Just because I’m doing a lot of traveling this weekend doesn’t mean I can’t check in on the blog now and then. I notice that a particularly vile misogynistic troll, the cowardly Ostiarius, was emboldened by my absence to start make lots of nasty comments. He has been banned.
Trolls, you are on notice. This isn’t an opportunity for you to play.
I am seriously thinking of enabling comment registration, though…
“Get ’em out on the dirty boulevard”… Lou Reed
But… but… he was funny. A jackass, too be sure, but entertaining.
Oh well
Yeah, but the penis envy was glaring.
Good work, PZ. Thanks for the quick and decisive response.
~David D.G.
oh please no.
Damn I love that album
Testing
Trolls take note for future,
PZ smites faster than anyone else on earth.
Take that God.
He certainly had a thing for you, Patricia. It was probably a projected Oedipal conflict. (I’m certain he is 12 or 13 emotionally)
Me too! Last Great American Whale…
Sorry about the testing post. I have not posted anything in a couple of hours. And then I was informed that my post was being held for review. I had no idea I was being a bad girl.
* ahem *
It should be “I aten’t dead yet.” Please correct this.
I guess I got my wish, then. Many thanks.
Janine, that happened to me recently too. I got the “comment being held for moderation” message from the SeedZone server, and then my comment (which was hilarious, btw) never did appear.
gremlins in the tubes?
An comedy-rich headline on a CNN story: “How to talk to your doctor about god” (http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/09/11/ep.faith.medicine/index.html)
“I had god once. They gave me a little shot and it cleared right up.”
Or maybe they mean that your faith and zeal are not where you want them to be, and people are looking to modern pharmaceuticals for assistance.
“Ask your doctor/clergyman about Deiagra™, America’s #1 treatment for agnosticism. See a doctor if you have a prayer session that lasts longer than 4 hours.”
I understand the need for comment registration, but it would assuredly disincline people of religious adherence to post and it’s important for readers to see their puerile antics, as well as our refutations.
Unfortunately, I just stumbled upon your blog as you are starting to travel. I will have to read through some more of your old posts until you get back. How come none of my professor’s in college were as “enlightened” as you? Great stuff my friend!
I agree with Alan.
That would seriously be a whole bunch of no fun.
Thank you PZ! If you reveal who he really is, who will be more embarrassed, him or me? He sounded like he had been here for awhile.
I agree with Alan as well, but for different reasons.
It’s important for us to keep an open door policy (until a dog comes in pees on the carpet), because it’s precisely what the religionists do not do.
I’ve seen too many sites on the opposition’s side run with an iron fist, and they quickly became pedantic wastelands.
What about adding some freelance admins?
For instance, the ‘convert_me’ community over at LiveJournal was run on a tiered structure, and the admins had proportionate ranks based on their tier.
It would save you a lot of headaches AND maintain a democratic and (relatively) peaceful environment.
Please no comment registration.
While I am against comment registration in general, there may be a way around it, kind like a “registration optional, but encouraged” type thing. Possibly a “hide/unhide unregistered users” type thing?
I take back what I said, Ryan’s idea for a tier based admin is pretty damn good, too.
From what I’ve seen on this blog, the trolls are usually dealt with in the best manner. Their posts are countered with intelligent, thought out, backed by fact, rational arguments. Alan @ #16 makes a good point. It’s good to see what others think, and then see responses. This being a science blog, I would think that most of the trolls are one offs, and do, at times, make for some entertaining moments. Site registration would take some of that away, I think. But it comes down to a balance: Is it upsetting regulars and driving some of them away, or is it drawing (like myself) new readers in?
I’m having a few problems posting too.
Eeek, SWOTI- personally I blame it on that damn LHC.
Oh I know where that subject line comes from, and I’m sure most people who have read Terry Pratchett will know, too.
PZ Myers as Granny Weatherwax sounds good. Or maybe the Librarian! :)
Ever the contrarian, I say Yes! for registration of commenters. Almost all the problems with the webbertubes can be traced back to anonymity.
Earthquakes, commenting problems, sour milk, innocents transformed into newts – the LHC has caused all sorts of problems – BUT THE SCIENTISTS REMAIN IN DENIAL!
“I am seriously thinking of enabling comment registration, though…”
If you kids don’t behave back there, I’m going to turn this car back around and nobody, I mean NOBODY is going to Disneyland.
Fuck it, you’ve got the option to enable registration on this gizmo? Go for it! This is supposed to be a science blog, not a place for trolls to infest.
Like most everyone else who comments on this, I vote no. Hey, if you have to, do it, but it really is inconvenient for commenters.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Thank you, Helioprogenus, you made me choke on my pizza and took me back to a time where I was 10 and my 7 year old brother was BREATHING MY AIR.
I think a couple assistant admins who could run the disemvoweling scrip would keep trolls like the recent one down. Nothing like “piles of poop” becoming “pls f pp” to make them feel unwanted.
Commenter registration always bewilders me to the point of giving up. I wanted to say goodbye to JefferyD on his blog and couldn’t. But if we are loosing so many wonderful regulars because of the trolls, then it would make sense to do registration.
That last troll broke me of the habit of wishing for one ever again. The troll gawds work in mysterious ways all right. The bastards hired a demon!
Could getting banned on Pharyngula be an initiation prank?
I´m for comment registration on the blog, Yeah I know smithing the stupid comments of fundies with the hammer of logic is fun. But I think is more fun to have reasonable arguments with people willing to play by the rules. There are lots of open christian forums where you can go hunting for morons. Lets make this place a sanctuary of good thinking.
