Pharyngula: Back off, people. I have permission.

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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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« Even Corpse Flowers have blogs nowadays! | Main | Merry Mollydays! »

Back off, people. I have permission.

Category: Weblogs
Posted on: April 19, 2007 5:07 PM, by PZ Myers

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Comments

Who's B. Myong?

Posted by: Bronze Dog | April 19, 2007 5:25 PM

Agreed, Bronze Dog; was that written by a doctor or something? ;-)

Posted by: Ithika | April 19, 2007 5:28 PM

I seriously dislike disemvowelment. I would rather assassins be dispatched to the offending poster's home than have their post disemvoweled (or, I guess the post could just be removed...) Disemvowelment just means that I am neurotically compelled to sit and try to decipher a comment for 12 times as long as it would have taken me to read it with the vowels included, AND these posts are never worth my time, anyway! So frustrating!

I can't stop being crazy, can't you help me?

Posted by: Dennis | April 19, 2007 5:33 PM

I see you signed your name in the non-Euclidean runes of the Old Ones, a rare sight this far from the sunken city of R'lyeh.

Posted by: llewelly | April 19, 2007 5:34 PM

Disemvowelment is what I do the first few times; if they don't get the message and are persistent, they get entered into the blacklist and automatically junked.

Those who mock my handwriting may face even more severe penalties.

Posted by: PZ Myers | April 19, 2007 5:40 PM

Dennis, I do the same thing! I've generally found, though, that if I don't get a word near-immediately, I can move on and still understand the comment. Perhaps worth trying.

(I sort of enjoy it, though. It's like a puzzle! But I'm known for being strange that way.)

Posted by: Melanie S. | April 19, 2007 5:40 PM

Hmm, I should have attached this to my last comment. Have you seen the knitting work of this person? http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5031892 (Scroll down for pictures.)

Posted by: Melanie S. | April 19, 2007 5:43 PM

What do you call that peeling motion with your index fingers while going "shame shame shame"?
Censure or rebuke?

Posted by: Stanton | April 19, 2007 5:43 PM

Everyone get ready for Dawkins on O'Reilly this Monday on FOX. For Darwin's sake, help us all...

Posted by: John Danley | April 19, 2007 5:50 PM

#10

lv dsmvwlmnt. t's grt fun dcphrng th psts.

Posted by: Christian Burnham | April 19, 2007 5:51 PM

#11

I want one!

Or should I say, "Wnt n!"

Posted by: MikeM | April 19, 2007 5:53 PM

#12

Ww Chrstn! ctll thght tht PZ rll dsmvwlld ! Sll m

Posted by: Robert | April 19, 2007 5:59 PM

#13

Disemvowelment, meh.

Now emvowelment --THAT'S something.

Posted by: RavenT | April 19, 2007 6:01 PM

#14

Stp hm bfr h gts y t!

Posted by: Rey Fox | April 19, 2007 6:02 PM

#15

Ok, I have to admit, its actually kind of fun to write without vowels... or maybe I'm just sick...

Posted by: Robert | April 19, 2007 6:03 PM

#16

I notice she left out permission to rip new ones. I wonder why.

Posted by: John McKay | April 19, 2007 6:20 PM

#17

I am an amoderatist. I don't believe that there is an old bearded man somewhere out in the ethernet with his omnipotent finger on the delete button. Comments become disemvowelled due to alphabetic drift and eventually disappear from a blog because of selection pressures. Don't try to impose your administrationist beliefs on me.

Posted by: Ex-drone | April 19, 2007 6:26 PM

#18

What do you call that peeling motion with your index fingers while going "shame shame shame"? Censure or rebuke?

I call that Admonish. It's one of the first powers granted on the list. :)

Posted by: ZorkFox | April 19, 2007 6:36 PM

#19

I need a "License to Pwn". ;/

Posted by: Azkyroth | April 19, 2007 6:42 PM

#20

shld b dsmvwlld fr cnsstntly trcs prfrdng nd dtng. t's wh 'm n rt drctr nt cpywrtr.

Posted by: Stv_C (Sclr ltst) FCD | April 19, 2007 6:45 PM

#21

Pardon the interruption, professor, but your learned opinion is needed here:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2007/04/oops-magazine-cover-by-national-rifle.html

Posted by: Grumpy | April 19, 2007 6:47 PM

#22

Disemvowelment...

You're doing that PZ!!!! I thought you were being attacked by a group of very annoying trolls. Now I feel like an idiot. /shakes fist

Posted by: Drekab | April 19, 2007 7:00 PM

#23

Yh PZ, stp dsmvwllng s. t's rll nt nc thng t d!

Posted by: Christian Burnham | April 19, 2007 7:19 PM

#24

Well, Hebrew is almost always written disemvoweled. So it is only fitting that those closest to god write in a manner closer to god's own language.

And it's easier to read than disemconsonentment
(A i eaie o ea a ieooee)

Posted by: Hexatron | April 19, 2007 7:25 PM

#25

You guys are missing half the fun. I added a new feature to the stylesheet, and in the future, in addition to disemvoweling, I'll be able to set the background...and you can too!

