Mr. Wordpress Won't You Please Come Home

February 16, 2007 5:52 PM

Remember today as the day that Blogging jumped into the shark's mouth.
Spam blogs, fake blogs, celeblogs, fake celeblogs, moblogs, miliblogs, lawblogs, catblogs, dogblogs*, everybody's got a blog and if they use WordPress, it came with a prepackaged post and comment from "Mr. WordPress". Well, the inevitable has happened. Mrs. WordPress has a blog.**
*because on the internet, no one knows you're a dog unless you tell them
**and based on the picture on the front page, Mr. WP's first name may be Waldo
posted by wendell (21 comments total)

[obligatory wendell joke . . . or would it be gratuitous?]
posted by grobstein at 6:00 PM on February 16, 2007

I'm still using WP 1.5.2 because I don't want to be bothered with upgrading.
posted by GavinR at 6:03 PM on February 16, 2007

Wow. My blog readership just went to 0.

/sniffle
posted by bardic at 6:10 PM on February 16, 2007

GavinR, I believe WP 1.5x had security issues with a php exploit, no? You might want to upgrade.
posted by mathowie at 6:15 PM on February 16, 2007

This won't end.

Oh, well.
posted by trip and a half at 6:40 PM on February 16, 2007

The upgrades between WP 1.5 and 2.0 and between 2.0 and 2.1 were a pain in the backend for me, and a burp in the 2.1 upgrade misplaced my "link" categories (and therefore my blogroll). So I understand GavinR's position. But, unless they're working on another security upgrade RIGHT NOW, I'd say that this is the right time to increase your version number. But it still won't reunite Mr. and Mrs. WordPress...
posted by wendell at 6:42 PM on February 16, 2007

"This will not wendell", meet your new brother "This will not Ned".
posted by wendell at 6:43 PM on February 16, 2007

There are hundreds of spam blogs (also called Splogs) in the blogosphere. Most of these are created on the feature rich and free blogging platform Blogger offered by Google.

Maybe it's the NyQuil kicking in, but those two sentences make me giggle.
posted by CKmtl at 6:56 PM on February 16, 2007

Oh, dammit. Just after I spent the past two weeks turning my website into a piece of WordPress magic, the whole freaking blog-o-sphere goes shark-jumping. What's the opposite of "cutting edge?"
posted by Milkman Dan at 7:29 PM on February 16, 2007

On the WB: Ned Wendell is The Eschatologist.
posted by cortex at 8:07 PM on February 16, 2007

And you forgot Pologs.
posted by cortex at 8:08 PM on February 16, 2007

Eschatologist? More likely The Eponystericalist.
posted by wendell at 8:41 PM on February 16, 2007

In the Dr. Seuss book "The Shape Of Me And Other Stuff", the author suggests that we are better off being the shapes that we are, than we would be if we were "The shape of a blogg, or a garden hose."

I'm 99% certain that someone out there has a blog called "The shape of a blogg", but I'm too scared to search for it.
posted by davejay at 10:17 PM on February 16, 2007

A few weeks ago there was a news item (must have been a slow day) on one of the major dutch news sites (nu.nl) about a new blogging site for dogs called blaft.nl. This roughly translates to "barks.com" and all dogs blogging this way will get a "name.barks.com" weblog.

I checked out if "miauwt.nl" existed and it didn't (for you non-dutch out there, that's the sound a cat makes in dutch). Ten minutes, a wordpress-mu install, a wild-card virtual host in apache, and one domain registration later all cats can now get their own weblog in the Netherlands as well.

It's just too easy.
posted by DreamerFi at 1:57 AM on February 17, 2007

hey, since we are on the topic of wordpress, if you any of you mefites can code a kickass light on dark wordpress theme then give me a line.

I don't have a whole lot of money for the project, but we can work something out.

back on topic: has anyone else found that the transition from wordpress hosted blogging to having your own hosting and domain is a huge pain?
posted by tylerfulltilt at 7:03 AM on February 17, 2007

There's also my favorite parody blog from Arrested Development "Bob Loblaw's Law Blog." Lo and behold, Bob Loblaw actually HAS a law blog!
posted by ikahime at 9:46 AM on February 17, 2007

tylerfulltilt: you may want to consider a post on Jobs—midthread in the blue isn't a great place for random solicitations.
posted by cortex at 10:15 AM on February 17, 2007

This roughly translates to "barks.com" and all dogs blogging this way will get a "name.barks.com" weblog.

I see a fatal flaw based on given dogs a URL based on their "unique" name.
posted by smackfu at 10:37 AM on February 17, 2007

Not fatal, just ham-handed:

spot143.barks.com

It's like yahoo mail for the quadroped set!
posted by cortex at 11:17 AM on February 17, 2007

She seduced Andy who tried to "patch" up the problem:

http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3803
posted by saxmatt at 1:14 PM on February 17, 2007

ikahime, you totally stole my thunder on that one. I saw "lawblogs" in the string of blogs available, and I was SO SET on contributing that link!

Kudos, though. To think that Robert Loblaw actually runs a law blog! COMEDY GOLD!
posted by numinous at 4:28 PM on February 17, 2007