David Raynes: Closing comments on old entries

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December 27, 2003

Closing comments on old entries

Based on what Jeremy has worked up already, I have created a small little MT application that will close the entry to comments (and pings if you so desire) for any entries older than a given number of days (defaults to five).

So, download one of the following, unpack it, and place mt-close.cgi in your base MT directory. Be sure to set the permissions of the file so that it can be executed.

Then, to use it, just bring up http://your.mt.url/mt-directory/mt-close.cgi in your browser of choice.

Enjoy!

Update: (2003-12-27 12:10)

The bug Neil found is now fixed. Just download the script again.

Posted by rayners at December 27, 2003 12:11 AM

Blogging → Movable Type → MT Plugins

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Comments

Got a problem - when I run it, I get this error from MT: 'Can't modify non-lvalue subroutine call at mt-close.cgi line 88.'. I uploaded it as ASCII and set the permissions correctly, so I'm hoping you'll have some idea. I'm using MySQL as the database, and on most of the entries the comments are closed already anyway.

Posted by: Neil T. at December 27, 2003 09:50 AM

thanks for this plugin mate, but was just wondering if its able to config it so it can only close certain categories, some I wish to keep open

Posted by: shaan at December 28, 2003 07:03 AM

Is there some limitation on the number of days you can set? I tried to shut off comments to all threads older than 45 days, and it appears to have done nothing at all. I posted a couple of test comments myself just to make sure.

Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden at January 13, 2004 12:43 PM

Any chance of making this reversable? Or keeping some sort of record as to which records /used to/ support comments and trackbacks?

Posted by: Bill Kearney at January 13, 2004 08:09 PM

I have it barraging me by the second. I deleted the mt-comment.cgi and am trying to get the mt-close.cgi script to work. I placed it in the cgi-bin where all the other MT cgi script reside and set the permissions so it could do everything, and when I tried to access it, I got this error:

Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@tiglaw.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Apache/1.3.27 Server at tiglaw.com Port 80

I am sure I did something wrong, as it took me a couple of days to install MT initially. HELP!

Posted by: Tiger at January 18, 2004 12:05 AM

Is this reversible? Even manually?

Posted by: gary at February 8, 2004 05:03 PM

This script wont work for me? MT 2.661, MT-Blacklist and Berkeley DB. I select the options on the form. It goes back to the server and then simply comes back to my browser with the same form and no entries have been closed?

Posted by: steve at February 9, 2004 04:52 AM

Just as "steve" reported on Feb 9, the script doesn't seem to work. I can submit the form and a second later it just seems to refresh the page and that's it. I'm guessing it only works on systems setup to use MySQL DB (steve and I are just using Berkeley DB). I'm running MT 2.63.

Can someone please confirm this?

Posted by: Derek Tom at February 24, 2004 10:59 AM

Can someone please confirm this?

Posted by: Derek Tom at February 24, 2004 11:00 AM

Once I've executed and closed all the comments, do I set the permissions back to the way it was before?

Thanks.

Posted by: Lynne at March 20, 2004 09:40 PM

Hello, I'm having the same problem that Steven and Derek Tom are having, posts 41-43. Is this a bug? Can anyone help us?

Posted by: Rodney at April 4, 2004 09:19 PM

i, too, am having the refresh problem cited above by steve et al...using mt 2.661

Posted by: jp at April 7, 2004 02:46 PM

"Me, too!" I'm seeing the same type of problem that has been previously reported. Given that the first occurrences didn't appear to receive any help, I'm not hopeful.

David, can you please offer us any assistance?

Posted by: Kelly at April 8, 2004 09:49 PM

Could mt-close.cgi be modified for "no comments" rather than "closed," that is, 0 rather than 1?

Posted by: Ken at April 11, 2004 12:35 PM

sob I'm getting hammered with comment spam and want to close my old comments, but this script didn't work. It installed correctly, but when I execute it, nothing happens. All my old comments are still open!

Posted by: Noelle at May 2, 2004 06:14 PM

doesnt anyone answer the questions as to why this doesnt work? Someone? Is this mike on?

Posted by: Political Pulpit at May 3, 2004 12:58 AM

Meh. Did not work for me either.

