Comments on Comments

Great! Cuts down on the quick-hitting trolls.

I would not register for such a system, but I would provide an openID.

I wouldn't mind, as long as it keeps me logged in whenever I visit. And it would help cut down on trolls that leave a bad message and never visit again.

Long overdue - count me in.

Woud it mean we can finally edit are posts so we don't look so dence becauze of a few mis-spelligns?

I have one complaint about this:

I couldn't add FCD to my moniker just for PT, and I'm not about to get another Typekey account just to sport it.

I don't particularly mind either way. If it helps squish the various idiots that sometimes pop up here then I'm all for it.

Centralized Registration System? Somewhere outside of The Thumb?

In that case, no. (Not that I leave lots of comments.)

An internal to The Thumb registration, sure. Not a problem. I certainly do not want a universal identifier to all blogs world wide. The closest I've come to that is with a gravatar. Only that and nothing more.

Quoth the Raven... Nevermore.

Woud it mean we can finally edit are posts so we don't look so dence becauze of a few mis-spelligns?

— H. Humbert

I would be concerned that the creationists would be deterred and the high pitched whining would cause ears to bleed. ID blogs tend to either not allow comments or delete any that make good points. It is kind of a point of pride that sites like this do not.

Do either of these systems allow anonymous posting without registering? While this might seem to defeat the purpose it would mean that regulars would not have to worry about someone posting as them (I assume that is the intended goal?) and yet a young or otherwise open minded 'evolution-skeptic' would not be put off interacting by asking a question.

I know that a site like www.talkorigins.org is a better place for that kind of interaction but this site is a significant educational opportunity not just in regards to evolution but the politics.

A casual reader might be more likely to ask a question like: "Even if evolution is true why can't creationism be taught along side it and let people make up their own minds?" at a site like this and it would be a pity if they did not hear the answer simply because they were put off by the thought of registering. While questions like that might get exasperating at times (after the one hundred thousandth time, it is better that they ask it here than at the anti-neodarwinist sites.

I doubt that it would deter any motivated poster but if it were sufficiently onerous it might dissuade the rare "drive by posting."

I don't think that anyone does a drive-by posting without coming back to look at responses to his handiwork. We are too into attention as a species to resist feedback. I like to think that, rarity among rarities, the occasional drive-by guy learns something from some comments.

It would help to know what this is expected to achieve and how.

This is my second post and I very much appreciate the user-friendly option to post. I'm a long time lurker and would likely not post if I had to register. I've enjoyed reading the comments here, and I assume you get more varied postings by the lack of registration requirements. The frequent and repetitive/vicious posters would probably register, but they're not what make this site worth visiting.

I'll take the moment to comment on how many responses the "trolls", or anti-evolutionists evoke. It seems the guy with the high IQ and waterfront property, and the ousted university professor with the theory about front loaded genetic programming (or something) were bound to keep many folks here busy with rebuttals (100+), yet PvM's great articles that actually present the contemporary literature in a reasonable fashion seldom get more than 4 or 5 comments. The folks replying to these two knew they were not going to change their opinions, yet they kept going on and on. Apparently it's easier to lash out or demonstrate superior intelligence (which may or may not have been designed ;-) than to contribute thoughtful questions/comments. Mind you, I'm not saying there haven't been some golden nuggets here and there...

When you say 'make things easier on ourselves', I assumed you were talking about comment and trackback spam, which I'm surprised no one has mentioned.

I eventually killed comments from my blog entirely, as I don't have the time to update it often, much less spend the hours nuking a thousand or so robo-comments for texas viagra poker refinancing. I considered Typekey because it would've solved the problem entirely, but since I don't get a lot of traffic to begin with, just didn't bother.

I don't know if you have a comment/trackback spam problem, but I'd be shocked if you didn't. Nearly every defense you can adopt against it has been worked around by the comment/spam genius assholes - except registration.

Anyway, I'd happily register for this site.

We actually don't have a spam problem. Our blacklist has some really good custom rules in it that block virtually all spam. (It's good to be rare.)

We do have a problem with banned users staying banned.

Nope-- don't like registrations. But do what you want, the comments aren't the most important part of this blog.

I'm not sure what I ever did to you, Steven, but if I was a jerk, then I apologize.

We do have a problem with banned users staying banned.

