Over the weekend, I found myself on the wrong end of a merciless comment and trackback spam attack. While dealing with these vermin is never fun and is always time consuming, MT Blacklist makes the process tolerable. With a couple clicks, MT Blacklist deletes the spam, rebuilds the entries, and imports the offending URL into the Blacklist, thereby assuring that future spam containing the offending URL will be blocked before I ever see it.

However, when MT Blacklist is not working properly, as was the case this weekend, an attack that would normally just be a routine royal pain in the ass becomes downright maddening. This weekend, for techno-reasons beyond my ken, MT Blacklist would delete the spam and rebuild the entries, but it would not permit the importing of the URLs contained in the spam. As such, there was nothing blocking the ensuing onslaught. Trying to delete the crap faster than it came in was like trying to kill a zillion ants by stepping on them. It made reading or writing impossible.

I finally gave up, hoping that by today whatever was wrong with MT Blacklist would somehow “fix itself.” When it didn’t, I did what I have done in the past in such circumstances. “Craig!!!!!!!”

I wrote to Craig, raving like a nutbar explaining my problem. Craig provides the home for this blog and has always been willing to help, even if it means interrupting his life (as was the case last Easter), or dealing with my problems when he is sick (as was the case today).

He looked into the problem and learned that the best fix would be a download and installation of the latest versions of Movable Type and MT Blacklist. In a few minutes, he had me up and running and re-armed to deal with the scum of the earth doing their damnedest to foul this site.

I have often said that Craig is the nicest guy in the Blogosphere, and he proved it once again today. I owe him big time.