…and this is a 
Since I posted that open letter to Seed, it's only fair to post the reply I received the other day.
We've just signed off with Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type, to begin Phase I of our registration program. You won't actually see too many changes with this phase - we're essentially just cleaning up technical glitches within the system and making sure it's performing properly.
Included in this phase are:
Phase II will be where all the actual registration features come in, once we've got everything shipshape. [We] will be in touch about what will be involved from your end with implementing Phase I -- probably at least an overnight posting freeze while we upgrade, as we've done in the past -- when we have more details about when this will happen, but Six Apart should have resources available to us within the next two to three weeks.
- Commenter Authentication Fixes -- meaning that you should be able to turn on Movable Type's native registration option without commenting errors occurring
- Load Balancer fixes
- Server Analysis and Recommendations
- Movable Type 4.3 Upgrade
- Plugin Maintenance
- Comment Enhancements for Sponsored Blogs -- enabling us to offer sponsors special features they request for their blogs such as comment threading that our readers haven't demonstrated as much interest in
So the good news is that they're going straight to the pros at Six Apart to fix our problems; the bad news is that that means some more delays while we wait for the experts. Hang in there.
Comments
Posted by: Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM
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October 20, 2009 12:18 PM
Here is to hoping they get their act together soon. I had to register three times before I got through.
Posted by: SEF
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October 20, 2009 12:19 PM
So the work won't start until 2 or 3 weeks' time? Any hint as to how long it might take after that?
Posted by: Desert Son
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October 20, 2009 12:23 PM
Movable Type only took seven tries this morning to log in. Good times.
Glad to hear they're working on it. I don't envy IT techs their job: I imagine the complaint-to-compliment ratio has got to suck.
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: Desert Son
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October 20, 2009 12:25 PM
By which I should have added, "Good on ya, Seed techs, for working on this."
*hangs in*
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 20, 2009 12:25 PM
The sooner the better...
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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October 20, 2009 12:26 PM
Good on the whole.
Late, but welcome.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Bronze Dog | October 20, 2009 12:26 PM
I'm glad I can comment at all. Before, every time I tried to register with Movable Type, I got an error message. Then about a week later, I finally got the registration page to load and got signed up.
It's been smooth for me since then, but that's still a rather high hoop to ask everyone to jump through.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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October 20, 2009 12:30 PM
A timely response with a reasonable plan of action... it's a good start.
And personally, I haven't had a single problem signing in for several days.
Posted by: SEF
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October 20, 2009 12:34 PM
But by previous admission, there are no Seed techs. They referred to having had just one tech and said the post was currently vacant. Bringing in the Six Apart squad seemed to be their most expedient option (rather than advertising for, interviewing, hiring and training someone new of their own).
Posted by: daveau
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October 20, 2009 12:37 PM
Thank you Seed. (and PZ for prodding them of course)
Posted by: Desert Son
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October 20, 2009 12:43 PM
SEF,
I missed this! They don't have a tech, and only had one when they did? No wonder they've had such issues!
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: Brock | October 20, 2009 12:51 PM
Thanks for the update. I'm yet another reader annoyed by sign-in difficulties. So I usually say nothing when registration is forced.
Just curious, is there a reason Pharyngula doesn't have a proper forum, and instead goes on and on with "threads that will not die"? Is there like a contract that prevents such a thing from existing outside of Seed?
Or else is there another forum where a lot of Pharyngulites hang out? Sorry if this stuff has been answered a lot already.
Posted by: kaessa
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October 20, 2009 1:05 PM
I finally was able to sign in via Livejournal... my OpenID refuses to work properly, and none of the other logins work.
Here's hoping they get it fixed. My Livejournal account is ancient, and I'd prefer to link to my current blog. Fingers are crossed. ;)
Posted by: davem
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October 20, 2009 1:18 PM
12 attempts later (the most ever!) I get to sign in. I did it by going to the sign up screen, then a sideways dodge back to the sign-in.
Now, as an IT man who maintains a web site somewhat more complex than this this one, I ask "WTF's the problem"? I'd have had it fixed in a day, or I'd have died of embarrassment at my failure. Just gimme the source code...
Posted by: John Harshman
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October 20, 2009 1:19 PM
Hey, TypePad let me sign in today. First time in weeks and weeks. It's a pity I have nothing to say, but perhaps it will work again when I do have something.
