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The "edit comment" is configurable by the site admin - off, or up to x minutes after the original post. Users see the added text in a different font, along with a note saying the comment was edited. No confusion.

After all, you were buying into the whole bullshit of "when a user is deleted their comments are assigned to the anonymous user it must be a plot", which indicates someone who is incredibly naive when it comes to managing linked lists (which is what comments are).

Or like your whining about the way people down-modded you.

I have complained to /. management over this organized misuse of mod points and hijacking of a neutral, opinion-forming platform (which is what /. has been for a long time) by another community that certainly has a lot of overlap (hence they have mod points here).

You really are new here. Only a couple of hundred posts, and you expect that people won't don-mod you when you spout FUD. BTW - where does it say that slashdot is a "neutral, opinion-forming platform"? Your misuse of words like neutral and non-discriminatory will be the subject of a future story - just letting you know :-) There is no such thing as neutral, and the slashdot crowd certainly makes no claim to being neutral.

Also, if I were them, I'd block lying pieces of crap and astro-turfers too. This is not "censorship" any more than it would be if the Jewish Defense League refuses to print the KKK's manifesto. In the end, the site editor is the final authority. Don't like it, start your own. That's what freedom of speech is about - the right for you to start your own, not the obligation for anyone else to help you or even listen to you.

If you actually get around to setting up a copy of geeklog, you'll find that there's a cookie variable just for the user IP. Don't take my word for it - try it.

1. log in as the administrator
2. click on "configuration"
3. click on "Geeklog Configuration"
4. See the 8th item - "Cookies embed IP"

You can even read about it in the online documentation

Now scroll down a bit further on the document page - Miscellaneous: IP Lookup. There's a lot more that can be done with that.

For example, to keep trolls and spammers from realizing that their posts are now hidden from regular users, a pseudo-select statement would be "SELECT comments FROM comment_table WHERE story_id=$story_id AND deleted = 0 OR client_ip=$client_ip",

It's the same "mark records for deletion but don't really delete them until the table is packed" as used by dBASE way back in the 80s.

Anyone can implement this with with any cms with a bit of work. It doesn't suddenly make it nefarious - it lowers the amount of repeat spamming and astroturfing, because when astroturfers realize that nobody is getting their message, they go elsewhere.

So, like I said at the beginning, go for it. I'll be watching.

Please get your facts at least a little straight.

Firstly, due to the way they've set up the site, when a user's account is terminated for disagreeing they effectively become an unperson: all their past comments are retroactively attributed to Anonymous.

There's nothing nefarious about that - every geeklog installation works that way. So do many other content management systems. Download a copy and try it.

Secondly, they have been known to block people for disagreement in such a way that they can't tell they've been blocked - as far as they can see, their comments are still there and visible.

Again, nothing nefarious. This is an anti-spam provision. Spammer posts some spam, you delete it, but because it's tied to an IP, when they go to check up on their spam, it's "still there" so they don't re-post over and over and over. Then, because their spam apparently is bringing 0 results, they go elsewhere.

Thirdly, any comment asking about or commenting on a ban is removed, so if you just read Groklaw you never hear about any of this.

Having to explain it would clue in the more clueless spammers ... but since it's not unique, it's no big deal to mention it here.

The real story is Florian Mueller's latest FUD campaign hits a brick wall, when he tried to troll slashdot this weekend and got called on it, then started whining. He couldn't accept that people are just fed up with his attempts to insert himself into issues for all the wrong reasons.

I am going to put my plug in for Geeklog. http://geeklog.net/

I use is for the base of many commercial web sites, utilizing the WYSISYG (FCKeditor) page editor and the news manager. It provides an excellent frame work for developing sites on top of, especially if you need a basic website with some extras thrown in.

It also runs sites such as http://www.groklaw.net/ and http://worldmusiccentral.org/

By changing the templates or config to eliminate links to the parts you do not need, (example, links pages, polls, etc), you can use the user login, edit, and admin parts to allow your web clients to edit their own pages, saving you the trouble and saving them money in the long run. The templates are completely separate from the code, allowing you to design graphics for the site separate from the code.

Updates are pretty easy if you keep your custom code out of the main install, a process that is pretty easy if you put your code in lib-custom.php. The code is well written and clear enough for a person with basic php knowledge to hack if they like

The software is all php/mysql and run efficiently on most linux shared hosts. There are also a wide variety of plugins.

The forum and developers are responsive to support requests.

just my two cents from a fan of geeklog,

it is also available for demo at http://opensourcecms.com/

I agree with you. I tried to use Mambo for my soon-to-be-launched entertainment site, but I couldn't get it to work the way I expected to. That's not to say that Mambo sucks; rather, Mambo was taking too long to figure out, so I switched to Geeklog.

For pictures: Gallery. Super-easy to use, pretty easy to set up, OSS, and requires a couple OSS (I think) libs (ImageMagick or NetBPM.) Makes nice galleries, good looking thumbnails, and any user (if you allow it) can add comments to pictures.

For content, including calendar: GeekLog. Pretty easy to use (the user model throws me a bit but I haven't spent much time with it since I'm the only user), works a lot like Slashdot (stories, comments, etc.), looks a lot like Slashdot (sections, polls, etc., but gorgeous; I fell in love with the 'clean' theme) and has integration with Gallery. (Or maybe Gallery offers integration with GeekLog. I forget. One or the other, I know it's there, I just haven't used it.) And GeekLog was originally designed to be the weblog for a security site, so it's pretty good in that regard. My GeekLog-backed site is here with the aforementioned 'clean' theme. (Note also that GeekLog ships with only one theme, so even Clean--which used to be a stock theme--has to be downloaded separately.) Look around for tips--many sites (mine included) start off with "how I made this site" as the first story.