I think the openness of Pandas Thumb is desirable because any one can speak their mind and over an opinion. With a login some people might think it is too much trouble and we lose some diversity. Who cares if we get a few trolls? It keeps us acquainted with creationist arguments, regardless of how stupid they are. A login in system won't deter serious trouble makers. Over at Nightlight I am arguing with a particularly frustrating 'troll' and Nightlight does require a login.

block reregistration by blocking IP addresses

— ts

H. Humbert wrote:

Woud it mean we can finally edit are posts so we don't look so dence becauze of a few mis-spelligns?

Point illustrated nicely:

"speak their mind and over an opinion" = "speak their mind and OFFER an opinion"

We do have a problem with banned users staying banned.

I'm not about to get another Typekey account

block reregistration by blocking IP addresses Not everyone has a static IP or comes from a range that is easily blockable without collateral damage.

My question is why? What problem are we trying to solve. In general, I prefer no registration myself, I think.

I wouldn't mind.

I wouldn't love it, but I understand the headaches of dealing with folks like JAD (or "george" or whatever the hell he's calling himself today).

It would also, unfortunately, reduce burrito-related posts...but that's a personal thing.

It's ok by me, but I do not see the need. I would rather keep the door open. Is drive-by posting really a problem here?

What's in it for me? How about if everyone who signs up gets to refer to themself as a 'registered student of the University of Ediacara' or some such?

Really, scientists are so bad at marketing.

Registration means I would probably stop my occasional practice of posting under a different name.

I third the thought about being able to edit typos, but that might open up the possibility of people substantially changing posts after replies have been made to change the sense of a discussion.

I'm probably against it.

I might continue to comment here, since I'm a semi-regular visitor. But I routinely decide not to read things or make comments at other sites, because someone asks for registration. I have to echo the question of ts - what are the SPECIFIC benefits that are expected to accrue?

The last thing we need to do is to isolate ourselves from creationists, and allow their ideas to go unanswered. They already have a tendency to flock to their own closed sites, where pro-science comments are deleted. And then the New York Times and the Washington Post print editorials by "credentialled" creationists, or doorknob-dumb "journalists", about the "controversy" and the "bold new idea" of "intelligent design".

The open discussion and high threshold for deletions and banning at PT are not superficial traits. They stand in sharp contrast to the goings-on at ID sites. Even "drive-by" trollisms are not worthless. They reveal to third parties the contrast between the pro-science approach and the irrational and negative characteristics of the ID crowd. The more open, the better. Anything that restricts comments is probably bad.

Openness and transparency are luxuries which only the honest can afford. If you've got it, flaunt it.

I am against it because I am lazy. I like to be able to add a comment when I wish without having to remember what I have to do to log in. Thus it is unlikely I would post again, likely no big loss, but how many are like me? I think it would reduce the diversity of comments and reduce the value of the site.

Making things easier on oneself is not necessarily the best policy (indeed it is often a sign of moving from having a service goal to being a bureaucracy -- think of any System Administration department is any large organization).

Do it.

Fine with me - it would be best if a name and password I already have registered with yahoo groups coud be used so I don't have to remember another set of them.

This is not intended to be a BB, but with the inevitable attraction of "regulars" it has begun to feel like one. But registered 'members' would take us even further into the BB world.

I think that the contributers need to work a bit on either moderating the comments under their posts, or (at their opption) closing comments. It isn't hard to do either, particularly after Wes and (particularly) Reed's great job updating the software.

Count me as another supporter of OpenID. I don't like the idea of having my identity depend on some central server; OpenID uses a distributed model.

There were burritos? I mean other than Jason's comments from Liberty U?

Goodness me, I don't know what all the fuss is about regarding having to register to comment.

If the issue is about convenience, frankly, if you can't be bothered to spend about 30 seconds registering a valid email address and clicking on the confirming link, *one time* then having to type your name and an email address every time you post today is beyond you too - what's the big deal?

And, I'm sorry, I have no time for people who are paranoid about PT having their email address on record. What's the worst case that can happen? Realistically, more spam (if the list gets loose). UNrealistically, the right wing thought-police will come after you and lock you up for your anti-creationist sentiments - if that's your worry, then methinks you worry far too much.

I would prefer to see Panda's Thumb evolve much more into a community like, say, Bad Astronomy. That is a fine site and welcomes and attracts people on both sides of the debate (i.e. those that believe in Martians, astrology, etc, and those that don't). There is no suppression of discussion, and only disorderly conduct will get you banned.

The benefit to something like this is that the longer you stay in such a community, the more you have invested in it, and the more your likely to want to "behave" and stay around.