Is it me or does disemvowelation (sp?) leave the sentance looking like it’s been written in Welsh? (Before I get attacked let me say I do actually like the Welsh, I just think thier laguage is second only to Navajo in terms of readability)
Registration is not such a bad thing. Most of those who think they are posting anonymously are not aware how easy it is to track them down anyway.
Enjoy.
Dinesh d’Souza and Christopher Hitchens debated the question “There is no God. Or is there?” last night, September 10, 2008, in St. Louis, Missouri.
http://www.godontrialdebate.com/
As it happens, a Xanga user I know (who is an atheist) took his non-believing, couldn’t give a fuck, cousin along to the debate.
His highly partisan blog on this is here:
Christopher Hitchens & Dinesh D’Souza debated here in St. Louis
Is it me or does disemvowelation (sp?) leave the sentance looking like it’s been written in Welsh?
Funny – I was just thinking recently about how disemvowelling must be really dramatic on Dutch blogs.
Yeah, don’t do comment registration. We aren’t those small-minded yellow-bellied cowards at Little Green Footballs who can’t abide hearing anyone question their Obvious Wisdom. Free and open debate where idiots and boors get a voice for us to mock is the American Way!
If it means creating yet another account with a username and password, then I disagree. It’s a giant pain in the ass. It’s like being forced to carry around a massive keyring with a separate key for each and every building you want to access. “Which key do I use for the grocery store, again? Is it this one? No, I think that’s for the gas station…” Ugh.
I think some people have forgotten all the trouble people had commenting last time registration was enabled here. Comment registration procedures are inherently fragile, and slow down discussion.
It’s not worth it unless a site is likely to adopt – and the community to use – a full suite of scoop-like (or dailykos-like, for those of you who don’t know that dailykos uses scoop) features. I don’t see that happening here.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please don’t.
This is one of the last bastions of free speech in this country. Even if some of us aren’t as sarmrt as tohers.
Again, please don’t. Ostra wasn’t that bad. Merely amusing.
(don’t lower yourself to what Prof Dawkin’s did w/his site…;)
If our host opts for registration, I will support that decision. In my books, if someone can’t go through the effort to register, they just don’t want it bad enough.
Remember too, it’s our host who has to break his back moderating, not us.
## Warning: this might be too geeky for some ##
For those having problems remembering mountains of passwords, I would advice developing algorithmic password that uses the domain name as a seed. For example, the following algorithm…
– count backword starting from the number of letters in the domain name, alternating in the first four characters of the domain name, and alternating capitalization.
Applied to “scienceblogs.com” would produce “15S14c13I12e”.
Applied to “google.com” would produce “9G8o7O6G”.
Applied to “anydomain.com” would produce “12A11n10Y9d”.
But make up your own algorithm. A simple algorithm is easily remembered, and produces pretty crack-proof passwords.
“I ain’t dead yet”
Neither am I, although given my age and my paternal-lineage’s recent lifepans, the odds of my taking The Big Sleep are 1 in 3 over the next 4 years. Hope I get my Pal in.
(see, registration would have prevented this travesty)
Patricia, (#35), Please take heart. For whatever it’s worth to you, I thought you handled Ostrasize quite well. In fact, brilliantly. Don’t let these bastards get you down. What he said was nothing. (really) What you post always has substance combined with more flash than he could quite manifest. There are a lot of good people here watching, who notice this.
#36 – Have you ever tried posting as an atheist on any of those christian sites?
Some of the people on this blog would be hurled over the parapet’s after the first post. Or held in moderation until they fossilized.
Sure. Try to distract me with a shiny algorithm. I’m on to your wily ways…
…wait, what? Oh, yeah — honestly, even that system requires a little too much memorization for me — if I have to think that much, I’ll just stick with Password Safe. But that’s still a hassle that will stifle many potentially interesting dialogues, I think. Really, are the trolls really so bad that they’re worth inconveniencing everyone, even slightly? I think we can (and do) manage to look after ourselves fairly well, here.
Jams @46 Thanks! That’s an awesome tip, especially for someone like me who makes up passwords on the fly and either promptly forgets them or scribbles them on a sticky note in my desk drawer (a big no-no, I realize). Your algorithm will save me tons of time and frustration.
There’s another solution that’s used at another blog I go to.
Registered users post immediately, unregistered require a CAPTCHA for the message to post. No absolute need for registration, but there’s incentive.
PZ, I mentioned this previously, can you please put placeholders when you delete comments? Too many people use comment numbers to keep threads together.
How ’bout one of those enter the phrase you see in the box. Just make the phrase “Fuck God”. It would reduce the Jesus-Bot spam.
Since this is an open thread, I was wondering if any other Pharynguliacs think Christopher Hitchins it a real dick? As a vicious atheist myself I feel uncomfortable being lumped into the same bin with that boozy Bush sycophant. I know that British accent makes a lot of folks’ shorts moist, and the man can turn a phrase, but he still uses his powers for evil.
PZ, is the title of this post a reference to George Carlin’s “I Ain’t Dead Yet” comedy special? it would be awesome if it was
I don’t see Ossie in the killfile. Are you going to bother?
This one does. (I’m still sad that I didn’t heart about his waterboarding experiment in time to volunteer as towel holder.)
Bob Vogel – Why thank you! It’s hard to make me blush, but I’m red clear down to my jack boots.
