SMILIES, NESTED COMMENTS AND A WHOLE LOT MORE OF WP PLUGINS
A good Sunday to everyone! 
For those of you who visited this Blog for the past days (as if meron daw bumibisita, nyahahaha) , sorry for the inconvenience it caused you. I appreciate receiving your sweet thoughts though and for asking about why the Blog was on maintenance mode.
The legitimate comments in the Blog has been constantly classified by Akismet as spam and since bulk and bulk of spam comments are coming, recovering the legit comments from the spam folder for the past weeks has been much of a burden that though technically challenged, I dragged myself to learning geeky stuff. I had to intentionally splash a maintenance mode on the homepage temporarily to find out what seems to be wrong.
Decreasing the spam comments
Apparently, during the little researching I did, I found out that aside from other reasons, the culprit was the CommentLuv plugin. The plugin, which gives incentive to commenters in the form of a link to their latest posts, is apparently being abused by some and uses this trick and spam blogs with useless comments just to gain backlinks. Sad isn’t it? When I learned about it, I had to drag myself hard to deactivate the plugin because the truth is, I so love the CommentLuv plugin. Good thing though, I read about how to decrease the number of spam comments, which is what I did. And after doing a series of tests, true enough, the spam comments lessened that I even afforded to activate the CommentLuv plugin once more.
Upgrading the obsolete plugins
After working on the spam issue, I noticed that most of my plugins needed an upgrading! Thanks to Wordpress’ (BTW, am still in version 2.3 but am loving it still) capability to notify of the need to upgrade, I was automatically redirected to the latest versions of the plugins. So now, my Akismet, CommentLuv, and WP Stats are up-to-date and running!
Making commenting more friendly and responsive with readers
And then, I thought everything’s alright and I’m ready to reply to the latest comments. But the OCness in me came a way too steep, I explored a little more and research on a “dream plugin” that I always wanted to have. Much as I’m pretty happy with the Email Comment Responder which automatically sends an email of my reply to the comment on posts, I’m kinda frustrated how it’s presented in a linear way in the comment’s section of the posts. If you’re a first time reader of the comments, you’ll find it hard which replies to the comments goes to whom. It’s been a dilemma keeping the Email Comment responder plugin that way. At times, I wanted to do as many does it for the comments: edit the comment itself and put the reply there so the comment is counted as one. If only I can find a plugin that replies to the comment by nesting it to the comment itself, and at the same time email the reply to the comment just the way it is done by the Email Comment Responder plugin.
And whatdayouknow! I found a few, and tried and tried each of them. Finally, I settled with the one by Joachim Praetorius and practiced using the plugin in the replies I made for the last few comments. That’s a threaded comment for you, which details the date and time I reply to the comments, without having to go to the edit comment box because a reply button is ready. And the best thing is, the commenter still get to received an email of the reply. Galing di ba? Try commenting in this post, and you’ll surely find it easy reading my reply in your comment.
And as an added bonus, I installed the custom smilies plugin which readily provides a click on the emotion icons in the comment form. Heehee, I so love using smilies to death, but the forgetful me often scratch my head on the codes to use. Thus, the ready buttons of emotion icons will come in handy not only for me, but for you my Blogfriends as well. Now, if only I can get my way to also include the emotion icon which has rolling on the floor laughing. Haha, I love that emo icon, sobra! But anyway, I’m pretty happy with the few basic smilies just before the comment box, especially the grin emo icon. 
A few more WP essential plugins
I’ve also added a few more WP essential plugins like the one which efficiently does WordPress page caching system to make this site much faster and responsive, loaded with a bunch of photos regardless. 
I’ve also installed plugin which automatically backups WP bases on demand. That should complement the backup that my gracious hostee have, just in case anything untoward happens (at huwag naman sana mangyari). And oh, the maintenance mode splash page viewed while I’m busy tinkering on the site offline, that’s courtesy of the Maintenance Mode plugin.
These said, I have to believe, everything’s a-okay already. It maybe shallow for the tech geeks, but for a technically-challenged and somewhat technophobic person like me, I’m happy with what I’ve done so far. That said, then it’s now back to regular programming. Naks!
May all of us have a productive week ahead!
