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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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« Maybe there's room at the Motel 6... | Main | An argument for the kindness of the ungodly »

Don't hate me for this...

Category: Weblogs
Posted on: April 24, 2006 4:47 PM, by PZ Myers

I've turned on the requirement to login and register with TypeKey in order to make a comment. Can't stand it? Things not working? Leave a comment (if you can) or mail me (if you can't).

This is a trial, we'll see if it works. I'm willing to turn it off again if it causes more grief than it solves.

Ooops. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, here's the TypeKey page. It's simply a centralized site where you register once, get a password, and then you can use that password to make comments on various sites, including this one. It doesn't cost anything, it's fairly easy to do.

Another hint: some people are having problems that seem to be traceable to their browser's cache. Try reloading pages or clearing the browser cache so that it will display the version with the new TypeKey requirements.

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Comments

Wish they'd make it so you could automatically stay logged in for more than two weeks...

Posted by: Azkyroth | April 24, 2006 5:09 PM

Hey, PZ, anything you can do to fight the spam is probably not enough. TypeKey isn't that much hassle.

Posted by: theRidger | April 24, 2006 5:10 PM

Seems to be working for me.

I have to say, though, that my favorite feature of the Pharyngula niche is that long string of "kill" links marching down my screen. It appeals to some deep wellspring of my psyche, the part fueled by surging neurons in the reptilian parts of my brain. "Kill. . . kill. . . kill. . ."

Ahem.

Seriously, I think this is worth it. Larry Gonick's forum got fried by spam back in December 2004 and never returned. It felt like it was turning into a good place, too; still makes me a little teary. If a few extra mouse-clicks on my part help keep the spammers out and let us use a couple more hyperlinks in each post, that's fine by me.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | April 24, 2006 5:20 PM

Testing out this thingamajigger.

Any anti-spam measures are fine by me, up to and including summary execution of spammers.

Posted by: Bronze Dog | April 24, 2006 5:35 PM

How's the disemvowel function working?

(Feel free to use this as your test case.)

Posted by: MikeM | April 24, 2006 5:42 PM

I filled out my income tax two months ago so this isn't much worse.

öö
ζ
~

Posted by: Fred J | April 24, 2006 5:45 PM

Well if you must do this to us - here goes
if you read this even an old curmudgeon can figure it out.

Posted by: curmudgeon | April 24, 2006 5:48 PM

It took me less than three minutes to sign up - not too bad at all. And if it keeps the spam nonsense out, so much the better.

Posted by: The Disgruntled Chemist | April 24, 2006 5:54 PM

just sitting here eating my ramen and thinking about midgets + dwarves...a little TypeKey won't hurt

Posted by: theodosius_35:125-129 | April 24, 2006 5:59 PM

#10

I can't manage to post. Very odd.

Mike Fox

P.S. Yeah - I couldn't resist.

Posted by: Mike Fox | April 24, 2006 6:05 PM

#11

I turned off the spam flow by turning on moderation but I suspect that wouldn't work too well here with the high volume of comments.

Typekey and other registration systems are a bit of a pain...especially if you have to deal with many diffrent ones. Typekey registration comes with being a paid MT user so for sites that require Typekey it is no big deal for me...for the others, well, I just don't comment on their sites.

Posted by: Steve | April 24, 2006 6:21 PM

#12

testing (after signing in elsewhere as there is no sign-in link here)

Posted by: coturnix | April 24, 2006 6:29 PM

#13

OK, I went over to Stochastic, which has the line

"You are not signed in. You need to be registered to comment on this site. Sign in"

below the comments and signed in. I came back here and commented. Then I went over to Janet and Hedwig and commented. Now I am back and commenting again. If this goes though, I am OK.

Posted by: coturnix | April 24, 2006 6:38 PM

#14

I liked the old site, where we could register our gravatars...

Posted by: RavenT | April 24, 2006 6:40 PM

#15

I wish I had that much control here...

Posted by: PZ Myers | April 24, 2006 6:43 PM

#16

I logged out of typekey, and looked here...it did have the request to login in order to leave a comment. It may be that the cookie conflicts temporarily hid it from view.

Posted by: PZ Myers | April 24, 2006 6:44 PM

#17

That seemed painless enough. Squid, atheism, creationist, Dembski, giant bowls of trifle orbiting the tea rooms of Mars and the hell holes of Uranus...

