Sometime on Wednesday night Sandwalk notched up 500,000 visitors. To put this in perspective, after 16 months of blogging the total number of visitors is less than half the number who visit Pharyngula in one month.
This is depressing. We need to do something about it. Is there any way we can shut down Pharyngula?
23 comments :
Well I would have suggested that you get all Sandwalk readers to mount a denial of service attack on Pharyngula but as you've clearly only got handful of readers Larry that wouldn't work.
BTW: You're truncating on explorer again: after the Nobel laurates post.
First of all, stop linking to it :)
Really I don't go to PZ's site anymore unless I'm following an interesting link. Overall it just was repetitive (organized religion is evil, I get it). I find your site is more likely to have interesting content.
Maybe the rabbit vs. turtle story would apply here?
I agree with Don. Most of my rare visits to Pharyngula arise when I find a link to an interesting story posted on this blog.
BTW: You're truncating on explorer again: after the Nobel laurates post.
Thanks. I think it's fixed now.
I like the fact that Larry puts some scientific questions about theoretical evolution up for debate instead of just describing a find and delivering truths like PZ. This makes it a more interesting blog to read for those more interested in science than antireligion.
PZ is one of those guys who like to always appear like they know everything and always knows what is right. You know...assholes. Something like a Bill O'Reilly for atheism. Plenty of personality and full of crap, too.
I would dare say that PZ does know a bit more that any of you that complain.
I would also remind you of what Yogi Berra said about a certain restaurant:
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
If you want to be defensive pissants about Pharyngula, fine. But comparing PZ to an idiot like O'Reilly is a low blow and more revealing about your own insecurities than it is about Myers.
Why don't you put out the word that New Atheists are ruining science? That oughta drive people away from Pharyngula and straight over to Sandwalk. Cause lord knows, Larry never says anything bad about religion...
Out of interest how do you access those stats, as I would quite like to view the same for my own blog (I suspect you get more visits in an hour than I have....ever)
There are some subtle differnces between sandwalk and pharyngula.
Specially, censorship. I think sandwalk projects a certainty that arguments will satnd for themselves. Censorhip is not only uncool: it is insecure.
Even though both are rabid atheists that like to turn the volume up, sometimes with simplification and fallacies (the "O'Reilly" factor), there is a great difference in the percentage dedicated to the antireligion topic.
Let's say that Larry disdains religion; PZ is obsessed with it.
Censorship is a harsh charge and I would like to know if you have some examples other than the fact that PZ has a dungeon for trollish commenters not deterred by dismvowelling. Has PZ deleted any comments by anyone who was making a cogent contrary argument? Have you spotted anything that he has written on which he was demonstrated to be factually incorrect yet stubbornly refused to admit it?
I have disagreed with him and not gotten censored, what examples do you have? If you don't want to tie up Sandwalk with an argument you are certainly welcome to take your case to my own blog and I will even grant you a guest post to make your case. I won't edit it, but I will check it out and verify your claims and respond in the comments.
Yes, PZ can be harsh on people who make ridiculous claims, but he has made very clear that he doesn't think religious people are stupid; only people who use religious justification to obfuscate and lie and refuse to learn what atheism really is all about get dungeoned after refusing to take his warnings about trolling Pharyngula with their stupidity. He eviscerates cdesign proponentsists because they are guilty. He eviscerates the twisted justifications for violence against women and gays.
I think you have an axe to grind. If PZ seems obsessed with religion perhaps it is because it bothers him that it continues to thrive against all rationality.
O'Reilly is a self-important blowhard with no interest in facts, only self-promotion and he knows that conservatives eat that kind of crap.
Defend your charges, Sanders.
You can read PZ's reasons for banning me on his "troll list". I can't find it anymore...I'll leave the muck raking to you
You PZ'ites red-A bloggers are nothing but gossipy little creeps, hahaha
It is obvious that you would not belive my side of the story. So why waste myself telling it? That would be very silly, wouldn't it
It is obvious that you would not belive my side of the story. So why waste myself telling it? That would be very silly, wouldn't it?
You leveled the charge, and now you're refusing to present any evidence?
It's pretty obvious why you're in the dungeon. Maybe you should go tell your story to Ben Stein and Ken Ham. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to give you a sympathetic ear. (I wouldn't count on either of them for any science, though.)
I HAVE no evidence. PZ erased it!
All I have is a lousy story. Unless you are stupid, you will realize you have no good reason to believe it, and if I were you, I wouldn't.
Just read what PZ says. I don't care. It ain't too bad, etiher! "can be reasonble" but something about repeating myself and "insipidity" (hahaha). I'm the best-behaved troll on the list!
Let me tell you what your REAL argument is:
"YES, there IS censorship in pharyngula. But nobody has been censored that did not deserve it"
The logic of the debate on censorship in scientific blogs is actually very similar to that regarding the death penalty debate. You give a jugde a sword, under the assumption he will never make a mistake when he swings it. But only by taking the sword way from him, you KNOW that no one that actually didn't deserve death gets killed.
