67 thoughts on “um….”

  3. I’ve given you and Alan Fox admin rights, and you both have my undying thanks for digging me out of my lair.  That makes four admins on the site, including BWE, who is also lair-bound, I think, right now.

    OK, I’ve backed up the database, and will start cleaning up.

  4. And
    …

    I’m so sorry, guys.  I took a break for various reasons, and the time stretched, and I just assumed the place was empty.  Now I find the blog stats look very lively!

    Further suggestions for how to Lizzie-proof the site are very welcome.

  7. Seconded!

    I should hate to be without TSZ. Although I don’t contribute much, I think the style and content both exemplary – so I guess kudos  to stalwart posters too, including those few who have ventured here from less Skeptical places. (What a pity they didn’t feel comfortable enough to stick around)

    That JoeG gave good reason for his banning was an added bonus, and shows how the sidelining/elimination of his “kind” markedly improves the quality of discourse

  12. We got sporadic reports of activity on your Facebook page, which made us think that you were all right, but just too busy to deal with TSZ.  Otherwise we would have sent out a search-and-rescue team by now.

  13. I now discover a couple of people did.  But I was hard to find.  Partly as a result of spam filters, and partly because I just wasn’t in my usual hiding places.  Glad you knew I was OK though.

    I am ashamed of myself.  Yes, I was busy, but I could easily have checked in and sorted stuff out, and reassured people who might be worried. 

    Mea maxima culpa.  And it’s not as though I even believe a few Hail Marys’ll get me out of this.

    But you do have my Firm Purpose of Amendment.

  14. To Nottingham?  Are you mad?  That’s well outside the M25!

    Okay, maybe for you, Lizzie.  Glad to see you active here again.
     

  15. Yay! Glad you’re back and doing fine Lizzie!

    I too would like to add my voice to chorus supporting this forum. It’s a good site and I think you principles have created a good atmosphere for discussion Lizzie. Thanks! I hope it continues.

  16. Yep. Although … a certain relaxation (in absentia!) of the ‘peanut gallery’ rule has been in no small part responsible for the increase in traffic! For UD too – without TSZ to snipe at, comments were drying up. It is a curious, not to say eccentric, dialogue cum bipartisan parallel monologue!

     

  17. If anyone cares to check, I commented very sceptically right at the beginning of The Skeptical Zone, and am happy to confirm I was wrong. Dialogue is worthwhile as Lizzie has demonstrated.

    Welcome back! 

  18. Well, if relaxing the peanut gallery rule is working, let’s relax it.  I’ve forgotten what it was…will check….

  19. Odd conversations you all seem to have been having – dialogue across a canyon!

    Well, if that’s what works, cool.  But I do welcome any UDers who want to either cross-post or even come right in and have a cup of tea/beer/gin and tonic, to do so.

    Talking is good.

  20. I agree that talking is good; “the truth will out” and all that.

    I strongly disagree that carrying on parallel threads with UD is a good idea.  Free speech is an important value, one that is respected here but not at UD.  By continuing to engage with people who refuse to participate on a level playing field, one implicitly condones their actions.

    If any of the UD regulars can summon the minimal intellectual courage required to venture outside their echo chamber, I will be among the first to join the discussion with them, presenting my position firmly but courteously.  I see no reason, however, to sanction their cowardice and lack of respect for dissenting views.

    Not only is it ethically questionable to support UD like this, it is unnecessary.  ID is a proven pseudoscience and a failing political movement.  Without input from the reality-based community, UD will wither and die.  That’s a good outcome — discussion fora that rely on censorship should disappear.  I urge everyone here to help it do so.
     

  21. Patrick,

    By continuing to engage with people who refuse to participate on a level playing field, one implicitly condones their actions.

    Not really. All of us have made it clear that we disapprove of the bannings and censorship at UD, and merely responding to someone doesn’t mean that you condone their actions (cf the American presidential campaign).

    I actually think the parallel threads are a good thing because they are so odd. New readers will quickly figure out the reason for this odd practice: UDers are afraid of open debate.  TSZers aren’t.

    The parallel threads make UD look bad, which is a good thing. The fact that we trounce their arguments makes them look even worse. It’s all good.

  22. Gpuccio 285

    So this is enough if to count as a known necessity mechanism:

    The string is identical to an existing string of data. It could have been copied. That’s enough. It is not dFSCI.

    What about your example of a string that is the text:

    Why is my verse so barren of new pride,…

    The string is identical to an existing string of text. It could have been copied.

    Of course in both cases we have no idea how. We cannot work out the probabilities of string hitting the target nor can we can describe in detail how the string was created. Sound familiar?

    If this counts as a known necessity mechanism then life has a known mechanism and so do many of your examples of design.

  24. . . . merely responding to someone doesn’t mean that you condone their actions

    True, but the issue isn’t condoning their actions, it’s that by responding you enable the offensive behavior.

    They want attention, even negative attention, because in their minds it validates their position.  “All these intelligent people are talking to me, I must have a point.”  They also want to control the interaction by deleting comments and participants they don’t like.  That is morally reprehensible.

    If they want the attention, they should participate in an open forum where their errors can be clearly pointed out, their evasions documented, and no one can rewrite history by deleting comments and threads.

    Giving them the attention they crave without requiring them to leave their anti-free-speech midden gives implicit moral sanction to that forum.  It doesn’t deserve it.

  25. Done 🙂

     

    Thanks.  OK, so in addition to me and BWE (who is also distracted right now), we have Alan Fox, Mark Frank, and Neil Rickert with admin access.  That should do us! I think.

    Thanks so much to all.  

     

     

  27. @ Lizzie

    Flattered by your confidence in handing me responsibility. Downside is it’s not helping my internet addiction. 🙁 As a reference, may I refer you to something similar I tried myself, a while ago.