Posted by: Haris bin Ali
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October 20, 2009 1:23 PM
I guess that's a "Yay"?
Posted by: Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM
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October 20, 2009 1:30 PM
Brock, the endless thread is an in joke. Months ago, a couple of YEC hijacked a couple of threads and some of our more learned commenters proceeded to school them. Lots of other mayhem and hi jinks happened alone the way. The comments ended being in the thousands. Seeing that threads of over a thousand statements causes stress on the system, PZ ends them and starts a new one. It is our all purpose thread now.
Posted by: Kausik Datta
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October 20, 2009 1:47 PM
I don't know enough of Movable Type unfortunately. I sign in using TypePad. So once the system moves to Movable Type, will I have to create yet another account with them - in order to comment at Pharyngula?
Posted by: Anubis Bloodsin the third
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October 20, 2009 2:18 PM
Every time I try to sign in with type pad I get the error message telling me I have to sign in.
To do that I have to request my password, cos it point blank refuses to accept it just like that.
I get the password in the e-mail, I totally ignore it go back to the log in page and directly click on 'sign in' without retyping or anything so draconian, which takes me to the comment typing box...and I may comment...hoorah!
Do not ask me how I found that out, I have no idea, but my in box has over a dozen replies from the automated response..none of which are actually used!
Like playing a game so it is!
This 'system' works 8 /10 times, well maybe calling it a 'system' is stretching the metaphor, but there ya go!
The 2/10 times require a whole system re-boot!
Movable type just laughs at me, not going anywhere near that black hole last time it crashed me comp so bad I had to do a previous status recovery fandango!
This nonsense is since the so called maintenance they carried out several months back!
Before then it was more random access then guaranteed, so improvement sorta!
No mention of a edit feature yet, but we live in no particular hope for that one, plenty of useless stuff maybe...yipee!....we shall see!
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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October 20, 2009 2:31 PM
I don't know about that - having a properly performing system would be a HUGE change.
Posted by: Ivan | October 20, 2009 2:35 PM
I've just started getting a parse error on the pharyngula RSS feed, although I think it's due to a single malformed entry (this one), which means it'll go away after that entry gets pushed out.
$ tidy -e --input-xml yes pharyngula
line 59 column 819 - Error: unexpected </script> in <description>
line 59 column 828 - Error: unexpected </div> in <description>
Posted by: Didac
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October 20, 2009 2:49 PM
Trying to comment. So, it is working! Well, it is working for me and through Mozilla. People not able to comment are not commenting, and so we can pressume a selection bias is taking place right now.
Posted by: Uncle Glenny
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October 20, 2009 2:58 PM
I don't really like threaded blogs; I'd rather the listing be linear and chronological. However there should be a decent, simple reply mechanism that automates placing a link to the originating message into the comment text. Look at wonkette.com - simple, fast, easy to use. That way one can trivially bounce back to the original post, and the author/replied-to-post-identifier doesn't have to be manually inserted.
Another reply style is used at firedoglake, where one can, looking at a post, request an inline expansion of the post being replied to. Unlike the first, this lacks the ability to make multiple reply references.
p.s. For some reason, I have been kept logged in here for at least a week. Previously I had to do it over again every day even when I requested to be remembered.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 20, 2009 2:58 PM
You do know that, like me, you're not logged in?
Fortunately PZ hasn't turned registration back on.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 20, 2009 3:02 PM
It looked like he hadn't, and it would explain the spam appearing on the old threads.Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 20, 2009 3:02 PM
:-O
Posted by: kaessa
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October 20, 2009 3:10 PM
Totally off topic, but "No God" is the number one trending topic on Twitter right now.
Apparently, some religious types tried to make "No God, no peace, know God, know peace" into a trending topic, and it kind of backfired on them. The howls of outrage are quite entertaining. :)
Posted by: Brian Puccio | October 20, 2009 3:44 PM
Isn't Moveable Type dead? Isn't everyone using Drupal and WordPress?
Posted by: Anubis Bloodsin the third
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October 20, 2009 3:48 PM
# 27
Fucking clowns cannot do anything right...totally typical!
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck
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October 20, 2009 4:18 PM
I liked, "No god, whirled peas".
