We’re having some major performance problems, as is obvious from all the errors you’re getting when you try to post comments. We had some substantial tweaks made to the code behind the scenes that was supposed to improve performance, but actually had exactly the opposite effect — now Scienceblogs is supposed to be bringing in some expert consultants very soon now to fix the problems, either rolling back the code or figuring out why we aren’t getting any speed boost at all. I don’t know when this will happen, since there are a lot of blogs here, and they all need to be patched somehow. We’re all feeling a bit frustrated by the mess.

Almost always, though, when you post a comment, it is getting added to the database, even if it does bounce back with a timeout error or some other noise. Please don’t just go back and repost the same comment again and again. Go back, reload the page, and see if your comment has appeared first.

It’s May, which means I have to tally up all the votes you made in April for the Molly-worthy commenters in March. We have two winners this month, the alliterative duo of Janine and Josh. Everyone say “OM!”

Now you face the onerous task of thinking back over the last month and nominating an exceptional commenter for the month of April. Leave a comment here with the name of your favorite.

The churches open their doors to everyone who wants to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the central mythological event in their belief system…except clowns. No clowns allowed!

I have been moved by this tragic rejection, and while they are obnoxious and annoying, I can see where clowns have their place in the world. I have therefore re-enabled anonymous commenting on Pharyngula. Beep beep.

However, if you’ve figured out all that typekey stuff, you might as well keep using it — some of you have noticed that once the busy work is done, it actually simplifies commenting. I’m also going to reserve the right to turn off anonymous commenting at any time — for instance, when I fly off to Oregon this week and my ability to police the site is limited, I’ll probably require registration once again for those three days.

I hated doing this, but it has become necessary. You now have to register with an off-site authentication service in order to leave a comment here. It’s not hard; just follow the links at the Typekey page, and it should sail through and let you comment freely afterwards. (In theory, you should also be able to use OpenID authorization — I’ve toggled it on in the Pharyngula master control panel, let me know if it works).

In other news, you are a cruel bunch, and the overall response to my Pilate-like offer to turn the responsibility of banning Alan Clarke over to you was that most of you declined to shut him down, the reaction that he himself argued would be most civil. He has a temporary reprieve now, although if he keeps whining that goddidit I may smite him anyway. The argument most often given for sparing him is that he is a really good training dummy — he makes truly stupid arguments that inspire informative rebuttals — so I expect you to continue to abuse him in that tradition.

As many of you know, Alan Clarke is a fundamentalist/creationist kook who has been babbling in the comments for a while now. A reader alerted me to how Clarke found his way here: he was posting his silliness on a powerbasic support forum, and was warned that we would “kick his butt” if he came here. He’s just as obtuse there as he is here, so nothing has changed…and yes, his butt has been kicked up and down the threads here.

This is no big deal, and completely unsurprising, but Clarke left one comment there that made me think.

I took your advice and have been hanging out on the Pharyngula site:

Thread 1
Thread 2

Bob Zale would have shut these threads down long ago for the abusive language. I appreciate him even more when his civility is contrasted to that of P.Z. Myers’.

That last paragraph is…enlightening. Mr Clarke seems to think that civility is equivalent to silencing argument, and that I would be more civil if I had shut down the discussion. Interesting. It raises a conundrum that my poor brain cannot resolve; I had thought that it was better that I allow Mr Clarke to continue his ignorant ravings without taking a hand, but apparently Mr Clarke himself thinks that was uncivil.

So, I leave it to the readers. Shall I be civil and boot Clarke’s badly bruised butt from the site entirely, or should I be abusive and allow him to continue to comment here?

If you’re having trouble deciding, too, just follow his comments on these pages…I am actually relieved that commenters don’t have the ability to freely insert cartoons and caricatures here, because Mr Clarke can create quite a circus.

I have just spent over an hour of my day cleaning up the spam from the insane asshole, David Markuze/Mabus. I’m still not done; I’ve got various tools cranking away in the background purging his recent eruption of hate-filled, lunatic rants. 160 comments, all saying the same thing.

It’s too much, and it’s eating up way too much of my time. Starting Monday, I’m turning user registration back on. I know, a lot of you find it a real pain, and it will inhibit some people from commenting…I’d rather not do it. But I’m serious: David Markuze is costing me too much time and effort, and I have to take some fairly extreme efforts to cut him off. Blame him, not me.

If any of you know a way to get to his ISP (he’s Canadian, lives in Quebec, and currently uses the IP address 70.48.98.204) and convince them that he is committing egregious abuse of his privileges on the internet, that would be a useful alternative. I doubt that we can shut him down at the source, though, so my only choice is to throttle everyone here.