In the long run, please move this board to a community-based system. Bad Astronomy is a good example, and probably DailyKos is the ultimate - not because of the political leanings, but because of the features it provides, including being able to blog your own entries, though I'm not sure you want to go that far.

If you want to know how much extra effort is involved, then you could try contacting the Bad Astronomer himself, Philip Plait. I'm sure he would be willing to help.

Another no registration, thanks, vote.

As to typing errors, if I say more than one or two lines I generally type in an editor, run spillcheck, and copy in.

This is not intended to be a BB

— Gary Hurd

The Panda's Thumb is the virtual pub of the University of Ediacara. The patrons gather to discuss evolutionary theory, critique the claims of the antievolution movement, defend the integrity of both science and science education, and share good conversation.

So, what are the goals, and how is registration expected to achieve them? Anyone?

So, what are the goals, and how is registration expected to achieve them? Anyone?

Between work and home I have ~100 usernames, passwords, and PINs. I need a cheat sheet to keep track. I guess one more for a worthy cause can't hurt.

I prefer things to be as open and accessible as possible. To anyone and everyone who wanders by.

It seems the guy with the high IQ and waterfront property, and the ousted university professor with the theory about front loaded genetic programming (or something) were bound to keep many folks here busy with rebuttals (100+), yet PvM's great articles that actually present the contemporary literature in a reasonable fashion seldom get more than 4 or 5 comments.

I'm afraid that this lurking luddite has a very limited understanding of just what you are proposing. Can you please spell out just what you hope to achieve with registration relative to the current situation, and what the pros and cons would be. There may be a blog created every minute, but it'll be a wee while (in geologic time) before I work out how to do it. Hell, I've only got a PhD in ecology.

To me this site is one part sport (troll baiting and beating), one part entertainment (troll baiting and beating, contributing to the decals on the PT cruiser) and two parts education (a la PZ Myers). It'd be a shame to update this virtual pub to pink and chrome (yeah that was the 80's) or coffee machines and techno and loose the atmosphere.

Cheers.

If you (Lenny or anyone else) want to lose the distractions (ie from the ID has no science in it message) into religious discussions by banning those but yet still retain the point that people who accept and understand evolution include many theists, then that might be achievable by (voluntarily) tagging people's names on posts with some representative religious symbol and sub-sect title. Eg the obvious one for Christian would be a cross and the qualifying word onto that might be Baptist, Catholic etc. That would be a clearly visible indication, sans discussion, that those allegedly non-existent scientific theists do exist and don't have a problem with being who they are.

chores like deleting spam and banning undesirables

and they hope this registration mechanism might reduce their workload

But if that's the problem, I doubt the proposal will help much.

And if that's not the problem, I wish someone would produce a couple paragraphs explaining the goals.

I don't see how registration will help. Registration discourages drive-bys and spam, but you can only block reregistration by blocking IP addresses, and you don't need registration for that.

simply ban any discussion of religion or religious opinions.

that might be achievable by (voluntarily) tagging people's names on posts with some representative religious symbol and sub-sect title. Eg the obvious one for Christian would be a cross and the qualifying word onto that might be Baptist, Catholic etc. That would be a clearly visible indication, sans discussion, that those allegedly non-existent scientific theists do exist and don't have a problem with being who they are.

It isn't simple at all, because the IDists say it's not about religion and the trolls come here to debate religion, equating evolution to atheism. Then some theistic evolutionist makes some blanket claim about science being compatible with religion (which goes far beyond denying the bogus equation), or some skeptical philosopher claims that science and religion are on equal footing as epistemic sources, and we're off to the races.

Between work and home I have ~100 usernames, passwords, and PINs. I need a cheat sheet to keep track. I guess one more for a worthy cause can't hurt.

Following down the side-track after you again because the main road seems to be blocked: your singular userid is probably less bad (if you don't tell it to people) than the stealable cheat sheet is.

PS I was actually thinking the symbols could be tiny graphics, but some symbol fonts could supplement your letter approach.

And those who insist on bringing their dragster here again and again, find themselves locked outside.

I prefer things to be as open and accessible as possible. To anyone and everyone who wanders by.

I know I may be beating a dead horse, but if you guys really want to make things a little easier on yourselves, then how about this idea..? (taken from DailyKos, but I'm sure there are others)

If this was more of a community-based board, (i.e. with a low threshold membership, not to scare those paranoid users away) you could allow all members to create new blog entries(perhaps as new threads in a specific forum) and, if they were good enough, "promote" them to the main page of the site.