Now, I myself, as a TRUE liberal (not like you slimy apologists for censorship, hehehe) think it sucks to be on a blog where you have to trust someone wielding the sword of censorship.
Now again, Sandwalk has ZERO censorship. Trolls are welcome, dishonest creationists too. They sockpuppet, copy & paste, but more importantly, they try like mad to get banned. After a while they grow tired and just leave.
Actually, there are separate issues. Yes, Larry is more "Hands off" as far as dealing with trolling commenters. He gets no where near the number of comments that run through pharyngula, and no where near the traffic. Hence the joke in this post about shutting down pharyngula. It was a joke.
Trolls at pharyngula don't get bored and leave, because of the number of people who feed them; after a while they get extremely tiresome because they just go on and on and on and on. Did you observe that Caledonian tested his patience for more than a year before being banned? How long did FTK get to post before finally being banned? Did you read how many posts Michael Wueffl has cut-and-pasted in, and he is still not in the dungeon.
You are confusing censorship with being tagged for bad behavior. I have only had to disemvowel one troll at my site. It was someone who decided that he had a right to preach and to make fun of atheists. He called me stupid. I don't need it at my blog, so I did something that would make him mad and stay away. He has. If he comes back I will delete his posts.
No one gets to play at my site if I think that they are just plain stupid. If they present cogent arguments or point out something that I did or said that was wrong, that's a different story.
If you have a story to tell to back up your claim that PZ unfairly censors people, go to my blog, hit the "Contact" page and send me an e-mail. I will post it verbatim, and then check out the charges.
You have to remember that a blog belongs to the person who set it up, and guests should behave like guests. You don't have the "right" to say whatever you want at someone else's blog, you depend on their courtesy. Once you have abused that courtesy, it's quite all right for the owner to decide whether or not you should be banished.
Unless you think that John Davison should have free reign every where.
Haha. I have no story to tell, it's totally lame.
My last comment, the one that "did it", was about insolence.
I told PZ that I found his ideas (and Dawkins's) about religion were stupid, independent of whether he presented them using insolence ( the usual), or with pretty sugar on top
And then PZ banned me, hahahaha
I agree PZ has the right to do whatever he wants on his blog. That I do NOT have the right to say whatever I want on his blog (such as calling his views on religion "stupid" ) is a fact as true as his censoring scissors. He has such powers in his own blog as any blogger may or may not choose to use. That's just the way it is.
All I'm saying is : That Sucks!! I find the environment in general nicer over here at Sandwalk, greatest of all small blogs. I can even misbehave a little.
I guess you guys just have fragile egos or some kind of confusion-denial going on. I could not care less if someone called me stupid. I'll allow that, and more. It could only hurt, a little, if some part of me realized I WAS being stupid. But not for long. Only a fool hates to be corrected.
Do you ever use insolence? I know PZ does.
I confess, I sometimes do. But unlike PZ, I am more than willing to take insolence.
I'm pretty sure we had John Davison here. He got bored and went away. But beware! legend says, if you say his name three times, he will show up again. hehehe
"Who will rid me of this meddlesome atheist?"
Larry says :
Sometime on Wednesday night Sandwalk notched up 500,000 visitors. To put this in perspective, after 16 months of blogging the total number of visitors is less than half the number who visit Pharyngula in one month.
Oh Larry, you've been bitten by that "glass is half-empty" bug that is endemic in the blogosphere.
Can you even imagine what 500,000 people look like, en masse?
I don't think I've even seen 500,000 ants in my whole life, let alone in 16 months.
As for PZ, he is way overdue in getting his comeuppance. Alien overlords are sick of his feigned love for the Tentacle Ones, there be a day soon when he will be sploshed with a relentless shower of 30,000+ slippery squids a day until he concedes defeat.
Patience, young Jedi.
I much prefer Sandwalk to Pharyngula. PZ has done a great job, but it just feels (IMO) like things are going a bit stale. Larry has found his own blogging voice and a distinctive one it is too. There's also a lot more science on Sandwalk and I much prefer this. I'm not sure PZ has much to say anymore.
I also wonder if maybe a bit of complacency has set in; his review of Behe's edge of evolution seemed rather half hearted and somewhat weak. Also, I never felt he properly got to grips with the James Watson racism affair (in contrast with Larry who genuinely explored the issue). These were some of the biggest issues of the last year and PZ never really gave a meaty response - his targets seem to be easier these days.
That said, I still check in at Pharyngula every day!
I check in here and at Pharyngula on a daily basis mainly because I like to learn for free. I would say the lessons at Sandwalk are a lot harder than at Pharyngula but then Larry runs contests...
It's quality Larry not quantity...a heartfelt thank you.
Sorry, I think Pharyngula gets that in, like, a half hour.
I notice that Pharyngula blogs more broadly... Perhaps you have less readers bc you blog science all the time... And then what you have is a reflection of the popularity of science itself (and I think it's safe to say that the average American ain't interested) rather then a reflection on you as a blogger... :) I can't comment on you international readership though...
I attempted to be tongue-in-cheek just then but I think my implication is still obvious.
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