This is what you get if you type

<blockquote class="creationist"> some text </blockquote>

It's true -- you can now have gumbies as a background to your quotes, just the thing for putting your obnoxious fellow commenters in their place and letting them know what you really think of what they said!

Obnoxious people who require disemvoweling will also get this in the future:

<blockquote class="jerk"> nc sntmnt, hh? </blockquote>

Posted by: PZ Myers | April 19, 2007 7:32 PM

#26

You signed it? I expected sucker marks.

Posted by: tikistitch | April 19, 2007 7:37 PM

#27

Wow PZ that's the best use of HTML for evil since the tag.

Posted by: Zarquon | April 19, 2007 7:40 PM

#28

A i eaie o ea a ieooee

Cthulhu fhtagn!

Posted by: Chet | April 19, 2007 7:42 PM

#29

"blink" was the missing word... bloody preview.

Posted by: Zarquon | April 19, 2007 7:42 PM

#30

Yeesh...they look really ugly on the dark background my comments get. I'm going to have to fix that later.

Since the tag? Wow. You really don't like html, do you? (if you were trying to smuggle in somthing nasty like a blink tag, those get filtered out.)

Posted by: PZ Myers | April 19, 2007 7:44 PM

#31

OK, I'm trying this blockquote creationist thingy.

Posted by: Christian Burnham | April 19, 2007 7:48 PM

#32

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.

Posted by: CalGeorge | April 19, 2007 8:00 PM

#33

Seriously, though, PZ, I heard that piece on NPR the other day where they were talking about the Sierra case. I've sort of been tossing around my head the idea of starting a blog on "The Church of Really Bad Stuff", but actually, I think the Skeptics Annotated may make my idea redundant.

But then I think about the increasing lack of civility on blogs (seen it here, seen it there, and now it's making news broadcasts, for Pete's sake), and I wonder why I'd even open myself up to stacks of hate mail.

I wouldn't put an email address out there, because, frankly, I wouldn't want to read the boxes of spam you must get. And I wouldn't have the time to delete abusive posts. I do have a job. Sort of.

So what would you say to someone who's thinking about it, but then remembers Dave Scot, jason, the physicist, etc, and says, "Nah, never mind."?

It's no longer for the faint-hearted; it's barely for the strong-hearted.

What are your thoughts?

Posted by: MikeM | April 19, 2007 8:03 PM

#34

PZ s sch hypcrt!
ts fn t wtch.

Posted by: The Anti Atheist | April 19, 2007 8:54 PM

#35

Really, Ay-ay? And how would that be?

Posted by: Azkyroth | April 19, 2007 9:04 PM

#36

!!PZ אני כותבת בעברית בבלוג של

Take the vowels out of that! *grin* There are a few, if you know what you're looking at.

Posted by: Interrobang | April 20, 2007 12:31 AM

#37

I'm thinking you kids won't be too disabled, if your
disavowlment leaves your "cajones" intact, huh?

Posted by: uncle bob | April 20, 2007 1:09 AM

#38

Okay, it's just me, I know. But the phrase is 'Know all men by these present' not 'by these presents'.

Posted by: Chakolate | April 20, 2007 2:17 AM

#39

You should make the gumbies background darker; it's a bit difficult to see what's going on there. Just a shade or two.

And maybe you could make the BOOT TO THE FACE always show up as the full graphic? That'd be awesome.

Posted by: octopod | April 20, 2007 2:43 AM

#40

Interrobang @ 36, Technically speaking modern Hebrew has no vowels although the aleph, yud, vav and ayin in that sentence are pronounced like English vowels.

Posted by: Marine Geologist | April 20, 2007 9:56 AM

#41

The gumby background seems to be obscuring the boxed post numbers in #31 and #32. In constrast, the "jerk" background in #34 instead partly underlies the boxed number. The box and number are visible, but the box's field is part-gray and part white. I'm using Firefox 1.5 on OpenBSD.

Posted by: David Harmon | April 20, 2007 10:16 AM

#42

Blockquotes have always partly underlain the boxed numbers (well, for "always" = "as long as boxed numbers have been around here"). The behavior putting the gumby background on top is new, though. (Or maybe it's just that the old background was transparent, therefore you could see through it whether it was on top or not.)

Is it just me, or is the jerk background dark enough to make it difficult to read the text on top of it? That seems like a no-no. Also, it repeats vertically but not horizontally, which is ungraceful if you are running at high screen resolution since it only takes up maybe 1/3 of the width of the quote window.

Even stranger: when I scroll, the gumbies background remains fixed while the window it is in scrolls over it; the jerk background moves with its window.

Oh well, one nifty special background is better than zero.

Posted by: Chris | April 20, 2007 11:31 AM

#43

The backgrounds are completely white in Safari (and underlie the numbers). I need to go home and watch it in the almighty MSIE.

In Hebrew, like in Arabic, long vowels are written as the closest-sounding consonants, only short vowels are omitted -- except that (like many Arabic dialects) spoken Hebrew doesn't distinguish long and short vowels anymore, so you have to learn the spelling by heart, and I've read mistakes are very common in Israel.

Posted by: David Marjanović | April 20, 2007 1:27 PM