My name is Elizabeth Liddle, and I started this site to be a place where people could discuss controversial positions about life, the universe and everything with minimal tribal rancour (pay no attention to the penguins….)
My motivation for starting the site has been the experience of trying to discuss religion, politics, evolution, the Mind/Brain problem, creationism, ethics, exit polls, probability, intelligent design, and many other topics in venues where positions are strongly held and feelings run high. In most venues, one view dominates, and there is a kind of “resident prior” about the integrity, intelligence and motivation of those who differ from the majority view.
That is why the strapline says: “Park your priors by the door”. They may be adjusted by the time you leave!
I will start the blog off with a series of posts arising from some interesting discussions at Uncommon Descent, which were difficult to pursue because of the blog format over there. I hope that the participants in those discussions will come over here where we can continue them without having to move from squat to squat on other threads, derailing them as we go.
I also hope that other people will join me in posting new OPs, so that it becomes a group blog, and that people will also offer to write guest OPs.
In the mean time, welcome to all, and have a free virtual beer on the house!
Lizzie
OK, thanks. Yes, as owner I have unlimited editing rights! But I thought I had set an editing window for everyone. I will try to fix that.
It was set to 5 minutes.
I’ll bump it up to 30.
Elizabeth,
I look like a very focused blueberry, which I have to admit reflects the inner me.
Thank you! 🙂
Thanks. I am now seeing edit options.
I can never figure out what will happen when clicking the quote, comment, and Reply buttons. In general I would like the response to be indented under the original comment, maybe quoting and sometimes not. But if I want an abbreviated quote, I can do the abbreviation manually, so that’s not a problem.
It just seems that the default should be to indent. I generally guess wrong.
I’ve turned off nested comments completely, as it does seem to make it difficult to follow conversations!
Each post should now have two links at the bottom: “Quote in reply” and “Reply”
Clicking “reply” will insert a link in your comment to the comment you are replying to. Clicking “Quote in reply” will insert part or all of the post you are replying to,with a link (and you can select quotes from other posts too, to add to yours)
Or you can just comment without referencing another person’s comment at all. Hope that makes sense.
Thanks. And I think you also upgraded to a newer version of the WP software. Or at least things look a tad different from what they were.
Is it possible to display the date and time of each recent comment listed on the front page? It would make it easier to know where to start reading.
Alternatively, hooking the back end to a Usenet newsgroup would allow us to use real newsreaders.
Patrick,
I’ll see what I can do. If there are any volunteers who are experienced in this kind of software, I could use some expertise.
When I click on “Quote in Reply”, I’m not permitted to post whatever I write. I click the post comment box, wait a bit, and I’m back at the top of the thread. My post is not there, and the home page doesn’t see it in the list of recent posts. If I try to post again, I get a duplicate-post error.
I’ve tried leaving the site and returning. Same thing. I’ve tried closing down the browser and firing it up again. Same thing. I’ve tried rebooting the computer. Same thing.
After many trials, I’ve discovered that if I edit out the initial link to the post I’m replying to, I can post without problems. I’d prefer to leave this link in, but can’t find a way to do so. Any suggestions?
That’s odd. Anyone else have that experience?
And has it only just started (I just did an upgrade, and it’s possible that one of the plug-ins isn’t compatible)?
What browser are you using?
Testing
ETA seems to work for me. hmmmm.
Interesting.
Using (quote in reply) link gave the above result with no edit or delete opportunity and using (reply) gives a disappeared post. This comment is without links.
ETA and can be edited! This using Google Chrome
Alan Fox,
test n° 2
I’m happy to take a look at it if you tell me the version of WordPress that you’re using.
pjm
I’d like to change my avatar into something a bit more, uh, Antarctic – but I can’t.
Apparently the Admin needs to change a setting: Avatar uploads not allowed (Administrator may set on Users » Avatars page).
Is this something that can be done?
fG
What happens if you setup a gravatar (at gravatar.com) for your email address? That seems to be what is working for me, though I already had that gravatar setup before this site existed.
Worked fine for a while, started yesterday.
Thanks for the help Neil, but I’m not sure I would want the same avatar for every site.
fG
testing, testing…. am i the only one who can’t edit?
ETA It’s working !