I think that covers it.

Posted by: rupertg | April 24, 2006 6:47 PM

#18

I miss the gravatars too.

Posted by: Pete | April 24, 2006 6:49 PM

#19

I already had a typekey account, but it was for my other secret identity (the one I've used for years when posting to political blogs). This means I either have to (1) starting using that identity here or (2) re-login to typekey each time.

Also, I had to delete my scienceblogs.com cookies before it would even request that I log in. It would take my comment, and then throw back a screen saying I had to register -- with no URL to do so. That's a serious UI misfeature...

Posted by: idlemind | April 24, 2006 6:56 PM

#20

PZ:

Let me know if you don't get this post.

Posted by: Norman Costa | April 24, 2006 7:16 PM

#21

It's just as well you did this, from my point of view, since my e-mail address at Typekey has been superceded. Now I'm up to date again.

Posted by: Linkmeister | April 24, 2006 7:21 PM

#22

Norman said

"Let me know if you don't get..."

Test only

Posted by: Fred J | April 24, 2006 7:21 PM

#23

Testing, testing. Is this thing on?

Posted by: NelC | April 24, 2006 7:55 PM

#24

icrophone on?

Posted by: Ken Cope | April 24, 2006 7:57 PM

#25

The "lost your password?" feature simply does not work. :~(

However, I was able to create a brandnew typekey name with the same email address using the magic of l33tsp34k.

-meli0r

Posted by: melior | April 24, 2006 8:05 PM

#26

Testing... 1 2 3.

Posted by: Christopher | April 24, 2006 8:07 PM

#27

It's too bad TypeKey and LiveJournal don't automatically talk to each other and accept each other's logins, since they're run by the same company... Now I have yet another login to remember and maintain.

Posted by: D. Eppstein | April 24, 2006 8:17 PM

#28

Testing, 1-2-lasjflsdkfxjdlfjlsdxcsdsd
NO CARRIER

Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | April 24, 2006 8:36 PM

#29

Now I have yet another login to remember and maintain.

Download Firefox, it remembers all your passwords and such for you.

Posted by: Jason Malloy | April 24, 2006 8:44 PM

#30

That wasn't too bad. If a pinhead can do it, probably just about anyone can.
Now if I only had something to say.
But the two neurons that fit in the pointy head only go so far...

Posted by: Steviepinhead | April 24, 2006 8:45 PM

#31

Now I have yet another login to remember and maintain.

Don't know what I'd do without the password manager in my browser. Not for sensitive stuff, of course, but for the separate login for every site on the Internet.

Now I'm posting this with Mozilla, so I fully expect this comment to be eaten. Let's test that hypothesis.

Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | April 24, 2006 8:47 PM

#32

My blog got killed by spam, and my host was hacked so everyone going to my site ended up with a trojan horse. I just gave up at that point.

Spammers are republi.. I mean evil.

Posted by: CCC | April 24, 2006 8:54 PM

#33

This a test. It is only a test. If this were a real post, it would be followed by meaningful dialogue. This has been a test.

Posted by: The Science Pundit | April 24, 2006 9:13 PM

#34

Go see the beautiful Aix sponsa.

Posted by: Fred J | April 24, 2006 9:42 PM

#35

For some reason I can't stay signed into typekey and have to sign in each time (possibly because I cart my computer everywhere and connect from whatever 802.11b field is available).

But that is perfectly all right. The net number of clicks from "I think I will make some idiotic comment" to clicking the 'Post" button works out to be the same. If it frustrates spammers, it is good.

Posted by: DOF | April 24, 2006 9:56 PM

#36

As an astronomer (of sorts) I'd like to see the button say "Keep me logged in for 5 Gyr." At that point the Sun will kill us and I won't need to be logged in anymore.

Posted by: Michael | April 24, 2006 10:00 PM

#37

idlemind: if you really are switching between multiple identities frequently, you could try running multiple browsers, one per identity. Then the different browsers could stay logged in to their own identities and the differing appearances of the browsers might help you remember not to use the wrong identity in situations where that might give away the secret.

Posted by: D. Eppstein | April 24, 2006 10:19 PM

#38

It actually works!

Posted by: DrunkMonkey | April 24, 2006 10:28 PM

#39

Progress marches on ...?

Posted by: with a Y | April 24, 2006 10:29 PM

#40

test -- Hey, I have to test it somewhere!

