Well, a welcome of sorts. Unfortunately, the hackers emptied the user file, and so we are down to three users right now (which is a considerable improvement from zero, as I can at least now access the admin panel!)
The bad news of course is that that means that you may get a bunch of spam from the hackers 🙁
I am slowly registering more people, as I can get details from your posts, but I don’t think there will be any problem in you just re-registering. I’m still wall-to-wall with stuff, but should have some time on Sunday to find out whether there is any other damage, and try to fix it. Also, maybe, post 🙂
Missed you guys.
Cheers,
Lizzie.
Okay, I reregistered.
We should also welcome you back. We haven’t seen you for a while.
(I was wondering why comments suddenly stopped).
I’m again willing to volunteer as a backup Administrator, should you so approve.
I see that Alan Fox is now the author of my previous posts. I guess it goes by a member number or something.
This is going to be messy.
Are the hackers likely to have cracked passwords we used on the site?
Ah. I hadn’t anticipated that. hmmm.
We may have a back up copy of the user file, which might help.
I think that is likely, good point. If they deleted the users file, I assume they could look at the contents.
Offer accepted and implemented. Thanks.
Lizzie
On checking, I find I last downloaded a save on 16th Feb but have emailed it to you in case it is of any use. I had to compress it to get it to send (it was 34 MB) it was still 6 MB.
Internet life, like life in general, really is quite ephemeral!
I am using a stronger password in case access was via the admin panel.
I was going to add there is a plugin that should be saving files automatically but I see all the plugins are missing.
Oh yes, well done in getting the site back up so quickly and nice to see you back, Lizzie.
I’ll try and reattach the correct author name to posts on Sunday. In the mean time, things could be a bit random!
This isn’t a particularly big deal, as far as I am concerned.
If the plan is to change the author of individual posts, that’s something that I can do over time, as people complain.
If the plan is to reassign member numbers, then I probably can’t do that.
I’ll see how doable it is to restore the old member numbers on sunday. If not, we can do another thing, over time, as you say 🙂
Thump, thump, thump. Is this thing on?
Hello again all! Very odd little disruption, that. Even odder was the email I received from WordPress with a new password. When I tried to use it to log in, the WordPress access box jiggled all over my screen. I decided to reset my password completely.
And welcome back Lizzie! Good to see you again!
Well, the email was from me. I generated your new password. Not sure what went wrong there, but I’m glad you are in now 🙂
Well good to know it came from you Lizzie and not some fake password generator. All good now.
Typically passwords are stored in encrypted form, not as the original password string, so it depends on whether they want to take the password file and try to crack it.
It might be best for everyone to use a new password, one that they have not used elsewhere, in case the hackers have further access or in case they have left behind some kind of trojan horse that will harvest the new passwords we set up.
I use pretty much one password for all sites like this, and different passwords for financially important sites.
I don’t think you can re-register. I had to request a password update.
Trying to register with my original name didn’t work.
Strange – re-registering with my old username worked for me. Perhaps Lizzie had re-entered your credentials, but not mine (at the times we each tried.)
Ah, that’s possible. I started re-registering people last night, then stopped.
Probably best if I stay stopped!
Was this a wordpress hacking or was it limited to this little corner?
My wife’s website was hacked last year and used as a porn hub, so I can understand the trouble this must be causing you, lizzie. Glad it’s on the road to recovery!
My login details just seemed to reinstate themselves, so I’m happy!
OK, restoring posts to their authors could be a little tedious. I’m trying to figure out whose belongs to whom, but what would be great would be if people could let me know at least one of their own posts!
I think I’ve restored Neil’s to him successfully, and I can continue to do it manually. If I can read the back up file with the old ID numbers in it I can just work through those, but so far I haven’t managed to read it!
Maybe just find a post of yours, add a comment that it’s yours, and I should find your comment on the recent comments thread. Once you’ve re-registered it, I’ll allocate your new ID to your posts.
Ah, it’s easier than I thought. If the post has a blank after “by”, any admin can add the right user (by enabling “author” in “screen options”, and making sure the user has “author” status).
However, if the wrong author is attributed, I’ll have to do it in the php editor, which is no problem, I just swap the IDs around, and they should all come right.
Just this little corner. It was a malicious plugin, and has now been deleted. I’ll be more conservative with the plugins in future!
Thanks.
I just looked at a post by Robert Byers, which most assuredly was not actually by Robert.
It looks as if I go to the edit page for that post, I can select the author. Presumably that applies to any Admin.
So I’ll do my part in attempting to restore correct authorship. But we will need folk to add a comment to this thread claiming the posts. If a post currently has a wrong author, then just identifying one or two such posts should be enough for us to fix them all. If a post currently has no author, it might require knowing the complete list.
Well, fortunately, it turns out that you can reattribute a post to any registered author (but it will only apply to that post). I’m trying to find where the ID number is associated with the post (it clearly is). However, most recent posts are from people with higher ID numbers than the current highest number! Hence the blanks (I think).
Who wrote the “Robert Byers” post? I can probably fix that one.
I wrote only two posts: one on March 4, 2012 on why Functional Information can be put into the genome by natural selection, and another on January 17, 2013 on what was wrong with arguments about protein evolution by “niwrad”.
By the way, why when I click on the Members tab does it shoe no members but instead just a single line “[symposium-members]” ?
I think I have fixed the ownership problem for your posts. Well, one was already correct when I looked, and I fixed the other.
