Blocking Someone
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There’s someone called lolwutgoat who hacks WordPress accounts and ruins people’s blogs by changing the background and header. He writes mean posts and comments too. Is there a way to block him? He doesn’t have a blog so I cannot block him that way.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Based on my 8 years of answering questions here, if any person or any bot gains access to your blogs and is posting anything to your blog then you have provided them with the ability to do so, either deliberately by adding them as official users, or by allowing them access to your login information, or by posting content that makes it easy for them to guess what your log-in information is.
You may want to ask yourself these questions and act on any answers that pop up:
Who has access to your login information?
Did you use the same password for your email account and your blog and for any other accounts?
Are you sharing log-in information with anyone else or leaving it where anyone can locate it?
Is your password a weak one that others can easily guess?
Are you remaining logged in on your computer so anyone can come along and access your blog through it?Then read this please and act on what you find there > http://en.support.wordpress.com/security/
Make sure your password is a strong one. It will also work on mobile devices. If you have two-factor enabled, you will need to create a new application-specific password: http://en.support.wordpress.com/security/two-step-authentication/#application-specific-passwords
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access public blogs and that’s indeed what the public designation means. However, please read this about public blogs that become private blogs > Blog Privacy and Subscribers > http://wpcommaven.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/blog-privacy-and-subscribers/
Note that you have complete control comment moderation. http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/#comment-moderation If your blog is public others can, of course, read it and they can submit comments but you can Moderate all comments and choose which ones to approve or not.
I suggest you set your blog so that first time commenters are held in moderation until their first comment is approved, then from that point forward they will not need approval. Settings > Discussion. The next step up is to set it so that all comments are held in moderation until approved. http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/
Mark only spam as spam http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2013/01/24/mark-only-spam-as-spam/ and delete all troll comments. http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/how-to-starve-a-troll/
For trolls, you can “blacklist” them at Settings > Discussion toward the bottom of that page. Enter their email address, their username, and if they included it, their website URL. That will automatically send them to moderation so that their comments do not appear on the blog. Do note though that if they are determined, they can use a different email address or username to get around that.
Also, do not put their IP address in the blacklist. IP addresses are no longer unique, and you might end up blocking legitimate visitors. Also, all they would have to do is go to a wi-fi hot spot, or connect via a different ISP and they could get around that.
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This isn’t Facebook; you can’t block people from reading a public blog.
Only admins can edit background and header images. Don’t make other people admins of your blog, use a strong password and a strong password for your email, and you will be safe.
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Hey gang, this has been an immensely comment thread. Thanks! I have a related question. One of my followers is pissed of at me and somehow found a way to remove her gravatar from showing up in my Community Cloud. But she still shows up as one of my followers with my blog sent to her reader. This suggests that, although the gravatar doesn’t show up, she is still following. How does one do that?
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@robertrife
There is no way to prevent anyone from following a public blog. WordPress.com and Gravatar are both owned by Automattic. http://blog.gravatar.com/2013/04/03/gravatar-and-wordpress-com-together-forever/ The person in question simply chose to hide her gravatar. Gravatar accounts are available to everyone and anyone who has one can click like buttons on your blog and follow it. Also note that aside from subscribing anyone with internet access can subscribe to any public blog in a feedreader. -
Cool. I figured as much but wasn’t totally sure how that worked. Thanks for a lightning fast reply, too! Sheesh.
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You’re welcome. I’d like have the ability to manage my followers list by keeping it up to date so I can have some confidence in the numbers of followers reflected in my site stats but I can’t and neither can you. The bottom line here is that we WordPress.com bloggers have no ability to manage subscriptions and subscribers.
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Fair enough. It’s not a game changer by any means. I was just interested. Thanks for your timely and insightful responses. Cheers…R
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