I’ve turned off email notifications for posters. I hadn’t realised this was a global setting, and I should also say that this was why Chris Doyle deleted his account. No-one wants a load of TSZ spam in their email account just because they posted a popular post!
I apologise to those whose email accounts have been filling up. Oddly, it doesn’t happen to me – I wonder if there’s an account setting as well.
OK, I’ve just installed a forum plug in. It’s in the link called Penguin Colony on the front page, under Meta.
I have no idea whether it will be useful, but we might as well try it and see.
Thank you.
I can now be less hesitant when considering a new post (i.e. new topic).
OK, now we have a forum up and running, sort of, feel free to post suggestions here.
Hi Elizabeth,
I have to say that I find the Cromwell’s Rule strapline extremely ironic – not because of you or Denis Lindley, but because of Cromwell. I don’t know the context of the quote, but I doubt that Cromwell himself thought possible he was mistaken in matters of religion. This quote may be more representative:
That’s not very pithy though. If you’re ever looking around for another Cromwell quote to use, maybe you could try this one?
It’s got a certain ring, no?
Meta: Please remove or move to the appropriate place.
Elizabeth,
Why is the blog so crashy? I seems that a few of the regulars here have experience with the workings of the Internetz. Perhaps some of them would like to give you a hand. I used WordPress a time ago, but didn’t have the kind of problems that are appearing here.
Comment edition and deletion are completely unusable for me on Chrome. I haven’t had the opportunity to check with other browsers.
Re crashes:
The first was me being totally stupid. I deleted the entire contents of my hosted directory. I’m embarassed to say how. [“select all”; “delete”].
The second and third times the hosting service suspended the account because of excessive CPU usage. The problem was one of the plug-ins. I think I’ve deactivated the right one, and I’m monitoriing my CPU usage.
Unfortunately they don’t warn you, or even give you very good diagnostics – they just suspend your account if you tip over the edge.
I wondered if it was a bandwidth issue as there has been so much activity, but I don’t think so. I have split the comments into pages of 50 though, to improve loading times.
As for the edit and delete functions – the relevant plug in is part-broken at present and there isn’t an upgrade out yet . It does work, but you have to right-click to open the edit window in a new page or tab. It seems to be the pop-up part that is broken. If that fails, PM me and I’ll do it.
If I can find another edit plug in I’ll install it, but I haven’t found one yet that doesn’t also have problems.
Lastly, yes, I’d appreciate a sysadmin if anyone has the relevant skills!
ETA: this and the post above moved from the PNAS paper thread.
Elizabeth,
Thanks for the explanation and the edit tip, I’ve felt the plugin pain too. I’m sorry I can’t offer any help.
BTW, I gather that the avatar upload thing is on the fritz.
If you want your own avatar, PM me the link. I’ll try to get a better plug in.
Dear Elisabeth, I’d like to hear your opinion on that.
I am an atheist, I think we have strong grounds for believing there is no intelligent being responsible for the universe.
At the same time, I think there is no objective meaning of life and no objective moral values, I think that moral realism is false.
According to one of your posting on uncommon descent, the website of william dumski, you believe the genocide of the canaanites (which historically never happened) was morally wrong.
Now, I have the following question: you are certainly a materialist, and believe that everything which is real can be entirely reduced to the interactions of elementary particles like quarks or perhaps strings. There is no conceptual problem to think the chair I am sitting on can be reduced to a collection of quarks with certain configurations in space and time.
Consider however the following statement: “it was morally wrong for the israelites to slaughter the canaanites”.
For you, it is a real fact of the universe.
Now, to which collections of atoms, electrons or quarks would you reduce it ?
I think I’ve fixed the comment editor! Yay!
Let me know if it works for you!
I’ve set the edit time window to 30 minutes.
I hope so. I tried to edit a typo about an hour before you posted this, and no dice. I’ll say something stoopider here and see if I can fix it…
OK, it seems to work. I opened up an editor, made my changes and saved it. It said my comment is “marked for moderation”. Apparently edited remarks still need to be pre-moderated, even if the originals don’t.
Oh blimey.
I’ll see what I can do!
And I’ve now got a wysiwyg editor to post in the right sized font, but it doesn’t seem to cope with the quote comments!
It was doing so earlier, before I adjusted the font….
more testing.