Posted by: lesz | April 24, 2006 11:21 PM

#41

D. Eppstein,

I'm not particularly worried about my "secret" so much as confusing people. My other ID is kinda wonkish and looked out of place when I engaged in nerdier pursuits, so I adopted this one. I'd actually prefer using my real name if it weren't for certain incidents of cyberstalking. Kinda sad for an old ARPAnaut like me who's been posting to mailing lists and newsgroups since the late 1970's. (No SPAM back then, either.)

Posted by: idlemind | April 25, 2006 12:45 AM

#42

ok, now that's fixed. Not that I ever post. . . .

Posted by: rrp | April 25, 2006 1:12 AM

#43

Beep...beep...beep...

Yay it works!

Posted by: plucky punk | April 25, 2006 1:41 AM

#44

Kind of annoying how it doesn't remember you URL though...

Posted by: plucky punk | April 25, 2006 1:43 AM

#45

test-test-test

Posted by: T_U_T | April 25, 2006 1:46 AM

#46

This is a REAL pain.

Because I already had a "TypeKey" account, haven't used it for ages, and had forgotten not password, but the version of my own name that I was using!

I would suggest going over to the pattern recognition/re-type this message authentication, with a non-automatically-readable box with alphameric code in it (which changes)

Probably easier?

Posted by: G. Tingey | April 25, 2006 3:19 AM

#47

Test

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | April 25, 2006 5:07 AM

#48

Stick with this system. I can post again now!

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | April 25, 2006 5:09 AM

#49

Well, I guess we can live with this solution.

Posted by: Kristjan Wager | April 25, 2006 5:39 AM

#50

cookie conflicts!

Grr- it took me a while. But I made it.

Posted by: RickD | April 25, 2006 6:36 AM

#51

Ch... ch... ch... ch... 1... 1... 1...

Posted by: AJ Milne | April 25, 2006 6:42 AM

#52

Oh, no, this web-site is evolving.... Where's intelligent design when you need it?

Posted by: Arun Gupta | April 25, 2006 7:09 AM

#53

Cue Max Webster.

Check....check... check this out.

Posted by: Graculus | April 25, 2006 7:34 AM

#54

When posting those really long posts at Defending Melinda Barton, I had to re-log in after previewing a number of times. I may be my browser, I run Safari. Or it could be something else. No clue. Definitly not much of a pain to me - but it is a potential issue.

Posted by: Mike Fox | April 25, 2006 7:45 AM

#55

Another test of commenting from my work computer...

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 25, 2006 7:47 AM

#56

Free at last!!

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 25, 2006 7:53 AM

#57

it seems to work

not terribly inconvinient and anything that helps stop spammers is good in my book.

Posted by: MaxPolun | April 25, 2006 8:01 AM

#58

That took longer than I expected but no spam and no lost posts is worth it.

Posted by: Ross S | April 25, 2006 8:05 AM

#59

TypeKey testing...

For some reason, Opera has a big problem with this typekey nonsense. I never thought that IE would actually be better at something than Opera. That tells me that the typekey people did something dumb.

Posted by: JoeB | April 25, 2006 8:48 AM

#60

Firefox has no problem at all dealing with Typekey, so I don't think there's anything wrong with the latter.

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 25, 2006 9:03 AM

#61

Testing, testing, one, two, twee...

Posted by: Kristine | April 25, 2006 9:45 AM

#62

Okay, that was fun. I'm now using the full pygmy loris instead of just loris....

Posted by: Pygmy Loris | April 25, 2006 9:58 AM

#63

Is it bad that my first posting to the blog is just for a test? :) Hopefully I'll be commenting more from now on.

Posted by: Kesh | April 25, 2006 9:59 AM

#64

Well, I 'hated you for this' yesterday, but today I finally figured out how to log in, so now I'm much more benevolently inclined.

Posted by: George Cauldron | April 25, 2006 10:24 AM

#65

Testing....Testing.....Testing........

Posted by: Halo Thane | April 25, 2006 10:42 AM

#66

Thanks for posting the additional infor about Typekey PZ. Now we'll see if this works. I took the precaution of deleting all my old cookies first....

Posted by: Dawn | April 25, 2006 11:29 AM

#67

Yay! I went out and bought a tastier brand of cookies. Now I can post again.