That way, if someone has already blogged an issue/event/debate etc, and it is sufficiently well written, you won't have to write it up youself, just promote it. (Kos has a voting system, but the final say is always the moderator's)

In addition, if you have a proper community, over time you can allow trusted members to take over some of the grunt work of managing the board from you - share the load.

This site is *the* anti-creationism blog site (no offense to the others). If you would consider a more radical transformation I believe you will get the best of both worlds - better coverage with less hassle. (There will be growing pains, of course, but worthwhile).

The key thing is that even if you open this site up more, you can maintain editorial control over the main pages which are, and should remain, the critical part of PT.

i haven't commented here in a long time, so i guess i'm a troll, BUT, i think it's chilling, and i come here for the more open debate. not that i post much, but i won't bother at all in this system. and i am a systematist, a pro-PT type.

tg

So, what are the goals, and how is registration expected to achieve them? Anyone?

— ts

The goal is to find a way to better manage comments

Now, you may disagree with us that this will be effective, but we're not asking your opinion on effectiveness. We're asking whether you would be willing to use TypeKey Logins on PT.

Reed,

I am willing to register in pretty much any way I have to to use/read PT! I registered at Pharyngula and find it perfectly acceptable.

I have to say I am not sure what registration would achieve/resolve. But then I am not a computer person.

On a seperate note, one thing I'd like to say to Lenny (probably better on the Wall, but eh, what the hell):

The ID/creationism vs evolution "debate" is a religious and political debate, as you mention, it certainly isn't a scientific one. I'm not saying evolutionary biology is a religion, of course it isn't, I'm just saying that for one side of the "debate" the problem is very much about religion. Specifically their interpretation of it (which as we know is fun to play with).

Atheism, although not a part of science, explicitly enters this equation. Science is inherently weakly atheistic as it stands at the moment. I.e. we currently have no reliable, reproducible evidence pointing to the existance of anything that fits the description of a deity, therefore the claim remains unproven. That "weakly" is a very key word, because it describes the type of atheism in use. Atheism is expressedly not the belief that god does not exist. That is it is not ONLY (or even completely) that, the belief that a specific god does not exist is a subset of atheism, more correctly called strong atheism. There is a key difference between weak and strong atheism. A lack of belief is not a belief of lack. It's something that a lot of people get wrong for some reason. I am fairly sure (at least I hope this is the case) that this is all old news to you.

Science as a body of knowledge as it stands today has no data regarding deities. I would strongly argue that should deities exist, and intervene in the set up or running of the universe, then these deities fall within the purview of science. Their handiwork can potentially be detected. Deist deities, non-interventionist deities, or deities defined out of existance by their believers shifting the evidenciary goalposts further and further away do not fall within the purview of science (except perhaps aberrant psychology ;-) ). There is no way we can establish if they exist or not. They are merely phantasms, ideas, possible realities that are forever unattainable.

This is partly why the "war between atheists and theists" is relevant to the evolution "debate". It depends on the nature of the deity being promoted by the creationst half. So I guess what I mean is that part of the war between atheists and theists is relevant, if only in order that it allows us to better understand the motivations for one side's participation.

More than that though, the "debate" is fundamentally between faith and reason. The IDists etc wish to BELIEVE that something is the case despite the evidence to the contrary, the scientists say that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as the idea you have is supported by the reasoned, reliable, reproducible evidence. The IDists etc are seeking an ultimate 100% certainty that can only be obtained by faith. Reason always allows room for doubt, there is always the possibility that the next experiment/observation will show your idea to be wrong (or at least in need of a tweak).

That is the crux of this conflict and many others. It's why homeopaths still peddle sugar pills, why astrologers still waffle on about Mercury in Uranus, why some aspects of the "nature=good" enviromental organisation persist, and it's why a specific type of religious person will fight tooth and nail against any bit of science they see as conflicting with their beliefs. What you believe ain't the problem. Believing at the expense of reason is. It's the disease not the symptom that needs curing.

The goal is to find a way to better manage comments.

I'm just saying that for one side of the "debate" the problem is very much about religion.

I see what's going on here now.

After years or whatever of dealing with creationists going over the top and needing to be banned, a new type of "fight" started on PT a few weeks ago, when pro-science atheist posters raised philosophic objections to the "compatibility" of any religion with science, and pro-science religious posters objected.

Ultimately, however, when the smoke cleared, everyone agreed that religious people should not be excluded from science or science education, and no-one proposed an empirical and scientific, as opposed to philosophical, "disproof" of any pro-science posters religious stance, or the known religious stance of prominent scientists such as Miller and Dawkins (including atheism, which I will refer to hear as a "religious stance", for convenience, with the caveat that some may find the terminology sub-obptimal).