That troll seemed awfully thrilled to grant my wish of two days was the only part that is disconcerting. (To me.) But it hated everyone else too. ;o)
I see no problem with comment registration. PZ gets held accountable for what he says and his commenters could, at least in theory, be held to the same standard. On the face of it, I think it might stifle the dialogue a bit but not enough for me to stop reading.. or commenting– plus, I kind of enjoy watching the trolls get ripped to shreds.
But, eh, why not? It’s PZ’s perogative after all.
Man, I still think you should use threaded comments an allow for ratings. The problem would take care of itself.
Of course, you’d have to find a comment system that does that and integrates with your posting system…
Registered comments would be great, it would save me having to type my details in every single post. It’s not a problem at home where Firefox has autocomplete, but here at work where I’m restricted to IE6 *cries*, it’s a real hassle to have to type my details in over and over.
Bert Chadick asked:
Sometimes he is. I couldn’t believe he was dumb enough to support Giuliani. Sometimes he’s not. I’d say he has some serious Erroneous Zones.
Bert Chadick @54 – I’m with you about Hitchens. I do not automatically disrespect believers and I do not automatically respect fellow atheists. Hitchens is one of those atheists who lets his disgust with religious fanaticism overwhelm his common sense. To the extent that Islamists are a threat to the rest of us, it is not at all clear that invading, conquering, and indefinitely (and bloodily) occupying Muslim countries is a winning counter-terrorism strategy.
As ever, more people are killed every year by the ‘flu, but where is Hitchens’ call for a war on influenza?
“As a vicious atheist myself I feel uncomfortable being lumped into the same bin with that boozy Bush sycophant.” – Bert Chadick
“We go to war with the president we have, not the one we wish we had.” – Hitchens
Hardly the words of a sycophant. I like Hitchens, and would strongly recommend “The Trial of Henry Kissenger” and “Letters to a Young Contrarian”.
More importantly though, there are all sorts of atheists in the world. There are Buddhist atheists, and Toaist atheists; communist atheists and capitalist atheists; murderers and philanthropists are atheists; heck, some atheists even believe in ghosts, pyramid power, aliens, and “free will”. A boozy intellectual (especially one who’s quicker drunk than most are sober) is pretty low on the list of potential embarrassments.
We need Hitchens boozed up for the entertainment value. When he speaks, he always says something of value, retardless of whether it’s agreeable or not. He’s not one to write pages of mindless inane banter.
Patricia (#58), Your jackboots are great but what you have to say impresses me far more. ; Keep posting. I’m surprised that idiot even made you skip a heartbeat.
Registration is a great idea. At least they get easily tired after creating 30 accounts.
I haven’t been by for a while and missed the big laugh. D’Souza should write an open letter of apology for his amazing ignorance of History. If churches opened 1 new, free, secular university a day for the next 10 years they could not make up for the open murder of education and science committed since 325 CE. How many did they burn at the stake just for being able to read ? Not even royalty was allowed to read!
By the way, I love the removal of vowels. It turns every troll’s posts into a guessing game!
PZ who raised you….aintn’t ain’t a work. the word is spelled ain’t. gee whiz (unless you mean the extra emphasis double negative contraction for ain’t not.)
Posted by: Jim1138 @ No 53
“How ’bout one of those enter the phrase you see in the box. Just make the phrase “Fuck God”. It would reduce the Jesus-Bot spam.”
Now that’s just cruel. Can you imagine the conflict. The phrase would impell them to post a comment to blast our eyes for the blasphemy but they would have sooo much trouble bringing themselves to type it to get their comment on. How many brains would explode? Do it!! Do it!!
Kel – ‘retardless’ – that’s pure gold. Going for the Prince of Typo’s title? ;o)
I’m not a big fan of Garrison Keillor, but I thought Pharyngula’s readers might be (at least mildly?) amused by his comments about Sarah Palin in his latest Salon column, “George Bush with Big Hair”:
[I]f you question her qualifications to be the leader of the free world, you are an elitist. This is a beautiful maneuver. I wish I had thought of it back in school when I was forced to subject myself to a final exam in higher algebra. I could have told Miss Mortenson, “I am a Christian and when you gave me a D, you only showed your contempt for the Lord and for the godly hardworking people from whom I have sprung, you elitist battle ax you.”
Just want to say… I love the entry title. I just finished listening to the audiobook of “Lords and Ladies” for the fifth or sixth time last week. Great timing.
Granny Weatherwax > all.
I hope not. I blame IE6 for not having the spell check that I’ve come to rely on in firefox.
For my two cents, no one should EVER enable comment registration without also enabling a “remember me on this computer” feature that actually fucking works, and reliably.
Azkyroth
Agreed. The other site I post at has that feature and it works well. A real treat.
Welsh at least has the advantage that it is completely phonetic. What you see is what you should say and what you say is how it is spelt. That even goes for those softenings; a good English example is ‘handbag’. We typically say something more like ‘hambag’. Of course, you do actually have to learn to be able to pronounce all the syllables involved in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch before you can say it without tripping up your brain and requiring a hard reset.
Completely off topic ( is there a topic here at all?)I think most Pharyngulties will get a kick out of this
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/edibleeyes
Bless his noodly appendages.
It’s aten’t
Actually, I was going with Klingon
I also cast my vote for NO REGISTRATION.
Just give some of your more trusted minions some admin rights to do the bulk of the house cleaning.
I second #82.
Yeah,registration would be no fun at all,it really kills the spontaneity on a blog.killfile is your friend.
I really like Rob’s suggestions in #52 — the ease of posting for registered users and the placeholders thing.
