of work with all that sewing nevetheless!