alqpr

If you don’t trust automated spamcatchers or if you just want to turn off trackbacks for some other reason, and if you have a lot of old postings that you want to switch over, then rather than doing it one-by-one, you can do it in your wp database. Just run the query:
UPDATE wp_posts SET ping_status=’closed’ WHERE 1

It would be nice if this was possible within WordPress, and also if ping notifications looked different from comment notifications so that people wouldn’t have to waste time trying to figure out why requiring registration for comments seems to have no effect.

Further to this, what is the point of making it possible to require registration for comments if this can easily be evaded just by sending trackbacks? Shouldn’t there be a way of enabling trackbacks only from registered users, and shouldn’t the setting of registration required for comments also automatically do the same for trackbacks?

I have the opposite problem – or at least my spammers do.

With “must be logged in to comment” checked in the General Options I cannot comment without logging in, but if I create an account and log in it works fine. So far so good. But spammers seem to have found a way of getting past this and I keep getting comments submitted for moderation even though there are no extra user accounts showing up either in WP Users or in the database.

Has anyone else seen this and is there a fix for it?

I have just had to deal with the same problem (ie Dashboard failing to load until the @fetch_rss lines were commented out) but it only happens on one of two hosts where I am running WP so I am not sure that it is a WP bug rather than a problem with the host setup.
It’s a relief to find I am not the only one with this issue and I wish I had checked here before going through the process of deleting bits and pieces in order to narrow it down to the offending code, but I would prefer not to see the issue classed as “resolved” until there is an explanation posted (or a bug fix announced if it really is a WP problem).
Thanks.
Alan

I have just had to deal with the same problem (ie Dashboard failing to load until the @fetch_rss lines were commented out) and don’t see why it is identified as “not a support issue”.

The question is “What’s the problem?” meaning “Why does @fetch_rss fail on some hosts?”