While I have nothing against my own creation, Modern-Blue just wasn’t my style.  I had been looking into themes that developers could use — so I wouldn’t need to start from scratch — and I settled upon Sandbox.  It has so many CSS classes built in that I hardly had to modify the template at all!  I changed the page.php and single.php templates to link to themselves, footer.php to show the page generation stats (for example, “25 queries in 1.732 seconds”), and the comments.php template to upgrade to threaded comments.

But enough with the technical gibberish.  Here are my favorite things about the new theme:

It’s purple

This goes without saying.  (My favorite color is purple)

All headings are accessible

With the new style, I can use any heading from 1 to 6  — yep, that’s all of them — in any post.  This means that I get an additional two headings from the top that used to be too big, plus the two from the bottom that used to be smaller than the main text of the post.

The big flashy logo

I always liked big flashy logos. ;-)  This one isn’t even made in flash!

I can make nested pages to infinity and beyond

Just when you thought this blog couldn’t get any more annoying awesome, this happens.

The template is somebody else’s

Although that may seem like a bad thing, it’s actually very good.  It means that I don’t have to worry about figuring out the code if a new version of WordPress breaks the theme.  All I have to do is download a patched version of Sandbox, and I’m ready to roll.

What do you like about it?

I’ve listed my favorite things about Daily Llama 3.0, what are yours?

The logic is simple: When somebody goes to the registration page — either the one where you enter information or the one where the account is created — their IP address is checked with StopForumSpam.com.  When somebody tries to register, it checks their email address and username.  That’s all it does.  It’s that simple.

This is just for fun.  There’s nothing special that will happen because of it.

And here’s the idea:

I saw that a plugin had been updated on the wp.org plugins list, called wp-nospamuser.  I decided to look into it.  Apparently, it checks with stopforumspam.com.  Wait — this is a blog plugin…

I wondered why this was a WordPress plugin and not a bbPress plugin.  Maybe the creator of this plugin doesn’t know about bbPress?

I’ve decided to make my own combination of this plugin and the bbPress Akismet plugin.

Wish me luck!

• Double posting — Most forums have a rule against this, but it still happens.  Sometimes it’s allowed in a certain forum (like the sandbox on my forums), or allowed a certain period of time after the previous post was made.
• Bumping up old topics — Most forums have a problem with this.  It is simply not socially acceptable to bring up a conversation from 2001 that hasn’t been posted on since then.
• One-word posting — “lol” is not an acceptable post on any forum I know of.  It would be pretty simple to block posts with no spaces in them, and also have a minimum character count per post.

I’ve decided to make a plugin for bbPress that blocks the three types of human-generated spam I just listed.  If anyone has any ideas on other things I could block with the plugin, please tell me here.

Edit:

I have completed the development of Automated Forum Moderation’s first release.

This is where you come in: You can help out by reporting people who break rules to the sheriffs and off-topic rooms (or people inside rooms) to the police officers. You can help even more by following the rules and not bending them to your advantage. If you don’t spam, attack others, or go off topic (unless the area is designed for that), you’re probably following at least half of the rules!

What forums are not

Forums are not email — you should use actual email if you feel you need to contact a member directly and there is no private messaging system available. An administrator can usually work something out if you and another member of the forums would like to be in contact.

Forums are not a place to attack others — there is usually a rule against flaming (attacking other members of the forum).

Forums are not a place to advertise — if you want to advertise a website, put it in your signature.

Spam

Sometimes, a member of a forum “building” will create a room that has nothing to do with the floor or even the entire building. Usually, there is no malicious intent, and the member was very new to the forums and did not read the rules or understand what forums are for. Other times, a member of the forum might say something unrelated to the room they are in, or something that doesn’t add to the discussion in any way. It’s your job to not reply to spam. Just report it and move on. Replying only makes it worse.

Double posting

When forum members get impatient while waiting for others to reply to what they said, they might repeat themselves. This is usually by accident — the person who double posted doesn’t even know they did it until they come back to the room later. Don’t make a big deal about it, just report it.

Post count — it means nothing

New members to forums usually get worked up about the number of times some of the older members have contributed to discussions. They might go through hundreds of rooms just to state that they agree with what somebody else said, even if they don’t know anything about the discussion. If you see somebody getting worked up about their post count, send them a private message (if possible), and tell them that post count doesn’t really matter and that they should slow down and think before they post. If they continue to spam for post count the next day, report them to an administrator or other authority figure.

“Can I be a mod?”

Some people who join a forum might ask if they can be a moderator. If you ask, you probably won’t become one. The best way to become a moderator is to go on the forums frequently, follow the rules, contribute positively to discussions, and report rule-breaking or offensive posts. The forum staff members will decide when they need a new moderator, and also who should be the new moderator. Asking is the second-worst thing you can do (right under rule breaking) if you want to become a moderator.

Short is not always sweet

Short messages aren’t always a good idea. While you shouldn’t put an essay in each post, but you shouldn’t post just one word. “I like your post” is also a bad post because there is no reason behind it.