As for the “Members” tab – that was previously associated what a plugin that is no longer at the site. Perhaps that tab should be removed, but I think that has to be up to Lizzie.
Yes, I must have had my identity semi-persist. Once I signed back up, I was startled to find I was assigned the same atavar image.
Yes, I disabled the symposium plug in. I’ll do some more tidying up next weekend.
The avatar is assembled using parameters from your email, so if your email is the same as last time, you should get the same avatar. You should also get the same avatar on any other site that has the same avatar plugin, if you use the same email.
Thanks Neil for doing the fixing up!
I seem to have registered also.
I feel like a new man.
Barry Arrington: I’m happy to give EL another chance if she wants it.
Barry is able to comment here if he can summon the minimal intellectual courage required to leave the UD echo chamber. Why anyone in the reality-based community continues to participate there is beyond me.
Come make your best case for ID in an uncensored venue, Barry. Let’s see what you’ve got when you can’t edit and delete your opponents words.
Not that we think you should take them up on it.
Zachriel
Once Twice Thrice Quadrice banned by Uncommon Descent.
I believe Barry and UD see the need for engagement as UD is starting to look more like a Christian site.
If he wants to see how solid ID sounds in a free debate, he should bring his arguments and team here.
I’m ready! 🙂
It certainly can’t be good for one’s mental health. I don’t know how Elizabeth put up with it for so long without some deleterious effects.
What strikes me as peculiar about Arrington’s purge of people who brought up other forms of logic – and currently undergoing a reprise over at UD – is the way that UD site itself abuses logic.
They use Godel to “prove the existence of their deity,” yet they don’t know about statements that cannot be decided. They don’t know about superposition of states in quantum mechanics.
Yet, throughout all the purges, they maintain complete ignorance of fundamental concepts in science and argue as though nobody knows, therefore ID. Then they turn right around and accuse people who actually do know the science of not knowing anything.
How can they possibly know whether or not anyone else knows anything about science when they themselves refuse to look and keep themselves totally in the dark about all of it? They “know” yet they don’t know; A and NOT A,
It is a curious phenomenon to study “in the wild” and from a distance; but how does one stay sane when posting over there?
I always enjoyed your amazingly patient posts at UD, Elizabeth, but I can understand if you don’t want to go back there even though the offer is there.
One minor problem with the offer is that at least 20 of us followed Lizzie in short order, on the same thread or series of threads. Many of us were banned for defending Lizzie’s right to make her argument.
Now Barry Arrington is reviving the same topic for the same reason. It gives him cover for banning people who argue effectively against ID positions.
Anyone who goes back without extracting a change of policy is just reinforcing Barry’s policy.
petrushka: “Anyone who goes back without extracting a change of policy is just reinforcing Barry’s policy.”
While Barry could change the policy today, there’s nothing stopping him from changing it back tomorrow.
UD has demonstrated over many years that they can’t be trusted to moderate in a fair manner.
If Barry or anyone there wants to debate us, they should come here.
Ah, but anything they disagree with is atheist science or atheist logic, so can be discounted.
Personally I hope none of the folk from UD come over here and that fewer actual scientists and pro-science folk go over there. The less credence given to their arguments and concepts, the less validity and power they have. Their influence is virtually nil as it is.
Further, it seems to me that as the discussions get shorter and the number of criticisms goes down, the more they return to apologetics. I really do think (in a sarcastic kind of way) that in the not-too-distant future, Barry will ban about 90% of the participants, and he, BA77, and Gordo will just post links to CS Lewis and G.K. Chesterton quotes and that will be the sum total of “right reasoning” over there.
I miss my robot penguin avatar.
William J Murray writes this ironic comment over at Unintelligent Discussion site.
There is a fundamental asymmetry that nobody over at UD apparently recognizes. There are many of us in the scientific community who have studied the ID/creationist movement and understand the misconceptions, misrepresentations, and socio/political history of this movement from its beginning; and we also know the science.
It is not the case that the leaders and followers of ID/creationism know any science. On the contrary, they have been distorting and misrepresenting science for something like 50 years now.
So why doesn’t WJM take his own advice. Why do people like kairosfocus, UprightBiped, WJM, William Dembski, Granville Sewell, and all the rest of the crew over there keep making up “theories” to support their pseudoscience when none of them know enough science to understand what it is they are “refuting?”
WJM’s argument is simply an attempt to justify remaining ignorant of science in order to justify “layman’s skepticism” (by keeping ourselves forever ignorant, we can justify our skepticism because NOBODY will ever be able to explain anything to us).
This line of rationalization seems to pop up nearly everywhere an internet troll waltzes into a discussion group and starts hurling ID/creationist feces.
If anyone doubts the socio/political nature of ID/creationism, just look at what goes on over a UD. It’s is never about the science; science is not important enough for any of them to learn. It’s all about instilling suspicion and hatred of getting an education in science or of any secular subject area; and that is how this ID/creationist movement goes about their attempts at preparing minds for sectarian dogma.
They can’t disguise their vitriolic hatred of people who know ID/creationist history and tactics; and the UD site manages to work their hatreds into their comments routinely.
I say leave them in their pristine state where they can be studied without any probing that would make them self-conscious enough to hide their true feelings and agenda. Don’t interact with them but, instead, study them; then take them down without their ever knowing who took them down and how.
Never give them a ride on your back. Riding on the backs of people who know the science is what they have always craved from their very beginning; they can’t earn the scientific respect on their own.
There you go.