Thus, while the broad philosophical issue of whether religion is "compatible" with science is not now, and likely will never be, resolved among pro-science posters, it has been rendered irrelevant, and is unlikely to resurface as an issue.

The dishonest creationist use of religious claims is far too important to ignore, for reasons that I will explain in a second post.

Continued from above...

This is on topic since I now realize that the registration proposal, which I somewhat oppose (while acknowledging that it's not a big deal either way), was driven by the fact that religion came up a great deal a week or two ago.

Please read this carefully - In the United States, a common political debate strategy among the nefarious is to anticipate how others will critique their position, and direct the critique at them, however inappropriate it may be when reversed.

Creationism IS an effort, among other things, to claim that many peoples' religious views, or their lack thereof, are "disproven by science".

YEC claims that everyone except a few US, Canadian, and Australian Protestant fanatics, in essence, are following a religion (or lack thereof) which is "scientifically wrong" (since in their claims, "science supports" only a "literal" interpretation of Genesis).

ID merely pretends to narrow the range of targets to those whose religious tradition accepts scientific explanations for things like the bacterial flagellum. But since that means everyone but fundamentalists in practice, the real message is the same.

But creationists try to turn the charge around, and claim that it is THEY who are being falsely taught that "science disproves" their religion. In fact, to some degree, they are being taught that, by necessity, but only because they choose to define their religion in rigid terms, and to disdain other Christian traditions. Biblical "literalism" is DESIGNED to provoke confict with other traditions, and with science. There was no "literalism" in the Middle Ages.

Unlike creationists, scientists do not make up science in an effort to contradict someone else's religion. If it happens, it's unintentional, a side effect of science.

The false claim of creationists needs to be rebutted. It has the power to turn ordinary, well-meaning people against science education at the local level, ie THE LEVEL WHERE THE DECISIONS ARE MADE.

http://www.mindandlife.org/hhdl.science_section.html

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/5025_statements_from_religious_orga_12_19_2002.asp

Lenny,

Totally with as a point of strategy or method of argument within the PT etc.

My point was about the origins of the "debate", and the motivations for it. Exposing those origins and motivations is one very good way of dealing with the proximate problem, but we also need to deal with the distal cause of the problem.

It's all well and good showing THIS bunch of frothing religious loons up as religious loons, but that doesn't prevent the next bunch of religious loons coming up with ever more veiled attempts to enforce their doctrines. Look how (relatively) simple it was to deal with "good, honest" creationism. It didn't make the cultural headway that the current pseudocreationism (ID) has done. ID is more insidious, it requires a slightly better knowledge of the relevant science to expose its core, it requires slightly more effort to sort out, and it appeals slightly better to common prejudice. By virtue of the distribution of human abilities, ID will garner greater support (and it has). A more insidious post-ID creationism will potentially do better, and so on.

It's (kind of) analogous to treating amoebic dysentry (and not just in terms of output). It's all well and good to give the patient morphine to stop them from from pouring crap everywhere, but eventually the morphine will wear off and the crap will come back. It's better to add a few anti-amoebic drugs to the morphine mix (compatible of course). That way when the morphine wears off, no poo! Pretending that the poo won't return, or that the poo is irrelevant won't help us.

Hmm, well, in addition to misrepresenting the origin and nature of the religious debates that occur here, Harold is wrong that they aren't likely to re-occur, and wrong that "science disproves their religion" is limited to religious fundamentalism. With topics like "Is Evolution Religion?", religion gets put on the table in numerous ways, and provides a context for someone like Harold to make false charges about atheists wanting to exclude religious people from science; the "dust settles" when Harold gets tired of making this false charge, and switches to claiming that he had said something else entirely. Or we will see such tendentious claims as Harold's that atheism is "religion". So even while discussing banning debate on religion, we see people reiterating their talking points. The historic encroachment of science on religion, both its empirical findings and its rationalistic epistemology, has resulted in a large fraction of scientists being atheists, some of whom are more militant about it than others, and will drop casual remarks that are hostile to religion, or respond to remarks such as Harold's -- or Lenny's, echoing the trolls, that "ideological atheists" are equivalent to IDists and creationists. And some of the religious, like Harold, are adamant about defending their religious beliefs against the fundamental challenge that science poses to them, and will respond strongly to any statement that they see as threatening to those beliefs. It is a mistake to think that this clash is limited to creationists who "choose" to define their religion in narrow terms. That's a very uninformed view of the sociology of religion and fundamentalism specifically. Rigidity is in large part reactive, and fed by the greater culture clash, but it is not "chosen", at least by the bulk of fundamentalists, any more than Harold "chooses" a form of Christianity that he thinks is compatible with science, or I "choose" to be an atheist. That sort of simplistic view doesn't provide any guidance for how to proceed.