Posted by: Rori at May 9, 2004 08:29 PM

Well, I can run it alright, but then it just sits around forever until it finally 404s without closing anything whatsoever.

Posted by: Misha I at May 24, 2004 09:15 PM

It's not closing any comments for me, either. It just runs and does nothing. I'm running MT 2.661 and the MT Blacklist.

Posted by: Puddle Pirate at May 25, 2004 10:24 PM

From the "Beggars Can't Be Choosers" file, what I would really like to be able to do is, rather than closing comments for posts over n days old, instead close comments for posts that have not been commented on in over n days. Any script hack make that possible?

Posted by: tgirsch at June 4, 2004 11:51 AM

Obviously nobody has any answers here, and obviously MT Close doesn't work here either.

Posted by: Political Pulpit at June 4, 2004 04:38 PM

Obviously nobody answers these questions.

Posted by: Political Pulpit at June 4, 2004 04:43 PM

This script, as is, does not work for me. But... I debugged it a little and changed it so that it will work for me. (I suspect the problem is due to not using mysql but I'm not sure).

I'd like to extend it a bit (so you can turn off comments per category, turn on comments and pings and filter by "activity")?

Posted by: Mark at June 18, 2004 04:00 AM

If anyone's interested, I've e-mailed David Raynes twice and have received no response.

Posted by: Tin Man at June 18, 2004 12:00 PM

So what changes did you make, Mark? I'm also not using mysql, and like many others, this script is doing nothing for me. Can you post your changes so that maybe some of us can get this working (seeing as it appears that David doesn't read these comments)?

Posted by: Drew at June 18, 2004 12:06 PM

Let me start off by apologizing for not speaking up earlier.

Anyways, this was originally just a quick port for a script that somebody else wrote so it could be useful to more MT users (i.e. non-MySQL users). It obviously does not work for everybody, but I do not have the time right now to really look into it. Between the upcoming release at work, the two hours I spend commuting every day, taking care of my family and my house, and working on schoolwork during the semester, I only have so many hours of the day left, most of which I have spent recently working on the new version of SubCategories for the plugin contest.

And, beyond that, what little free time I do have is worth quite a lot to me. In all honesty (and I hate to be so blunt), unless you have a check with my name on it waiting for me, I will do with my time what I choose, and for now that is working on SubCategories, ExtendedComments/CommentThreads/CommentTitles, and MultiBlog.

Now, it appears that a few of you have spent some time working with the code to see what it is that is causing so many problems. I would like to encourage that and suggest that you all work together to see if you can fix this quickie script that I wrote. I certainly cannot help everyone, so please help each other where you can.

Posted by: David Raynes at June 18, 2004 01:04 PM

Hi David,

Its totally understandable, time is precious to us all. I think I have fixed the script (see below).

I'd like to expand the script though? I've started working on it so that you can select to open comments instead of just close them (i.e. to reverse the changes), a way of selecting by specific categories and a way of selecting by "activity" (i.e less that x comments).

-- Mark

The Fix:

Open up mt-close.cgi in your favoriate text editor and scroll through the code until you find this:

  foreach my $blog (@blogs) {
    my @ago = offset_time_list (time - 3600 * 24 * $days, $blog->id);
    my $ago = sprintf "%04d%02d%02d%02d%02d%02d",
        $ago[5]+1900, $ago[4]+1, @ago[3,2,1,0];

    foreach my $term (@terms) {
      my @entries = MT::Entry->load ({ blog_id => $blog->id, 
    created_on => [ 0, $ago ],
    "$term" => 1 }, { range => { created_on => 1 }}) or next;
      foreach my $e (@entries) {
    $e->allow_comments (2) if ($q->param ('close_comments'));
        $e->allow_pings (0) if ($q->param ('close_trackback'));
        $e->save;
    $term =~ s/allow_//g;
        $html .= "<li>'".$e->title."' closed $term</li>\n";
      }
    }
  }