And melikes disemvowelment, as well. (being on the viewing end, that is)
-Muck Bulligan “Neither am I. :-)”
The walking brain dead.
Can we just do something with cookies so I don’t have to type in my information every single time I make a comment? I’d settle for that.
And when PZ smites you, you stay smitten! Or something like that…
I would be all for an optional registration program that monitored frequency of posting or what not. Perhaps frequent users could be given certain moderation powers (on a case by case basis, perhaps)? Mandatory registration can really stifle the amount of participation and fresh faces we get, so I wouldn’t suggest requiring it. I really appreciate the sense of open discussion this site encourages, but I also understand that it can be a burden to have one person doing all the gate keeping.
Hey Bride of Shrek, Thanks for posting that at #79. I’m going to make one to take to the Solstice festival here in my neck of Oregon.
The counter is at 994,451, please everyone carry on – we gotta win it for PZ.
Wait a minute! What the hell are the prizes?
PZ guided tour of the Elitist Bastard?
A kiss from the Kracken?
Life time supply of Captain Morgans spiced rum?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Good night sweethearts. :)
Hey PZ, I rather like being able to post without logging in. I think it makes it a bit more fun. I didn’t see what the troll wrote but I i’d like the comments to remain open for people to post in at will.
IE6 doesn’t enforce its fascist concept of the English language on you.
(Don’t anyone mention that you can modify firefox’s dictionary to suit your vocabulary.)
As a regular denizen of the Sadly,No! blog, I am always sort of shocked by banning. Sadly almost never bans anyone, barring threats of personal violence and nazi/racist spam. Part of the joy is in taking down the trolls. As a result, they hardly ever get any real trolls; mostly just parody trolls looking to irritate or joke around. Some people engage them, others just scroll right on by. (I’m usually in the latter camp.)
Of course, it’s an imperfect comparison as Sadly,No! is a humor/snark political blog and not a science blog – although serious discussion does often take place there, since they have perhaps the brightest commentariat on the net despite a distinct preference for poop jokes. This being a science blog, I guess you may want to be all serious and stuff all the time . . . Personally, though, I just love it when a troll comes along, spouts some absurd shite, and then says, “Well, I suppose you’re gonna ban me now.” Then they wait to get their persecution fix. And wait. And wait some more.
It just seems to me like a lot of blogs become, ahem, just preaching to the choir when dissenters are banned. Some of the democratic blogs that supported Hillary and hate Obama have just become ridiculous with the instantaneous banning of anyone who doesn’t think Obama is the most vile human being evah and dares to express the opinion that he just might be good for something. Pharyngula is a great blog with smart people. I’d say let the regulars who enjoy the sport deal with ripping the heads off the trolls. If you don’t like what they say, scroll past.
But of course it is PZ’s blog and he can do whatever he likes with it. I usually just read and don’t comment anyway, so registration won’t be much skin off my nose. And I quite understand his issues. But another solution to the moderation problem would be not to moderate at all.
Firefox may be fascist, but it does my spelling for me. That way I don’t have to waste time on thinking how to spell, and I can spend more time constructing an argument…
…at least that’s what I tell myself
No, it ain’tn’t so!
You ‘aintn’t’ be dead – but a squid is!
The most recent ‘Science By Email’, touted as a weekly email newsletter featuring science news and activities by the Dept of Science and Industry Research organisation – features ‘dissect your own squid as the do-it-at-home experiment!’
http://www.csiro.au/services/ScienceByEmailMain.html
Seriously cool mail-out suitable for teachers, parents and kids… now with squid-bits!
Granny Weatherwax > all.
Weatherwax does own, but she’s in third place for me after Vetinari and Death.
But make up your own algorithm.
Mine is “use the same three passwords everywhere”.
25 years without a problem so far.
For whatever it’s worth, I generally don’t sign up to blogs that require registration. That includes Richard Dawkins’. I suspect many peoples’ reactions are similar to mine – it’s a waste of time, and I don’t want to give another blog an e-mail address, even if it’s one I never check.
If you do decide to do it, though, I’d recommend that you look into OpenID. It is supported by most of the major blog sites (Typepad, Blogger, WordPress, etc.), and allows anyone logged in to one to be identified on the others using the same identity. This at least limits the number of sites that actually have any of our info, and it still provides reasonable assurance that the person who blogs as a particular user is that user.
I’m with Azkyroth @ 75
Please, PZ, if you possibly can, avoid registration. Surely one of the joys of this place is the fact that it really is open to debate – any fool or any genius, and we have both – can come along, say whatever they want and where necessary be shot down in flames.
Apart from that, anything which makes the process more laborious carries two real risks – that we lose all those great one-liners and that we end up as the same set of 17 people who turn up every day each to carefully examine the other 16 navels – one reason I don’t post at richarddawkins.net
Before I became an opinionated old bag I was in marketing – not for profit sector, guys, all perfectly sound – and I’m begging you not to throw away this blog’s USP – that this really is an open forum, the only morally sound position, and that whatever shit they throw at us …..
……..PHARYNGULITES CAN TAKE IT ……
………. with apologies to Winston Churchill!
(I have no problem with your delegating some of the admin load – probably good for your blood pressure and you know well which of us you can trust.)
Does anyone know if PZ has addressed this Tim Tinglestad guy who’s running for MN Supreme Court?
http://www.highesthill.com/volunteer.php
If he has and I missed it, just move along. Nothing to see here.
Tim Tinglestad, what a wacko. Are insane people allowed on State Supreme Courts?