Made it on the second try with Typepad. I shall wait the fixes with 'bated breath. Or two minutes, whichever comes first.
Posted by: Benjamin "pardon my French" Geiger
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October 20, 2009 4:44 PM
No god, know peace.
(Wow, it only took one try to log in.)
Posted by: Peter Ashby
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October 20, 2009 5:50 PM
BTW at least for me the RSS feed for pharyngula no longer works. The last post is the music and poetry one. I'm using Firefox directly instead of Vienna to post this.
Lets see if the apparently automatic login to MT works in here . . .
Posted by: Peter Ashby
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October 20, 2009 5:52 PM
Okay so Firefox for Mac V 3.5.3 with auto logins enabled Movable Type just works without me having to do anything.
Posted by: Ivan | October 20, 2009 6:12 PM
@32: Beat you to it. :-) Details at #21.
Posted by: Rorschach | October 20, 2009 7:19 PM
Yep, RSS feed kaput.
FF 3.5 on Ubuntu 9.10
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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October 20, 2009 7:30 PM
Yeah, that kind of blew my mind, too.Posted by: Justin | October 20, 2009 10:21 PM
I've registered three times over the past week and have yet to receive a confirmation email.
Why did they implement this system to begin with?
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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October 20, 2009 10:40 PM
Justin, if you registered for Movable Type service and haven't already done so, you might want to try searching for "scienceblogs.com" in your spam folder.Also, you might want to try adding system@scienceblogs.com to your email account's list of safe email addresses and then pretending to forget your password for the email address you signed up with (using the "Forgot your password?" link on the Movable Type sign-in page).
Posted by: mtgap.wordpress.com
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October 20, 2009 10:45 PM
It seems to me that a simple Captcha would fix this problem.
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 4:48 AM
Is that known to work even when someone had never confirmed their email address in the first place?
(I'm not saying that it shouldn't be tried but that it shouldn't simply be expected to work, since it could easily have been coded against.)
Posted by: Anubis Bloodsin the third
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October 21, 2009 5:33 AM
#40
"Is that known to work even when someone had never confirmed their email address in the first place?"
I have no idea but any problems I seem to get are somehow related to the password debacle!
As I explained in an earlier post the only way around the blockage is by requesting a password reset, except I do not reset, just receive the automated reply, then I can log on using the old one, nothing is changed in my log in.
It is totally barking!
Betting is if I tried to reset the password I would be informed that I cannot use that log in because the e-mail address is in use by another user!
Been caught like that before.
Sometimes when I am apparently blocked, because there is a 'password mismatch', or whatever the wording is, I sometimes get a page that just requests my e-mail address.
And that also works, but mainly I have to resort to password request more often then not, getting that choice of confirming log on details is very arbitrary!
I am trying to remain logged in now, it can save a mountain of hassle when wishing to comment.
But that is also arbitrary, being logged on can last for a day or one post, sooner or later I get kicked out and the kafuffle begins again!
There is something very wrong with the system, and I have no idea what, but admit that remaining logged on might not help the bandwidth situation, although choices are few and mostly broken.
Posted by: PsyberDave | October 21, 2009 10:03 AM
We should be in charge of weeding out spam comments. I think we can be trusted to leave dissenting opinions and trolls while voting off obvious spam.
Perhaps a 'This is spam' button on every comment that we could click would be useful (and fun). When a set number of people click that button on a comment...POOF, bye bye spam.
Posted by: Brock | October 21, 2009 11:29 AM
@Janine:
I get that. My question was more about WHY bigger discussions (or messes, as the case may be) don't get shunted over to a proper forum system. Comment systems like this are made to handle quick responses to a post, NOT long detailed back-and-forth. Seed & PZ are using the wrong tool for the job, IMHO.
Posted by: glbrown | October 21, 2009 12:05 PM
Any word when the RSS feed will be back up? It is a real time saver for me and I miss it.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 21, 2009 12:09 PM
I disagree. Strict chronological order is a great advantage if you try to keep up over days, let alone weeks or months.
Posted by: Ivan | October 21, 2009 12:14 PM
@44: The broken RSS is due to bad syntax in a post made yesterday (see comment #21). Since no one is actively fixing the problem, we just have to wait another day or so for that entry to be flushed out of the feed (it holds the most recent 15 posts).