Replace it with this:

  foreach my $blog (@blogs) {
    my @ago = offset_time_list (time - 3600 * 24 * $days, $blog->id);
    my $ago = sprintf "%04d%02d%02d%02d%02d%02d",
        $ago[5]+1900, $ago[4]+1, @ago[3,2,1,0];
      my @entries = MT::Entry->load (
        { blog_id => $blog->id,
          created_on => [ 0, $ago ] },
        { range => { created_on => 1 } }
        ) or next;

      foreach my $e (@entries) 
      {
        $b = 0;
        if( $e->allow_comments == 1 && $q->param( 'close_comments') )
        {
          $e->allow_comments (2) if ($q->param ('close_comments'));
          $html .= "<li>'".$e->title."' closed comments</li>\n";
          $b = 1;
        }

        if( $e->allow_pings == 1 && $q->param( 'close_trackback') )
        {
          $e->allow_pings (0) if ($q->param ('close_trackback'));
          $html .= "<li>'".$e->title."' closed pings</li>\n";
          $b = 1;
        }

        if( $b == 1 )
        {
          $e->save;
        }
      }
  }

... and save.

This should allow you use mt-close.cgi on non-mysql MT installations. Also it should prevent the script from just hanging and throwing up a 404.

For the sake of ease, you can download an already patched version of it @ http://sw.thedeadone.net/mt-close-fix.zip (but be warned that it may not stay there forever).

-- 20th June 2004

Posted by: Mark at June 20, 2004 12:33 PM

Hi all!

I've created a MT-Close2 script which expands on this script. It works on non-MySQL installs of MT, allows you to filter entries by categories, open comments and trackbacks (i.e. reverse changes) and select entries based on number of comments.

Go to http://sw.thedeadone.net/MT-Close2 to download it.

BTW I've moved mt-close-fix.zip to here.

-- Mark

Posted by: Mark at June 24, 2004 10:22 AM

Hi all!

Go to http://sw.thedeadone.net/MT-Close2 to download it.

BTW I've moved mt-close-fix.zip to here.

-- Mark

Posted by: Mark at June 24, 2004 10:24 AM

Thanks Dave and Mark!

Pretty handy!!

Posted by: corredor at June 26, 2004 01:08 AM

thank you soooo much david and mark. i know you guys are busy, but your hard work is soooo greatly appreciated by everyone in the blogosphere. :)

Posted by: xtina at July 5, 2004 05:24 AM

crud. i ran this cgi script and it torqued my entire MT install. my site (http://starjewel.org) is now throwing a 500 internal server error. has anyone else seen any bugs with this? i'm running MT 2.6 and MT-Blacklist. if anyone knows what this breaks and how to fix it, i'd appreciate any help!

Posted by: kim at November 30, 2004 03:58 PM

ok so it appears something else coincidentally broke at the same time. however, the script doesn't appear to actually be closing commenting. do i need to do something else to make it work? it just runs and runs and finishes, but comments are open still on old posts.

Posted by: kim at December 2, 2004 01:48 PM

Stillllll broken.

Posted by: Steve at December 10, 2004 04:32 AM

This script, as is, does not work for me. But... I debugged it a little and changed it so that it will work for me. (I suspect the problem is due to not using mysql but I'm not sure).I love your website it is so user friendly and always makes me laugh. Thanks and keep up the great work! - Matt

Posted by: bill walker at January 19, 2005 10:22 AM

Nice script. I have a CAPTCHA script running for my comments but it won't work with MT-Blacklist. So I've had to disable MT-Blacklist and trackback spams are sneaking through.

Your script has allowed me to disable trackbacks on entries over 5 days old without disabling comments.

It has one problem, but it's only minor. I have over 900 entries and MT-Close only seems to be able to deal with 300 at a time before timing out. That may be why other commenters have thought it's not working for them. The answer is simple. Just run the script multiple times until the site is done.

Posted by: theaardvark at February 4, 2005 05:29 AM

David, it seems this script can be accessed outside of MT - no login required. So couldn't anybody run the script the turn the commenting option back on? Seems like a login would be appropriate at a minimum. And I know your really, really busy, but if it were possible, it'd be great if this were a plugin that we access from inside MT. Just a thought. Thanks for the script! :-)

Posted by: DaveE at February 5, 2005 10:39 PM

David Raynes

I am just a figment of my own imagination.

December 27, 2003

Closing comments on old entries

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