    PS Does anyone else think it a good idea to increase the number of displayed recent comment links? I tend to look there first for activity and sometimes miss stuff that’s scrolled off.

  28. Does anyone else think it a good idea to increase the number of displayed recent comment links?

    No opinion on that. Yes, I do look there. But I also click on the bubble (or whatever it is called) in the top panel, which gives me the raw comments with most recent first (though out of context).

    Agree with your thanks on the confidence expressed. I intend using those super administrator powers in a minimalist way – fixing obvious problems such as posts stuck in moderation, but trying to avoid policy setting decisions where possible.

  29. Alan,

    My two cents: Yes, I think it’s a good idea to increase the number of recent comment links.  We click on those far more often than we click on the recent post links.

  30. Yes, please increase the recent comment links to (say) about 20.  They are how I keep up with recent content, and it is irritating when comments scroll off it too quickly.

  31. I think the ‘recent comments’ thingie would be more useful if, rather than providing a list of the most recent comments on threads, it instead lists the most recent threads to have acquired comments. With comments-focused ‘recent activity’, any sufficiently active thread can crowd all other threads out of the ‘recent activity’ list; with thread-focused ‘recent activity’, you have a better idea of what’s going on all over the site.
    It could look something like this:
     
    Recent Activity
    Thread X (245 new comments)
    Thread Y (102 new comments)
    Thread Z (10 new comments)

    The “N new comments” text could be a link that sends you to the earliest of those N new comments, or perhaps to whichever of the new comments you’d encounter first if you were scrollng thru the whole thing from its start.

  32. I think the ‘recent comments’ thingie would be more useful if, rather than providing a list of the most recent comments on threads, it instead lists the most recent threads to have acquired comments.

    I’m inclined to agree with that.

    We are using WordPress software. We are limited by what that software supports.

    We are actually using this more as a forum, while the software is intended to be used for a blog.

  34. Yes, that helps.  Any chance of adding a date/timestamp to each item on the list?

    Any sufficiently complicated web-based discussion software contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of a decent Usenet reader.

    (Bonus points for anyone who recognizes the source of the paraphrase.)

  37. The dashboard gives a simple choice for displayed comments by merely entering a number. Easy to revert back if it proves unsatisfactory. Date/timestamps? Is it available as an option?

  39. Might as well mention that comment posting is not straightforward. If I post anything other than plain text, I have to edit as HTML gets corrupted. Anyone else find this irritating. Is there a consensus for having a look at improving the commenting experience?

    Preview or edit? Preview and edit? I recall there was an effort to enable math formulae to be posted.  

  40. I user the HTML editor almost exclusively. On a tablet it is impossible to post without using the HTML editor. On other platforms it depends on the browser.

    But just about everything is broken about the WYSIWYG editor. 

  41. I recall there was an effort to enable math formulae to be posted.

    The wordpress software now supports it, and my tests showed that it worked here. It does assume that you know a little latex coding (check wikipedia).

    $latex \pi $ should show as \pi

    (I’ll find out what that does when I post, then check the result).

  42. It always seems to put a lot of HTML stuff about SPAN and fonts and stuff when I use this box.  Then I go to the HTML mode and actually spend a lot of time cutting out all that stuff, and leaving just the EM … /EM tags for italic and the P … /P tags for paragraphs.  Then I get the default font and default italicization.

    It’s a nuisance.
     

  43. Joe, Here’s what I do to avoid that problem:

    1. Go straight to the HTML source editor before typing anything.

    2. Enter the post using HTML.

    3. Here’s the critical step: Do a ‘Select all’ and ‘Copy’ to save the HTML on the clipboard.

    4. Then click ‘Update’ in the lower right corner of the HTML source editor window.

    5. If the post looks okay in the comment window, click ‘Post Comment’.

    6. If the problems can be easily fixed in the comment window, do so and then click ‘Post Comment’.

    7. Otherwise, go back to the HTML source editor. All of the extraneous crap will appear.

    8. Overwrite the crap with the HTML that was saved in step 3.

    9. Fix the problems.

    10. Go to step 3.

    I find this procedure to be much easier than trying to deal with the WYSIWYG editor or hacking the ugly HTML that it generates.

  44. I write the post using Windows Live Writer which creates really simple HTML and  copy it across – seems to work OK (unless it is really short like this comment). In which case it is not worth it

  46. I hit a glitch.  I just want to use Live Writer as an editor and copy the generated HTML over to TSZ, but Live Writer insists on being configured to talk directly to a blog.  The configuration wizard demands the address of my blog, and the step can’t be skipped.  I don’t have a blog of my own, and I can’t use TSZ for this step because the WordPress rpc feature is not enabled here.

    I imagine that this worked for you, Mark, because you have your own blog.

    So for the moment I’m stuck, unless I create a sham blog just to make the configuration wizard happy.

     

  47. Are you sure you have to configure it for a blog? (I have been using it for so long I can’t remember).  You are welcome to use mine. I will e-mail the details to you if you give me an address. (I am mark.t.frank@gmail.com)

  49. Re WSYWYG, there is an active plugin entitled MCE comments. The WordPress site states it may have compatibility problems as it has not been updated for over two years. There is the option to deactivate it. I wonder if it would be worth testing functionality with this plugin deactivated Surely the default comment box can’t be worse than the current situation. Perhaps we could look at newer available preview plugins. 

    As I don’t want to break anything and I am not going to change anything without consensus, I’d be glad of any feedback. Worst case scenario would seem just re-activating the plugin and return to status quo.

    Thoughts?

     

  50. There is also the point that TSZ operates on its own server which allows many more options than operating a blog on wordpress’ own server.

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