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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October 21, 2009 12:16 PM
I was hoping someone would try and find out. Not getting the initial confirmation email seems to be a major problem with the current system.(And the system does seem to be capable of causing the confirmation message links to expire. It did it to me when I first tried to change my Movable Type profile using AJ Milne's method of pretending to forget my password.)
Posted by: Ivan | October 21, 2009 12:19 PM
Oh, and as a workaround you can open the RSS feed in Firefox, and it will show the recent entries up until the one with bad syntax.
Posted by: Rorschach | October 21, 2009 12:21 PM
@ 42,
Who is this "we" you speak of?
What I consider rubbish commenters here I can weed out via killfile, the spammers mostly post on threads long abandoned, which leaves the insane and mentally ill people.
But if anyone gets the ability to "weed out" comments they dont like, it all sinks into chaos.
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 12:47 PM
@ aratina cage #47:
Well, you could try it yourself, ie with a test account (with a silly name that no-one could possibly want). Or I suppose I could, even though I haven't yet poked at that area of MT (to know in advance where I'm going). Or we both could. Although PZ is quite rightly anti sock-puppets, needing to create a test account is another matter entirely.
NB In order to check feasibility properly, it would be necessary for it to be someone who has reliable email contact to make the attempt, ie someone who already successfully created one account. Someone who failed before couldn't be "sure" (for arbitrary values of certainty) that they weren't failing for the same reason. Of course, if one of the prior failures had already reported succeeding with this method then no further test would be needed.
Posted by: glbrown | October 21, 2009 12:57 PM
@46 RSS
Thanx Ivan. That feed link you offered is getting intercepted by the Brief subscribe routine so I don't see anything. I am addicted to Brief so I will just open the home page a few times a day to get my Zed fix until RSS shows up again.
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 1:00 PM
At the moment I can't get past the 403 Forbidden (/mt-comments.fcgi) error - despite using the cheat link to get the first half of the way there.
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 1:09 PM
Quite a few tries later, I now have a provisional test account with email arrived but deliberately not confirmed.
However, I'm now stuck on the password recovery form because I keep getting given a duff one of those - with the incorrect "/mt-comments.fcgi" bit which inevitably leads to the 403 Forbidden error. So that's yet another form for which people would have to create a cheat (eg a corrected version on their own computers) even to begin to get anywhere with this method of trying to generate a replacement email.
They're the wrong trousers, Gromit, and they've gone wrong!
It's worse than that - the whole thing's dead, Jim!
Posted by: glbrown | October 21, 2009 1:10 PM
The baby jebus must have heard my prayer because RSS just came back up.
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 1:13 PM
Somewhere in the depths of Seed there may be an evil penguin with a URL-changing remote control in its flippers, laughing its fake cockerel comb off.
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 1:18 PM
Aha! Finally I got enough pages in a row with the correct URL in them - and I did indeed receive a password recovery/change email without having confirmed the email for that account.
So it's possible - just very, very, very hard.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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October 21, 2009 1:22 PM
Thanks SEF for making the effort. Are you able to post under that test account even though the email address has not been confirmed?Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 1:30 PM
It didn't leave me logged in after creating the account - and if I now use the password recovery/reset email's url, that would be tantamount to confirming the email address!
My subsequent attempt to sign in (with the originally specified password but without using the url from either email) is generating an "Invalid login" warning message on the MT sign-in form.
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 1:36 PM
So, I tried using the url from the password recovery/change email (not the original confirmation one) and got another MT form which suffers from the same faulty "/mt-comments.fcgi" URL leading to repeated 403 Forbidden errors.
That evil penguin has got his flippers into all the forms!
You have to be extraordinarily lucky to be able to sign-up and sign-in etc etc with this Seed incarnation of MovableType.
Posted by: Ivan | October 21, 2009 1:37 PM
Yup, RSS seems to be back in business. I wonder if PZ fixed it himself, since there's no Seed tech?
Posted by: PZ Myers
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October 21, 2009 1:41 PM
Yeah, I fixed it. Takes a while for me to get to comments that tell me where something has gone awry, since I'm still dealing with tons of comment spam.