Two stories in the Sudney Morning Herald today (I have tried to e-mail to PZ….).
The first – two men (drugged and?) raped a woman over 200 times using “cleansing her demons” – which she was paying them for – as the means of control.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/curse-sex-220-offences/2008/09/12/1220857793041.html
The other story has a Fijian woman – jailed since December because she won’t pay her fine – who says “God gives her” the right to drive and the state can be ignored.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/judge-clips-drivers-wings/2008/09/12/1220857815856.html
(signed) marc
I am seriously thinking of enabling comment registration, though…
PZ,
Well if some of the comments are so troubling to you, then enable comment registration to help eliminate the discomfort and cut down the babysitting time required. Registration shouldn’t be a problem for most people as just takes a little bit of one’s time to accomplish the task.
Regarding all the comments on PZ’s title spelling, I feel I should remark that we don’t know whether:
A) It isn’t an actual typo
B) It is an nod to Pratchett.
If it is the latter, any good Pratchett afficionado should know that Lancre, like the rest of the Discworld, is spelling-optional.
*puts on his pointy hat and glares at everyone
It’s all that, you know, headology stuff…
oshitoshitoshit we’re going to die. McCain is now favourite on betting exchanges.
Maureen @ #99,
I agree entirely.
Exactly!
Your page, you can set the rules, but please, no registration. It might get boring.
The best idea of all is that everyone behave and play somewhat nice. How about it?
I’d throw my hat in the ring with the “no registration” folks. Registration is a barrier to participation that’s not worth raising just to eliminate a few drive-by trolls.
No registration, please.
It would break the site for me at work due to draconian security measures. No cookies / gutting damn near all functionality that isn’t in base HTML, etc.
Also, it’s supposed to be “I still aten’t dead.”
I agree with Emmett.
(Come to think of it, I always do.)
And PZ quoting Granny Weatherwax is a nice touch. Makes you wonder who’d come out on top if they ever banged heads.
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it already, but Sarah Palin’s first interview made me want to put my head in my hands and weep.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=5782924&page=1
I agree we can do without the registration. The more frenzied woo-trolls are undeniable evidence that religious beliefs don’t provide adherents with a superior set of moral values. It’s also valuable for fence-sitters to see first-hand the hypocrisy of the so-called followers of ‘The Prince of Peace’ threatening violence.
Seems I missed all the fun with the new troll. I can’t find any comments by “Ostiarius”, but plenty of comments about him. Oh well. Serves me right for living on the wrong side of the Atlantic I suppose. All the best action happens way past my bedtime!
Ow – just posted a comment about the aforementioned troll and got put in the moderation queue.
Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned him by name.
I missed the troll – is there some way that we can keep examples of the inflammatory comments, perhaps in the dungeon? I keep on showing up after the banishment and trying to piece it all together via other posters who’ve quoted text from the disapparated ones.
> Granny, Vetinari, Death
For me, Sam Vimes takes the cake.
@Sleeping at the Console # 109
The best idea of all is that everyone behave and play somewhat nice. How about it?
The last guy to suggest something similar got nailed to a tree… Just saying.
Wowbagger,No 117 :
//I missed the troll//
Didnt miss much mate,the usual insanity,nothing new…
But it would be boring without trolls !
Yeah that troll wasn’t worth a shit.
If you are going to make a registration process, maybe you should make it quiz based. Then at least people would need to understand some basic (very basic, to be fair to us liberal arts burger flippers) principals of science.
ie:
T/F Evolution helps to keep the planets aligned.
Or…
What intelligent designer created the banana?
a) Remus and Romulus
b)Jesus
c) Allah
d) Hey, I’m an ID scientist, I didn’t say it had to be a god
e) People
lol trolls. I hate trolls, but I gotta admit a troll once in a while is pretty fun. It’s fun to poke fun at them, what can I say?
I just wanted to let you know I’m probably gonna be spamming your blog a lot. I wanna be the millionth comment so bad. :p
Chris
I’m a granny girl myself, but I can’t believe no-one’s mentioned the Librarian yet! Although I must confess to some bias here as having recently reread the Science of Discworld books I’m currently on a bit of a Wizard kick.
El Herring said:
I have the same problem, although I must say I’m not sorry I missed the last troll!
Having said that though, can I add my voice to the others asking PZ not to enable comment registration? We have enough commentators here to kick around the more obnoxiously ignorant and PZ can dungeon or delete the seriously offensive specimens as things stand now.
Hmmm … do horticulturalists count as “people”?
Lilly, actually Tony in #26 did. Sort of.
Btw, I second Donovan’s idea about the basic scientific based CAPTCHAs.
Lilly de Lure wrote:
Go the Unseen University! I was in a stage adaptation of Lords and Ladies in which I played Ponder Stibbons – and we got show t-shirts; mine has High Energy Magic Department embroidered on the back.
Wow, comment registration – the trolls must be particularly horrible this season.
I am going to vote on the side of registration. Just because of the absolute asses that copy and paste giant loads of crap using a different name each time.
Remember the desecration thread. The one where he posted the picture for the first time. There was a real jackass in here posting pages and pages of crap over and over under dozens of names. He made the thread nearly unreadable.
We are certainly ready willing and able to eviscerate your run of the mill trolls, it is the super trolls that don’t even read, just copy and paste that need to be banned.
Just my 2 cents.
How about a word limit for new posters? The more posts you’ve made, the longer your posts are allowed to be, starting with 100 words for first time posters and gradually removing the limit. That would stop drive-by trolls and cut & paste maniacs clogging up the works and still allow the genuine “ilk” to post substantial arguments.