18 responses so far
when...
aha..kaya pala under maintenance..atleast na discover mo na ano ang salarin pala at dinumog ka ng spam! lumabas din tuloy ang pagiging techie mo!
pero ha, ang cute, ang galing na ng comments section mo kasi may emoticons na naka ready 
Thets last blog post..iya and the book
Hi Thet! onga, tulirong tuliro
na kasi ako ako sa kaka dig ng spam folder para ma recover ang mga legit comments. haha! kunwari tuloy, nagpaka techie ako! 
ang cute talaga ng mga smilies, gusto ko talaga may ganyan. kaya naman, after trying and trying about three smilies plugins, I’m happy that this one worked. yipeeee! gusto kong tuloy tumalon sa kinauupuan ko kagabi!
and ang maganda nito, mare receive mo na sa email ang reply ko sa comment mo, makikita mo pa agad kung what time and date ako nag reply sa naka nest kong reply when you return to this post!!
oookkkaaay….wala akong naintindihan..hahaha
If you think you’re techno-challenged…then I’m a techno idiot
At least I know I can get some pointers from you when I can finally haul my ass to transferring my posts to WP and eventually the domain I won from Noemi. Wa akong alam dyan, sis. As in, wala talaga
Konkong622s last blog post..The Prize is Rice
hi Cookie! naku, pasensya po. sobrang theoretic ba? eh maski ako, nung binasa ko ang post na ito, nahilo ako sa mga pinagsasabi ko. hahaha! basta, enjoy ka lang sa paggamit ng smilies dito. at kung gusto mong humirit ng comment ulit sa reply ko sa comment mo, you can do so. just click the reply button on the original comment you had, and voila, threaded na ang comments.
oy nga pala, what happened to the new domain? sana makalipat ka na dun Sis. promise, you’ll love it there to pieces.
ano kaya? why don’t we have dinner tas dalhin mo laptop mo, pagtulong-tulungan natin ng Eating Club i set-up ang blog mo. oh ano, kelan dinner date?
Galeng! Kakatuwa naman smilies! Makagamit nga..
… eto pa 
ay kakatuwa 
GreyMoms last blog post..The Continuing Saga of the Insensitive Friend
Hi Greymom! haha! talang pinag tripan ang mga smilies! that should make commenting here more enjoyable.
Wow! Great enhancements.
I’ll try that comment responder plugin. It looks really cool. Thanks for sharing.
N!cE
http://www.nicemorning.net
http://www.mommastuff.com
N!cEs last blog post..Self-Treatment Tips for Acne Sufferers
Hi Nice! and you very well know why I got my domain Sept. last year–if only to have the email comment responder plugin that you have.
try the nested comments plugin too plus the smilies, it’s really really fun and cool.
yup, i visited you last weekend, but i love the smileys so here goes
hahahha
raqgolds last blog post..Sex Education in Third Grade
hi Raq! sucker for smilies too? haha! it would have been better if there’s that smiley rolling on the floor. but I love this new plugin, anyways.
wow, everyday this site has improved leaps and bounds with all the techy stuff you’ve added feng…so it’s called “plugins” pala. and the smileys are really fun way of posting comments….lemme give it a try….
mhalous last blog post..Tribute to the Boss(es)
hi Mhalou! haha! that’s what you call, a dummy me trying hard to be techie. yes, plugins’ a great way to enhance a Blog and I so love it.
enjoy the smilies Mhalou!
Feng, you will be pressured to give me details about this
i looked for a,ink to the plugin kasi in your post.
Sana hindi na ako spam
Baka naman patatim ngayon 
julies last blog post..Time
grabe ha, natakot ako bigla sa evil smiley. haha! sige, email kita later.
madali lang ito, konting tinkering lang sa template.
pata tim? haha, naka moderate kasi mga comments, kaya di mo agad kita comment mo.
Feng, you will be pressured to give me details about this
i looked for a link to the plugin kasi in your post.
Sana hindi na ako spam
Baka naman patatim ngayon 
julies last blog post..Time
T. Julie, nga pala, naka 2.5 WP ka na ka na ba? I’ll research kung pano install sa 2.5. Alam mo na, baka may conflict sa installations.
feng, yung mga ininstall mong plug-ins yan din ang mga gusto ko pero hindi ko pa naasikaso ever. naku, salamat sa tip dun sa comment plug-in. magaya nga!
Wengs last blog post..LP #5: Malungkot
hi Weng. sige lang, install lang tayo ng install ng plugins. maganda talaga yung comment plug in na yan. with a little tweaking through the template, you’ll get it right.