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 1:51 PM
Well, I kept reloading that password re-entry form over and over again until I finally got a version with the correct url in its source code.
Using that then worked and took me to a profile form for my test account ("__mode=edit_profile"). This is one where I could, if I wanted to, change the display name, email address and website fields for that account - as well as changing the password again!
Rather surprisingly, the first incarnation I got of that form actually had a correct url in its source. So, theoretically it would work. However, on the basis that that might already be enough to sign in with the account, I left it alone and refreshed my alternate browser's accompanying view of this page - and it did indeed greet me as an already logged in person.
Test post should follow this commentary ...
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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October 21, 2009 1:53 PM
Damn. People aren't going to want to spend hours trying to get in to comment even if it is possible.Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 1:59 PM
Nope. On trying to post from the allegedly signed-in account, I got the message "An error occurred: Permission denied."
No additional reason was given. So I don't know if I still have to use the confirmation email's url after all or just carry on with the profile change page, despite apparently being logged in. Odd.
Overall, this method is not going well ...
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 2:11 PM
Continuing the saga:
I finished the profile form and sent it off by pressing the "save" button and got the same form back but with a green tick and banner saying "Commenter profile has successfully been updated."
There was no sign of yet another email arriving as a result. So nothing further to do there.
Meanwhile, I'm still getting the "Permission denied" error on the supposedly sign-in page (ie one greeting me by account name).
I may have to give up and use the confirmation email after all - which, if you still recall after all this palaver, is exactly what all the people who might need to be trying this method don't have!
Posted by: glbrown | October 21, 2009 2:16 PM
Praise be to Zed!!111!!1
I am honored that my bitching contributed to moving you to do my bidding and satisfy me. You are truly a god proving that the miracle of prayer works.
Care for a foot bath?
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 2:24 PM
NB that last post should have said: "the supposedly signed-in page".
On signing out and trying to sign in again with the test account details, I got the "Invalid login" message as before. I think there's no doubt this round-the-houses approach doesn't substitute for the original missing confirmation email / url.
Giving up and finally using the url in the confirmation email I got the message "Thanks for the confirmation. Please sign in to comment." - but it was attached to yet another faulty MT login form! Aarrgghh, there's no stopping that evil penguin from interfering.
On getting a correct form presented to me, signing in appeared to have worked (in its own right as opposed to happening as a defective side-effect of getting up the profile page via password recovery).
So, no, the password recoverly method pretty definitively does not work in order to get over the problem of a lost confirmation email.
Posted by: Ivan | October 21, 2009 2:25 PM
Boo spam. Yay PZ! Your heroic efforts are much appreciated.
I was thinking that we need an automated system where we users could flag comments as spam and they'd be removed after some threshold was reached-- although it'd probably have to be carefully tuned to avoid abuse. It seems like this sort of software must be fast becoming a commodity these days.
Posted by: ThisIsPurelyATestAccount
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October 21, 2009 2:26 PM
This is a test post using the tortuously created test account.
(SEF)
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 2:28 PM
Tired now! And this is not helping me catch up with the backlog of stuff needing doing. :-(
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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October 21, 2009 2:36 PM
Thanks again, SEF. So scratch what I said in #38. It doesn't work. SEED needs to get it together.Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 21, 2009 2:56 PM
…must… resist… linking… to… inside… joke… collection… about… evil… penguins…
I suppose it's easier if PZ gives editing rights to someone he trusts, the Pharyngulords maybe (check here between July and August 2008)… or those 2 or 3 who are still here… hm.
Posted by: SEF
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October 22, 2009 4:25 AM
24 attempts to get in this morning. I was only getting about 1/6 of them even generating a correct starting form (and then of course Seed had usually forgotten about the existence of TypeKey/typepad by the time I got back from logging in there).
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 22, 2009 7:10 PM
I had no problem signing in this morning from TypePad using Winows XP/IE6. But, this was long after the 20-30 time-out window.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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October 22, 2009 8:00 PM
I haven't been able to sign in since Monday. I used TypePad and kept getting the Wall o'Text error message. I tried it earlier today and TypePad worked.
Incidentally, for all those telling us to check in spam folders for confirmation emails, I've looked in each and every folder for weeks without seeing nary a hint of a confirmation email. Confirmation emails are figments of your imagination.