Is that possible?
Don’t you die on us PZ. Also, I found your Twitter feed the other day and I’m following you (my Twitter username is the same as this name)
Another vote against comment registration.
We sharpen our teeth on trolls. And when they get too bad, you ban.
It’s working great the way it is.
El Herring:
Micromanage much? Are you of the “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” mentality? No, I get it – a meritocrat!
Nonsense! Click “Extras”, then “Internet options”, and then somewhere you can switch autocomplete back on. And then you can hunt down the moron who switched it off — you know, it’s the default setting.
(And why do you have 6 and not 7?)
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I don’t understand how registration would deter any troll that’s determined enough to morph. It would deter most (!) of the drive-by trolls — but also most of the scientists who comment only on the posts about their own papers and then never come again! It would also deter people who just have a random question.
If you can, PZ, give the disemvoweling button to a few Minions. If you can’t, we’ll simply continue playing “Dance, trollboy! Dance!” till you take care of them.
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But words of exceptional stupidity. Without Captain Unelected, the war wouldn’t have happened in the fucking first place. Sorry for sounding like truth machine, but this kind of stupidity is really astounding.
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That’s complete nonsense. What was at least occasionally forbidden was to read the Bible without a priest interpreting it for you; people were beheaded over this.
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Again, that’s a setting of your browser, not a feature of this site.
I repeat
here at work where I’m restricted to IE6
Work restrictions not my own. I’d use anything but IE if I could. Especially IE6, IE6 is the devil!
Nonsense. Drive-by trolls usually post five to twenty words. Godbots almost always post less than 100 words, and so on…
IE6 isn’t all that bad. It’s better than Safari for Mac, for example.
And if I were you, I’d suggest to your bosses to install IE7. It’s free after all.
Haha, got to love it, whole load of atheists who like Terry Pratchett, I feel at home already! I’m agnostic though, because I have absolutely no idea what the craic actually is, and I don’t think anyone else does either. I do enjoy telling the Jehovah’s who come to my door that I’m a lesbian buddhist though, just to watch their little faces crumple. It’s like they can smell the sulphur on me or something.
I think some combination of the ideas here would probably take care of the problem without inhibiting new people from commenting: appoint a couple of reader admins (maybe two of your guest bloggers from your Galapagos trip?) to disemvowel when needed. Hold comments over a certain word limit in moderation – both people who comment here regularly and the copypasta lovers will be easily recognizable, so you won’t actually have to read the really long comments. And please put in a placeholder for deleted comments – it really does screw up the numbering and make the back-and-forth harder to follow.
Don’t do comment ranking – putting the better ranked comments at the top screws up the dialogue, and makes it much harder to follow a discussion that’s happening, particularly over several hundred comments.
I didn’t even know lesbian buddhism was a religion!
It’s not, but it’s an essential tool in a game I like to call fundie-baiting. They bring it on themselves – who the hell rings on your door at 9 on a Saturday morning asking if you’ve found God? I’m lucky if I can find my arse with both hands and a map at that time in the morning.
Patricia | September 11, 2008 7:37 PM #48
“Have you ever tried posting as an atheist on any of those christian sites?
“Some of the people on this blog would be hurled over the parapet’s after the first post. Or held in moderation until they fossilized.”
I recently encountered one particularly ignorant creationist blog and made some suitable comments (mostly telling him to read some actual textbooks so he understood what he was opposed to).
The response was interesting (and to be fair, uncharacteristic of the bloggers I usually encounter, who are fair-minded). He would hold the comment on moderation, then reproduce all or part of my posting interspersed with sly personal attacks, which he evidently believed to be devastatingly effective. Then he’d make his own posting, in the form of a huge great rant that spoke more of his ignorance than I ever could.
E.V. – Just trying to find a solution that will avoid the use of registration and still allow for substantial posts while avoiding some of the cut & paste montrosities we’ve seen here in the past. Sure, everybody’s equal – but you have to earn the right to post long rants, that’s all. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
FWIW, I never post long rants.
I’ll admit it. I like trolls. It’s a guilty pleasure. It gives me an outlet for venting the massive amount of frustration I build each day dealing with idiots. Comment moderation as last practiced here caused all kinds of issues. I like the trolls to get through as they typically get smashed immediately and if they hang around it can sometimes turn into something interesting.
Trolls like the one last night get dispatched in a quick enough manner for me by PZ.
Spaceham said:
Masochists for Jesus? I tend to respond to Jehovah’s Witness’s (and around my way it tends to be JWs) by asking if they’ve heard the Call of Cthulu yet. Very few of them get the reference but it gets them nervous enough to give me a wide berth (most of the time).
I wish one would come to my house on Saturday at any time. I’m usually up before sunrise on the weekends (hell the weekdays too for that matter) and would just love to have visitors.
They never come to my house. It’s probably been 7 years since one came by. I wonder if they target certain neighborhoods over others? I mean I guess they do. Anyone know how that pans out?
> Without Captain Unelected, the war wouldn’t have happened
> in the fucking first place.
Who knows what would have happened with a liberal in office at 9/11? What would a Truman, a Kennedy or even a Johnson have done? It is a HUGE misunderstanding that liberals and social democrats are pacifists, or soft on external enemies.
Just ask the Nazis, or the Stalinists, or what is left of them. Perhaps there would have been no Iraq war, but t-shirts and coffee mugs with “I visited the Riyadh crater” written on them.
Baiting? I’m a master of it!