Does superscript2 work?
Yay!
Subscript:
d3
ETA: It shows up in the wysiwyg, then doesn’t post.
🙁
oops. rats.
Try again d3
Yesss!
OK yet another experiment….
ChanceWilliam
x2
12C
l;asjdf;ldjs
ETA: hoping this edit goes straight in….
Yay, it did!
Superscripts seem to have stopped working.
10<sup>2</sup> yields 102.
That’s interesting. I’ll see if I can fix it. I think the plugin had an upgrade – I had to hard recode it to allow superscripts in comments, so I’ll redo it.
I also saw an old bug: WP choked on a longish comment with block quotes.
OK, thanks! I’ll find some time this weekend to do some cleanup of the code, if I can.
Testing:
H2O
mc2
sub and sup don’t seem to work,
HTML tag test vrs. 2
————————–
✘ <s> strikethrough
✘ <u> underline
✘ <sub> subscript
✘ <sup> superscript
✘ <big> big
✘ <small> small
✘ <h1> headline 1
✘ <h2> headline 2
✘ <h3> headline 3
✘ <h4> headline 4
✘ <h5> headline 5
✘ <h6> headline 6
✘ <p> paragraph
✘ <br> linebreak (should be a break between line & break)
✘ <center> centered
✘ <font> customized font size 3, font color red
✘ <hr> horizontal rule
✘ <img> image
✘ <span> inline element
✘ <div> block element
✘ <ins> inserted
✘ <dfn> definition
✘ <dl> definition list ✘ <dt> definition term✘ <dd> definition item
✘ <ol> ordered list ✘ <li> list item✘ <li> list item
✘ <ul> unordered list ✘ <li> list item✘ <li> list item
✘ <table> table ✘ <th> header cell✘ <td> standard cell
✘ <address> address
✘ <kbd> keyboard input
✘ <samp> sample output from a program
✘ <tt> teletype text
✘ <var> variable
✘ <q>
—
✔ unicode characters ➜ decimal format: &#10140;
✔ unicode characters ➜ hex format: &#x279c;
✔ <b> bold example
✔ <strong> strong
✔ <em> emphasized
✔ <i> italic
✔ <strike>
strikethrough✔ <del>
deleted✔ <a> a link
✔ <abbr> abbr.
✔ <acronym> ASAP
✔ <cite> cited
✔ <code>
program code✔ <blockquote>
WP code is buggy. I can’t publish comments with block quotes in my new thread. Argghh!
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/superscripts_and_subscripts/list.htm
Unicode Superscript Characters
⁰ & #8304; … ⁰ & #x2070;
ⁱ & #8305; … ⁱ & #x2071;
& #8306; … & #x2072;
& #8307; … & #x2073;
⁴ & #8308; … ⁴ & #x2074;
⁵ & #8309; … ⁵ & #x2075;
⁶ & #8310; … ⁶ & #x2076;
⁷ & #8311; … ⁷ & #x2077;
⁸ & #8312; … ⁸ & #x2078;
⁹ & #8313; … ⁹ & #x2079;
⁺ & #8314; … ⁺ & #x207a;
⁻ & #8315; … ⁻ & #x207b;
⁼ & #8316; … ⁼ & #x207c;
⁽ & #8317; … ⁽ & #x207d;
⁾ & #8318; … ⁾ & #x207e;
ⁿ & #8319; … ⁿ & #x207f;
Unicode Subscript Characters
₀ & #8320; – ₀ & #x2080;
₁ & #8321; – ₁ & #x2081;
₂ & #8322; – ₂ & #x2082;
…
₉ & #8329; – ₉ & #x2089;
₍ & #8333; – ₍ & #x208d;
₎ & #8334; – ₎ & #x208e;
ₐ & #8336; – ₐ & #x2090;
ₑ & #8337; – ₑ & #x2091;
ₒ & #8338; – ₒ & #x2092;
ₓ & #8339; – ₓ & #x2093;
H₂0 — 10ⁿ — X₍ₐ₎
You get the idea…
(remove the space between the ‘&’ and what follows)
Yes it is. And the updates are often worse than the originals. I keep installing the updates in the hope that some of the bugs will have been sorted, but there are usually new ones.
And I haven’t recoded the script for comment tags yet. I promise I will….