Posted by: tng | April 25, 2006 11:53 AM

#68

By the way, that Rack Jite link doesn't work anymore.

Posted by: George Cauldron | April 25, 2006 1:27 PM

#69

testing...2...3...4

Posted by: lt.kizhe | April 25, 2006 2:20 PM

#70

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said, two vast and trunkless legs of stone,
post comments with Safari- does it work?

Sorry- it's my standard mic check spiel...

Posted by: ktesibios | April 25, 2006 3:25 PM

#71

hello? this is Lawrence KS, is anybody there?

Posted by: Blader | April 25, 2006 5:17 PM

#72

Are you a "JAYHAWK?

Posted by: Fred J | April 25, 2006 5:26 PM

#73

No....but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night

Posted by: Blader | April 25, 2006 5:32 PM

#74

Ha, ha, ha. You got the old Gray man from you won't believe where. The beautiful Hampton, SC. And I also have stayed in a Holiday Inn before so I can do anything also.
Pop. of Hampton 2,806.

Be sure to vist PZ here at again as he is pretty good. Signing off...

Posted by: Fred J | April 25, 2006 5:44 PM

#75

oops...here at Pharyngula

Posted by: Fred J | April 25, 2006 5:45 PM

#76

Thanks, Blader. Now I won't be able to get John Lithgow out of my head the rest of the day.

Posted by: Carlie | April 25, 2006 6:22 PM

#77

Sign.. Now I remember why I hate Typekey.. On this system, using Firefox, it argued with me about if my password was valid or not, even though what I typed and what it sent me in the email to recover where identical. My other system, using Opera, refused to accept the "Stay logged in for a week." setting, with the effect that I had to sign in every fracking time I wanted to post anything. Sigh.. Some sites login systems just completely hate me or something...

Posted by: Kagehi | April 25, 2006 7:46 PM

#78

Bah, it's just another hoop to jump through to leave a comment. I actually had to decide if it was worth it, since I post here so rarely.

Posted by: Tara Mobley | April 25, 2006 8:07 PM

#79

Just tried commenting at home using Opera 8.5 and it didn't work. I think I've got it= I normally keep Opera set to reject third-party cookies; now I've set it to prompt me about them, accepted a few from typekey and it looks like it worked.

Posted by: ktesibios | April 25, 2006 11:14 PM

#80

OK, so now that I've got another wretched account to remember at another wretched place, can I comment again ... No, evidently not after merely registering with TypeKey - still got old form at Pharyngula which then said I needed to register.

What about that business of logging out of TypeKey before logging in and re-opening the blog entry here ... the presence of that old form looks like a bad sign ... Yes, it's useless.

Meanwhile, that referenced cookie blasting site doesn't appear to do anything at all when I press the buttons! Another wild goose chase. So I go hunting and killing cookies manually. Good job I'm moderately proficient at the technical stuff ...

Still doesn't work though.

So I have to go round the loop of changing the login state and re-opening and refreshing windows multiple times until I finally get something other than the old form here - which then tells me I need to sign in.

Aarrgghh!!!

You're definitely going on my temporary hate list for today at least, PZ, for all that wasted time and the trauma as well as the inconvenience of having another site login and password to remember.

Posted by: SEF | April 26, 2006 5:13 AM

#81

Well, I managed to get registered and then logged in, but the mystifying messages made the process fairly frustrating.

PZ, perhaps you could add a link to this thread in the "Having problems commenting?" message? There's useful info here and commenters can add tips and suggestions for various browsers and OSes for the benefit of others.

Posted by: Sportin' Life | April 26, 2006 4:21 PM

#82

Well if we're collecting more accurate data:

I was using Win2K with Firefox. I found 2 scienceblogs cookies on my manual purge of the relevant Documents and Settings folder. However, I got both on the one go and they didn't come back. So that wasn't what was causing the site to still give me the old commenting form instead of the TypeKey version.

It seemed to be the multiple logouts and multiple refreshes that made the difference. Simply closing down Firefox and starting the Pharyngula browser windows up again wasn't enough.

I allegedly have caches off. But I've previously found that doesn't always help on other sites either. It's as if there's a cache somewhere external to my machine which needs to be convinced that I really really mean to get a fresh version of the page. Telling it once doesn't seem to be sufficient. (Which is rather reminiscent of a bug in an older version of Windows' port control software ...)

Posted by: SEF | April 26, 2006 7:09 PM

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