P.S. All of you who responded to Mabus are not helping. The next time this happens I’m also purging all of your comments, so don’t bother making them.

P.P.S. Fair warning: this kind of thing also frays my tolerance to a frazzle. There are a few other morons who have been commenting here regularly, and it’s not going to take much to make me snap and finally get around to banning your useless, parasitic asses. Silver Fox, Pete Rook, and Facilis…I’m looking at you. You might want to lie low until the “Hulk Smash” mood fades a little bit.

I noticed that, in this recent thread asking why you were all here, that many of you said it was for the community and for the smart commenters here. Nobody said it was for my irresistible physical beauty and scintillating and delicate charm…in fact, I got the distinct impression I could drop dead and you’d all keep chatting away happily. Well, then, I guess it’s time to update the Molly awards, since you all love each other so much. <sniffle>

The people have spoken, and they have selected the lovely and diplomatic raconteur, Sven DeMilo, as the recipient of the Molly for the month of February. Kudos! Speech! No, never mind, sit down again. You’re old news now.

Now you have to look back to the past month and pick another worthy recipient for the month of March — simply leave a comment here saying who was your recent favorite, and why. Special note: I’m going to have to specifically exclude the recent outcasts from Survivor: Pharyngula! from eligibility, because I happen to know most of you are incorrigible smart-asses who would love to prank the voting with a certain name.

The month of March was a record traffic month: 2,296,911 visits. What did I do this time?

Perhaps the tables have been turned! I have received one report that Pharyngula has been blocked on government computers in Kentucky — can anyone confirm that? Apparently, you can read Ann Coulter, Focus on the Family, the Drudge Report, and Rush Limbaugh when you’re supposed to be pushing those government forms around on your desk, but you can’t read PZ Myers. I think I’m flattered. I suspect I annoyed some fan of Ken Ham.

Yet more internet melodrama! Several of our unwilling contestants took a shot at the immunity challenge, to comical effect: they either completely failed to be aware of what people find irritating in their posting habits, or in one case, even plagiarized his answer. The result of the vote by the readership: none met the challenge, although several thought Facilis made a good effort, so no one has immunity.

What about the vote to see who would be banned? Once again, John Kwok saw an ember of a possibility that he might be selected, and chose to fight it by repeatedly throwing buckets of gasoline on it. If he’d just ignored it, I’m sure he would have been passed over without a problem… but by constantly fanning the flames, he kept a constant volley of votes for him going, and finally ended up in second place. Good work!

The final winner, though, and the one who is now banned, is the loathsome Simon. His foul-tempered hatefulness was an unstoppable force, and the silliness of a Kwok could not match it. Simon is gone, and good riddance.

Now, I had planned on doing one more round of voting to clear the blog of a total of three trouble-making pests, but in the end I’ve decided to cut it short right here. Something happened that compels me to simply ban one more person outright, and end the whole series. It seems that one of our contestants has been writing to a friend and asking him to use his powers of persuasion to compel me to a) LEAVE KEN MILLER ALONE!!! (should be read with a Chris Crocker-esque shriek, and with much running mascara) and b) grant the correspondent immediate, automatic immunity. He also threatened to complete his novel and include me as a character, ala Michael Crichton. Can you guess who it was?

Somebody is taking this far too seriously, and I think it’s time to cut off his little obsession. Goodbye, John Kwok. You won’t be commenting here any more.

And we’re done, for now. Those who survived Survivor: Pharyngula! should not rest easy, though — I will use my vast powers capriciously, and with malice, if you should persist in your ways that got you on the list in the first place.

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One of the victims has responded in email.

Hey PZ –

Since Rick Moody lampooned a certain former “New York Times” book reviewer who had dubbed Rick, “the worst writer of my generation”, in his novel “The Diviners”, it looks like you’re going to be honored twice. I already have an IRA terrorist whose persona is quite similar to yours (I told Greg that this was an accident.). Assuming that I sell this novel and write another, I’ll be certain you’ll appear in that one too.

BTW, Rick has since “kissed and made up” with the object of his affection. I haven’t asked him about it, only because I know he’s not one to talk about it (I’ll let you guess how I know Rick. Hint: Look at my Facebook page.).

I’m giving you a chance to change your mind. I think you ought to reconsider ASAP.

Oh, dog. He knows Rick Moody! And he’s going to pretend a fictional IRA terrorist (who is “a sadistic terrorist and murderer”) is me! But you know, I don’t think I’ll reconsider.

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It gets better! A new threat from the Kwok:

PZ, what comes around, goes around. Am looking forward to giving you the just dessert that you so richly deserve. And if you don’t behave with the Muslims, I might do a “Pontius Pilate” act and give my cousin Jim and his CAIR buddies carte blanche to deal with you as they see fit.