Comments

A form of comment moderation has been turned on. This is an experiment. If your comment is held in moderation don't take it personally. Just be patient. I'll be checking the moderation tank frequently.

More like this

I have turned on moderation for all comments. This means that you may have to wait a considerable amount of time before I publish them on the weblog (I will not be checking and approving on an iPhone for example). If your comment is not published within about 1 day then you may assume I have…
Readers, this week I had to do something I have never done before. Specifically, I banned someone from BioE. Their comments will no longer appear here, and as the rest of you may notice when you comment, I've turned moderation on to enforce that. Unfortunately, that means everyone's comments will…
The last week or so, some of you may have noticed that you submit a comment and it doesn't show up in the comments thread right away. I'm assuming you get the message that the comment is being held for approval by the blog owner. At least I hope so. Please note: you are not being singled out for…
My main overriding goal here at The Scientific Activist is to publicize and comment on issues that I feel are important--particularly issues that would otherwise be under- or misreported in the media. In doing so, I hope to spark productive conversations on these issues, and one place in which…

Mabus is not as annoying as he would like to think he is. Although, it is a little annoying when he sends me an email telling me that he intends to kill me. (For those who don't know, Mabus is a famously obnoxious anti-atheist, one of many. What is REALLY annoying is that he is committing a hat crime when he threatens our lives but I'm not sure if that would go very far with the authorities).

The problem is that for reasons that are not entirely clear, the number of readers of this blog has doubled over the last few months (so not there are nearly 20 regular readers!) and more recently the percentage of very annoying commenters has gone way up. The whole idea of letting almost anyone say almost whatever has to be balanced against people who would make it uncomforatable for others.

In addition, for reasons I don't understand, the AGW denialists have mostly ignored me until now (though I've written much more in the past about global warming than recently) and they have a modus operendus that does not allow open commenting. My blog is not their fucking land of canan.

So, the workload has tipped. It is, I think easier for me to "entrust" commenters who are regular commenters as they show up, and thus filter out the riffraff.

I quickly add that this is VERY experimental. If I don't like the technology, it will be turned off. That could happen any time.

(This is an experiment, DON'T BAN ME BRO!)

Nice try. But even I am moderated!

HAHAHA! it works. dam smart detector too!

I am going to explode you. To death.

By Kevin Sooley (not verified) on 20 Dec 2009 #permalink

What? Are you PZ, now? haha

By Charles Evo (not verified) on 20 Dec 2009 #permalink

Why be PC when you can be PZ?!

Alright, not all that funny ;)

What is REALLY annoying is that he is committing a hat crime when he threatens our lives ...

You know, I knew a good hat was important to every field scientist, but I didn't know it was that important ...

A tip of the hat to Greg and to rational sanity.

By NewEnglandBob (not verified) on 21 Dec 2009 #permalink

When will all the hatting end! (seriously, I need a job...)

"riffraff"

I resemble that remark. Sure, PZ demands registration, enforced by jackbooted cyber thugs (who knew they made jackboots that fit tentacles) so now all the scibloggers do it.

While on the topic of blog business, can I ask why almost every post has a "below the fold" these days? I am an extremely lazy person: I have all my blogs in my RSS reader and I don't like to click things. And so I find myself reading fewer of your posts now.

Although if your readership has doubled, perhaps I am once again the only one with a problem.