Dangit, that was supposed to have <obligatory> tags around it.
johannes:
It’s certain that if a Democrat were in office during 9/11, a war would have happened. I fully supported (and still fully support) our efforts in Afghanistan.
But a Democrat (or maybe even a more liberal Republican) wouldn’t have used 9/11 as an excuse to attack a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us.
And we appreciate you for it, El. Concise and to the point. Brief and terse. Thifty and niggardly of phrase. Yep. You never ever drag on and on or give in to tautology unlike others. Ol’ “Never too Many Words” Herring. I hope you never merit the nickname Red Herring.
(You know I’m just teasing, wot?)
I find it unlikely that registering will make Trolls an endangered species.
There seems to be plenty everywhere, including sites that require registration.
Don’t forget, Nesbit has your travel schedule on his basement wall calendar. Now that you’re out of town, he’s posted a rant about you…
Pffft. Nisbet. He’s found his niche, pandering to quavering fools who really want reassurance that the big bad atheists will go away and not hurt them. I’m sure he’ll do well in it.
Um, who is Nisbet/Nisbit/Nesbit?
@80
Yeah I thought that, but I’m trying to recover from Star Trek nerdiness and I didn’t want to relapse….
You don’t want to know. Total waste of time.
Unless you mean Rab C. Nesbit. He was fantastic
E.V. – The short-lived band I formed in the 80’s was called Red Herring. That’s where my username comes from. Click my name for a link to some info on it.
The “El” was shortened from Elwood for PZ’s blog as I wanted to distance myself from all forms of “woo”. Elwood of course, being a tip of the fedora to the Blues Brothers.
So now you all know!
Elwood Herring (On a mission from Cod).
Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D.
His boggle is “framing”.
Some people see “framing science” as misrepresenting science to make it palatable and non-threatening to creationists, fundagelicals, theocrats, and other anti-science assholes. Others see it merely as clever marketing of science to the public.
He garnered a lot of attention early in his career for the idea of marketing science better, but if I had to put it in a nutshell, quite a few people are of the view that marketing science to the public is fine, and there are ways of doing it that don’t involve misrepresentation and appeasement, but that Nisbet goes way too far in that direction.
My own view is that Nisbet hectors scientists for failing to “frame” science in a manner palatable to the public while, at the same time, radically pissing off many scientists by failing to frame his criticisms in a manner palatable to them. In other words, he comes across as a hypocrite. Nisbet has no qualifications in science, so he’s often perceived as an outsider who hasn’t earned the right to piss in the tent but does it anyway.
I don’t think it’s going too far to say that he’s, em, “not particularly popular” here, to put it as charitably as I can.
I also think his inclusion of middle initials and letters after his name, in a context as informal as a blog, gives the impression that he’s somewhat self-important.
What would a Truman, a Kennedy or even a Johnson have done?
Attacked Afghanistan after they refused to turn over bin Laden, most likely. It’s the Iraq war — that expression of purely neoconservative thought — that would have been avoided.
Emmett Caulfield:
Inre:M. Nisbet.
Beautiful.
Perhaps there should be a link for a Pharyngula lexicon. Get to know the major players, worst of the trolls, terms and repetitious arguments. The Frackin’ Cracker entry should be a hoot.
El Herring:
(thumbs up)
Am I the only one who can’t see the name “Nisbet” without thinking of Buzz Lightyear in drag?
(Yes, I know it’s “Nesbit”, but…)
@Herring # 160
Elwood Herring (On a mission from Cod).
Considering the many Pratchett references in this thread, shouldn’t that read ‘on a mission from Glod’ ?
I responded on Matthew C. Nisbet’s blog.
I can see the point he’s trying to make. I just don’t see why scientists and science educators should consider it their job to enter into the same arena with the ID people. They only deserve to be derided and ignored. The religions are losing, big time.
(Posted this on the wrong thread before, sorry).
Actually, come to think of it, some of Matthew’s arguments remind me a lot of a certain University of South Carolina professor of mathematics.
Peter Nyikos would often profess to agree with what people had to say, but only to disagree with the way they had of saying it.
Ooh, new word for the day. Yay.
Nisbet: (Noun)
1. A person who so vacuous and egotistical that that they have now disappeared up their own backside.
2. A person who talks total bollocks.
3. A person who brings social science into disrepute.
4. A person so intent on winning the Templeton prize they loose all critical faculties.
Nisbet: (noun)
A subatomic particle that changes any flavor of ice cream to vanilla just before ingestion
Hmph. Nisbet didn’t post my comment; and I was being sincerely tactful. What a Maverick*.
*(synonymous with tool or dick)
The Luggage. Aint nobody messes with The Luggage.
And the Shrub never knew what he was talking about whereto Iraq. McCain or Gore? Right reason, proper application of resources. By now the Iraqis would be running their own air support, while the Coalition would be preparing for the invasion of Iran.
The comment kerfluffle? Minimum verbiage. Your first time commenting you have to provide at least 1,000 words of coherent, grammatical, properly spelled, properly formatted on-topic exposition. If it bores PZ, PZ can dump it.
I don’t have a problem with registration at all. If someone isn’t willing to stand up for their words at least far enough to register then they most likely aren’t worth our time anyway.
Yipes, this is one of the most popular threads on scienceblogs, and it contains little or nothing about science.
I hereby hijack this thread for some cool stuff from the British Association conference in Liverpool:
“fundagelicals – Ooh, new word for the day. Yay.” – Natalie, #169
“Fundagelicals” has thousands of Google hits – it’s been around a while – here’s a 2004 link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/03/usa.uselections2004
PZ: “enabling comment registration”
Good idea. But consider at least putting character limits on posts as YouTube does. And nobody can post twice in a row.
