Editors_Desk's blog

We just posted the news that a former Modesto High School band teacher will spend a year in jail for sending lewd text messages to a 14-year-old girl. We've taken an unusual, pre-emptive step in blocking visitors to our Web site from commenting on the story.

Why? Experience. We've had a handful of stories in which minors were the victims of sex crimes perpetrated by adults, and some commenters simply could not control themselves. They trashed the victims, accusing them of provoking the crimes. In one case, commenters nearly divulged the identity of the victim before we pulled the plug.

The Bee is abundantly in favor of free expression. But in this case we can predict what some people will say, cruelly. They can say it elsewhere.

Dan

We had another round of spam attacks overnight and again during the day. So we've ratched up our spam-blocking utilities on The Hive.

If you haven't already tried to post an entry or reply, you will soon find out that each user must type in a two-word code in order to post. We're hoping this device will stop the spammers.

Dan

We're still battling the spammers, and have just moved from small arms fire to artillery. This message is a test to see what happens. More to come later in the day.

Dan

Over the noon hour today we installed new anti-spam controls on The Hive. This is in response to a series of spam attacks on the site over the last several days.

All bloggers should be advised that when logging on to The Hive, you may be asked to give not only your user name and password but also type in two randomly generated words. This "captcha" system is designed to thwart spambots and other machines that post spam.

If you encounter any problems, please let me know by posting a reply to this post.

Thanks,

Dan

Hivers: We apologize for the spam attacks that continued through the weekend. We should have controls up by mid-day today that should block such incursions. Or so we dearly hope.

Dan

It's been a while since I posted information for you on who the most-viewed bloggers are on The Hive. While we don't divulge the actual numbers that your posts rack up, I can tell you generally that the figures are way, way up from a year ago.

The last time I gave these figures, I didn't include Bee staff blogs. But this time around, I'm including them. At one time, our blogs took up probably 10 of the top 20 rankings, but no more.

So here's the top 10:

1. Activist1

2. Truthseekers

3. wdeboard

4. jheaton

5. wayne2008

6. Bmoore3

7. Standford4Modesto

8. After_Deadline

9. Shamott

10. burnsgracie

The second 10:

11. gDose

12. Editors_Desk

13. Bee_Opinion

14. SceneIt

15. IDPNC

16. Ahwahnee

17. Yosemite_Indian

18. LSK49ers

19. Malcomkyle

If you read this morning's paper, you may have noticed something different about the weekly Buzzz section.  First, after several years as a tabloid-size section, it returned to the standard page size.  Second, if you're a puzzle worker, the crossword and other games are slightly larger.  And third, the Doonesbury comic strip was missing.

Some of our critics immediately concluded that we had yanked Doonesbury because we disagreed with the content.  Well, as usually is the case with this particular group, they're dead wrong.  In changing the page size, the comic strip was inadvertantly left out. We apologize for that. And, we'll make it up to you in Friday's paper, where you'll find a double dose of Doonesbury. Thursday's misplaced strip will appear in the local news section, with Friday's strip in its regular place on the puzzles page.