"With the ever growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play reminding us of our humanity. There is no contradiction between the two. Each gives us valuable insights into the other. Both science and the teachings of the Buddha tell us of the fundamental unity of all things." -- The Dalai Lama

One project I worked on at Caltech involved trying to understand the approximate symmetries of the elementary particle system -- particularly the hadrons or strongly interacting particles (including the neutron and proton and their brothers and sisters and the pi mesons and their brothers and sisters). I tried various higher symmetry schemes and then finally hit upon what I called the eightfold way, with the group SU(3) as an approximate symmetry. That worked very nicely. At the time I was interested in India and in the various religious traditions of India -- not that I would embrace any religion -- my interest was merely academic. I thought it would be a good joke to call the scheme the eightfold way, since the particles tended in many cases to come in sets of eight. Some silly people wrote books trying to connect my work on particle physics with oriental mysticism, whereas the connection was only a joke.

— Murray Gell-mann

Harold is wrong that they aren't likely to re-occur

Posted by Matt Young on August 4, 2005 05:50 PM (e) (s) Your fearless moderator has let us wander off task for several days now, perhaps because we aren't as far off task as it looks - in a way, we have merely expanded the title from "Is Evolution Religion?" to "Is Empiricism Religion?" My good friend Eric, a theoretical physicist, claims that the less evidence there is for a given proposition, the harder people will fight over it. I think that may be so because they talk past each other, as is sometimes happening here. So let me reiterate what I claimed in an earlier essay: Antonio Damasio has taught us (well, taught me) that you can't make a supposedly logical decision without an emotional component. Thus, those whose political inclination is toward the supremacy of the individual simply cannot understand what, say, a democratic socialist is going on about, and vice versa. Here it seems that those whose inclination is toward strict empiricism (or perhaps materialism) cannot understand those who incline toward an underlying theological explanation. All sides draw "logical" conclusions that are informed by their underlying philosophies and think the other sides are being stubborn or obtuse. (I know that's how I react when I read a defense of the so-called free market. Can't they see that there is no such thing as a free market? Haven't they ever heard of the robber barons? Rhetorical questions, but perhaps you see what I mean.) If I allow further comments, we will go on forever, so let's stop here. Thanks to all who contributed and to almost all for the polite tone of the comments.

If this was more of a community-based board, (i.e. with a low threshold membership, not to scare those paranoid users away) you could allow all members to create new blog entries(perhaps as new threads in a specific forum) and, if they were good enough, "promote" them to the main page of the site. That way, if someone has already blogged an issue/event/debate etc, and it is sufficiently well written, you won't have to write it up youself, just promote it. (Kos has a voting system, but the final say is always the moderator's) In addition, if you have a proper community, over time you can allow trusted members to take over some of the grunt work of managing the board from you - share the load.

Kos has a voting system, but the final say is always the moderator's

"Contributors" and "commentators" sounds an awful lot like "leaders" and "followers", or "overseers" and "oversee-ees". The anarchist inside me doesn't like the sound of that.

Somewhere I imagine Great White Wonder is laughing his ass off at this thread.

Somewhere I imagine Great White Wonder is laughing his ass off at this thread.

Re "This is not intended to be a BB, but with the inevitable attraction of "regulars" it has begun to feel like one."

To borrow a phrase:

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

(Now let me duck for cover... )

I was recently a casualty of friendly fire in the War on JAD. So many IPs were banned from commenting, I was caught incidentally. Even before that, I supported a registration system, but now I do even more so. Requiring that people identify themselves in some small way is a tiny price to pay, to keep out the psychos. Also it might cut down on people posting under stupid pseudonyms.

Though GWW was on the pro-science side, he was diminishing the property values.

Requiring that people identify themselves in some small way is a tiny price to pay, to keep out the psychos.

Also it might cut down on people posting under stupid pseudonyms.

It's my impression that the PT admins are volunteers. It seems only reasonable that the option that causes them the fewest headaches should be adopted.

BTW, thanks for moving the worst of the personal attacks to the bathroom wall.

It seems only reasonable that the option that causes them the fewest headaches should be adopted.

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