I find it funny how some folks thing we’re going to read their thousand-word essays disguised as comments. Get your own blogs! Yeah, you know who you are.
At #78 Bride of Shrek, OM wrote:
I think most Pharyngulties will get a kick out of this
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/edibleeyes
Bless his noodly appendages.
I only know the basics of Pastafarianism, and I don’t know all of the church’s rules, so I was wondering: if some specially anointed pirate incants some magic words over the edible FSM, does that make make the edible FSM extra holy?
If said specially anointed pirate gave me one of the extra holy edible FSMs, would it be OK for me to doggy bag it and take it home, or must I eat it right away?
And, if later, I decided the edible FSM contained too many calories, would it be sacrilegious to throw it in the trash?
As far as Discworld: Gotta love Death!
David Marjanović, OM at # 135
Now that was the most useful post I’ve read in months.
Two frikkin years I’ve been having to manually fill in that form each time I post. You have released me from the shackles Sir, I salute you.
What? I didn’t say any such thing. Why do you mention 9/11? I was talking about the Iraq war.
Sorry for saying “the war”. I completely forgot Afghanistan, which most likely would have happened, too.
There is already such a limit: nobody can post twice within 30 seconds. If you really mean twice in a row, think again — why should I wait for somebody else till I correct my inadvertent errors?
But I don’t know who they are. I haven’t seen any essays in the comments in months.
Microsoft is stupid, but usually less stupid than you can suppose :-)
But Glen D.’s gotten much more concise recently!
(I kid because I love)
“Do you not know that so much reading of Scripture ruins the Catholic religion?” -Pope Paul V in 1606
Being a mere musician, and not by any stretch of the imagination a scientist, I rarely feel impelled or even qualified to comment, but if you do require registration, I would like to do so. I so enjoy your posts, and I feel like I occassionally learn something, too, when i can follow the threads.
Tim
Since I’m getting a strange “…and will now close” message when I go to the “Open Thread,” I’ll post this here. A short segment from Democracy Now! a few days ago about Sarah Palin and religion:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/9/sarah_palin_and_the_wasila_church
#161 et.al:
re: Nisbet
Thank you all for the concise education and Tony especially for the comment you left on the aforementioned’s blog. I have to remind myself from time to time that there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel; I only wish I would be alive to see it. Right now, I am just hoping that my Medicare doesn’t get cut.
People aren’t objecting because they don’t want to “stand by their words”, it’s because registration was such a pain in the arse the last time around. IOW, what llewelly said in #42.
That is 100% why I don’t want it.
Well that And I like a good unfettered troll BBQ.
Why Chimpy, you ol’ sinner – is that a ‘confession’ of your troll fetish?
Be careful with that. Clapping hands, bouncing in your chair and uttering the ‘goodie, goodie’ prayer in Troll Ritual is the secret formula for opening the gates of Hela. ;o)
“Of course, it’s an imperfect comparison as Sadly,No! is a humor/snark political blog and not a science blog – although serious discussion does often take place there, since they have perhaps the brightest commentariat on the net despite a distinct preference for poop jokes.”
Oh, bullshit. Your “brightest commentariat” couldn’t be bothered to read Alkon for consistency or content before spamming her blog and engaging in ridiculous ad hominem vîs-a-vîs the Tarika Wilson incident, and they don’t know squat about police procedure, either.
Everybody’s blog attracts the best people ever – just like every child is a winner. Sadly, most wish to speak rather than to learn, and so they spend the most time doing the former. That’s why I find PZ and the BA treasures – they think first, then post and host.
Nice. I hear hela is wonderful this time of year.
Surprisingly, Hells Bells in on the music server at the moment.
Oh, #53, shouldn’t it really be “Fuck God Dead”? (I’m sure I saw other Techers in here somewhere.)
A blog I read as a reality check makes this appeal:
–AB 2567 has passed the California Assembly and the Senate and is awaiting Governor Schwarzenegger’ s signature or veto. This bill will set aside May 22Nd as a special day to celebrate the life of homosexual politician Harvey Milk in the public schools. Harvey Milk will be honored in the same manner as our Founding Fathers and Martin Luther King, although the only thing he is actually known for is being proud be a homosexual! If you haven’t heard about this bill it is because the liberal media is downplaying this bill so that it will pass.
PLEASE CALL GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER’S OFFICE POLL AND MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD.
The Number to call is : 1 916-445-2841
Takes less than 30 seconds.
It is just a recording:
Press 1 for English.
Press 2 to voice an opinion
Press 1 for AB 2567 – Harvey Milk Day
pressing 2 is a NO vote.
Please vote now!
Please pass this on to as many people as possible!–
It took me a few tries to get through, with my itchy index finger poised for 121, (busy, then no answer, the busy again) but I managed eventually.
For most of us, Harvey Milk is remembered as the guy who was assassinated by the guy who used the “Twinkie Defense” at his trial.
Yes, indeed, but unfortunately it isn’t well-enough known that we can craft a new portmanteau with it and refer to them collectively as the Fundageliban.
I wonder how long Schwarzenegger will stay in the Reptilian Party.
http://politiken.dk/udland/valgiusa/article565236.ece (from Der Spiegel)
Then let him become an Independent. A Maverick… oops…
The Danish translation doesn’t include a link, but I found the original! And it’s even in English! :-)