Category Blogging

An announcement: a fond farewell

It comes with much sadness, in many ways, that I say goodbye to SIN (though I will no doubt continue to sin) over the next few days. I have been offered a place at Patheos and have accepted. Patheos is a big old network, and I am flattered to have been offered a place. The decision was based purely on needs, and the fact that, one way or another, there will be changes to my life that require me to make certain decisions (yes, that is cryptic, but that’s the way it has to be right now).

UN Secretary-General calls for action over deaths of Bangladeshi bloggers

In a statement issued at the weekend, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the killing of Niloy Neel, the fourth humanist blogger in Bangladesh to be hacked to death by Islamists this year, and called on the Government to do more to prevent further attacks. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has welcomed his call, and reiterated its own similar desire to see further violence prevented.

US-Bangladesh blogger Avijit Roy hacked to death

Attackers in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka have hacked to death a US-Bangladeshi blogger whose writings on religion angered Islamist hardliners.

Avijit Roy, an atheist who advocated secularism, was attacked as he walked back from a book fair with his wife, who was also hurt in the attack.

Website comments can be bad for science

In connection to the rant I made about Randy Everist and his Nazi, unfair and unjustified comment strategy he has on his blog, here is a post from the Popular Science website which a Twitter follower and friend from Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub sent me. Hopefully they won’t mind me posting it here. Some interesting research regarding commenting and negativity bias:

On comment moderation

Spoiler: I might swear.

I have a fairly liberal attitude to commenting here, and I don’t particularly police it that much. Dissenting views are utterly vital to being sure that you are warranted in your own beliefs and views.

Well, I got involved in a comment thread on the Possible Worlds blog of Randy Everist. My goodness. I have never seen such comment nazism.