Or, if you don't mind having your eggs in someone else's free-as-in-beer basket, Yahoo's services, as others have mentioned, are pretty sweet and easy-to-use, not to mention the availability and bandwidth. (Though they still put ads in the groups, AFAIK.)

Geeklog. Pathetically easy to set up and use, even moreso to administer. Plugins aplenty from squatty.com. And of course you need themes.

PHPNuke is OK, but I've found Geeklog to be a lot cleaner, and the community support is insane[ly good]. For your purposes, comments, stories, and calendars (including per-user calendaring, I believe) is included. There are several plugins that connect Geeklog and Coppermine, Gallery, etc.

Try Geeklog. Very similar in looks to Slashcode -- has a poll, articles, site calendar, and so on. Geeklog is pretty basic at this point -- all sites tend to look more or less the same 3-column layout -- but very easily themeable (and with a community that makes up for the features it lacks).

I've been researching CMSs recently, and the problem I've come across is that they tend to look similar across themes, and/or their framework is overbroad and poorly documented, making it a monster just to make a few pages.

Geeklog

What's more, Geeklog makes security a priority.

Geeklog

What's more, Geeklog makes security a priority.

Both sites are probably built from the same popular Content Management System Geeklog".
You can play with a number of them at OpenSource CMS.

You are affected by reading too much RIAA, SCO and Microsoft coverage: not everything looking similar is theft or ripoff ;-).

GeekLog is the best and most secure PHP CMS out there.
On top of this it is easy to use and setup.

How you missed GeekLog I will never know.

Though it's aimed more at CMS's rather than blogs, it's definatley a great place to try out multiple CMS's before installing them.

Check it out - OpenSourceCMS

My current favorites:
Mambo
Wordpress
E107
and last but not least Geeklog

I was a Movable Type user, but with my latest ISP change I ditched MT for Geeklog. Geeklog is really cool, and nicely integrates with Gallery which I use for images. Both are Open Source and free, so the decision was easy.

GL is by far the best. I did an extensive search before I settled on GL. It has great plugins that allow you keep spammers out, great RSS integration, polls, stats, upload area, static pages, images, etc etc. And themes to boot. Check out my site for an example. site.

I second that, geeklog is pretty far ahead of the pack last I checked. I had set up a site for launch (socalsnowboarding.com shameless plug) with it and it was awesome. Easy polling system, with polling administrators (and any other type of administrators you can imagine or create), so certain people could make polls (or not make them) news stuff, RSS feeds, all kinds of plugins. I am in no way affiliated with geeklog, but I definitely support their product. The only downfall it had when I used it was a lack of a members search or members directory, so it was hard to find someone and leave a message from them, get their AIM/YIM/MSN IDs or contact them.. Hopefully they've fixed that, because I've gotten approval from some mtns and would like to take the snowboarding site live again, and a members search/directory would be the icing on the cake.

-matt

I used to use GeekLog for my personal site, and it worked pretty good. I've since moved to a combination of phpBB, and an addon for it called phpBB_Fetch_All.

The advantage of using phpBB is you can easily expand your site into a larger community or something in the future.

PostNuke, but found it cumbersome and tough to administer. Check out "GeekLog" (Link). I have found it pretty secure, easy to manage and easy to write new code for. It only took me about 10 minutes to get it up and running on a Windows platform (for testing...). One key feature I like, is that the developers always seem to be around to answer questions about features on their discussion boards.

GeekLog.Net

This Slashdot "anger management" is funny. One software patent article per day and a couple of hundreds of exclamations about "broken system", "patent grab" etc.

Wanna get really angry, really fast? Get ready and check this lovely collection of business method patents. Some great business minds have recently invented among others:

• Secure Online Music Distribution System
• Web-Based Entry Of Financial Transaction Information And Subsequent Download Of Such Information
• Investment Fund Management Method And System (love this one - it's generic process for managing any mutual fund, straight from a university book)
• Product demand system and method ("...past product-demand data is used to estimate the product demands in current and future periods")
• Personal Online Banking With Integrated Online Statement And Checkbook User Interface
• System and Method Providing A Computer User Interface Enabling Access To Distributed Workgroup Members (a la Sourceforge)
• Automatic Updating Of Diverse Software Products On Multiple Client Computer Systems By Downloading Scanning Application To Client Computer And Generating Software List On Client Computer
• Dynamic Generation Of Contextual Links In Hypertext Documents (I've seen Geeklog "what's related" module doing this)

... and many more!

Those of you who still think that "the system is broken" should read some articles on this page. They clearly state that software and process patents are OK, and has been OK since the 60s (This link, for example). It's life, folks, and it's roaring ahead.

After venting the anger I suggest some of Slashdot readers get second legal degrees. Apparently, being a software engineer AND a lawyer kicks ass big time...

...by design since they are not "multi-user". They are more like individual diaries. You would to give your users opportunity to interact with each other with some community software like Geeklog or OpenACS.

I thought setting up and playing Massive Lan Games was the only legitimate activity for a Computer Club... am I wrong?

Also Chemistry Club is for blowing things up and making nitrogen cooled Bongs!

Maybe you could set up a blogging system for students? I also recommend that you re-design your website using one of any popular PHP/MySQL portal systems. May I suggest Geeklog.