Some commenters have at random times been unable to post comments on my blog because of a “nonce” error. A “nonce” in this context means a “one-off” token code that helps the site keep track of your activity on a webpage so hackers and bots have a harder time pretending to be you. It typically expires in twelve hours. But if the system loses track of your nonce token, it will mistakenly think you are a bot or a hacker and decline to let you take any actions on a page (like post a comment).
This is extremely difficult to fix. Because there are a million things that can cause this mistake, and some of them are nightmarish to repair. I am slowly trying to diagnose the issue, starting with the easiest and working my way to the most difficult. But I need your help. I never get notified when these errors occur. So I never know when they happen. This also never happens to me, even if I pretend to be someone else the system doesn’t know. So I can’t ever recreate the error so as to test it.
I need data. Every time you can’t comment on my blog because of what it tells you is a “nonce” error, tell me right away (by email or FB message). And let me know, also, if anything else unusual went on (did you start a comment and come back to it hours later before trying to submit it, for example; or does the nonce error always strike, or only sometimes, and if sometimes, what if anything did you notice was different?). Otherwise, all I need is to know that it happened, and who it’s happening to.
I might ask you to submit brief sample comments in future to test the system after I make adjustments, until I find what is causing this and can finally put an end to it. I really appreciate your help with all of this. And I apologize for this inconvenience. I’m struggling to get to the bottom of it.
Definitely would love to help.
Testing part 2
It happens to me a lot. If you’re reading this comment, it didn’t happen. 🙂
I got hit hard by this error on you blog. I wasn’t able to comment for a long time but posted comment about an hour ago and it went through (this would be the second one in a long time).
I always type the comment, enter my full name and email, and usually check the the last 3 boxes. And I’m not in the US.
Sorry for all the typos, I just woke up!
I haven’t attempted a comment for quite some time but will try this.
We had a similar problem on a blog we ran. Most of the time it seemed to happen when people were trying to comment using an Apple phone or tablet with a newer operating system. Apparently it was a security-setting issue. I’m typing this on a Windows laptop, BTW.
I only use Windows laptops and it’s been a constant issue with me.
Good to know. Thanks. I’ll look into that.
comment using Linux Ubuntu Firefox
I hope you dont think I am being a nonce by asking your opinion of this short article in PDF form…..
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363719600_Eliseo_Ferrer_About_the_fraudulent_and_sterile_research_on_the_origins_of_Christianity
Russell.
I get thousands of requests like this; I just don’t have time to pick one over others. So to sort wheat from chaff, my usual advice is: get this published under peer review somewhere, then ask me to look at that form of it. That is what the peer review system exists for.
It’s not impossible. Bermejo-Rubio did it with a similar field-critical thesis (which I even cite in my work). I can list many others. So you can do it too. If you have the goods, and have done the research to shore it up.
It’s gotten worse. What I’ve found so far is that if I come back later sometimes it works. I’ll try updating as best as I can.
Test:
I attempted to comment on the antinatalism post twice. Once the first day it dropped (Windows PC). After the comment didn’t show up, I tried again 5-7 days later (different Windows PC). I used Chrome in both cases. I probably had a VPN on in both cases as well.
This one went through. If it didn’t specifically tell you there was a “nonce” error that it wasn’t that. Possibly it just went to queue, which is fine.
just checking if I get the error
Went through
checking again for the error
Testing
It’s lasted a bit longer this time (at least for me), unless you’re just clearing your cache everyday
Testing
Went through. Thank you.
Hi, Dr. Carrier,
I follow Bart Ehrman’s blog over on Facebook. You are continually attacked over there but they are ad-homs and unsupported conclusions. Keep up the good work!
Testing here.
Also, Dr. Carrier; if I may ask a question: what do you think of the claim that Christianity got rid of the “human sacrifices”, which were practised by the Roman Empire(a claim made, for example, by david bentley hart in atheist delusions.)
Another test to see if it stills works, but also, I’d like to expand the question: apparently constantine, according to him, made women and slaves more equal before the law, and safeguarded more rights? Thank you.
No. Constantine made everything worse. He created a new system of slavery called “the peasant” and declered this “bestowing freedom” on free farmers (George Orwell would be pleased). Peasants were bound by law to work their land and profession, to pay their landlord a share, were bound to these by birth (so once a farmer or shoe maker, all your descendants were condemned to be farmers or shoe makers), and were sold along with their land, as the property of their Lord.
So, he created a form of para-chattel slavery that dominated Europe for a thousand years hence. It’s just slavery under another name. Thus Constamtine vastly increased society’s reliance on slavery and eliminated a vast swath of human freedom. Women also lost a lot of the rights and protections they had under the Pax Romana (and those that Christians point to as still existing, already existed; so they are employing a hand-waving fallacy).
Note that revolts against this oppressive system after centuries led to peasant revolts and flights to cities that sometimes granted freedoms to refugees because they needed their labor. There arose a lot of tension between city magistrates and Lords who wanted their peasants back. This became something on an anamorphic parallel to the North and South prior to (and causing) the American Civil War. Only The Plague sorted it out to everyone’s (dis)astisfaction.
There was never any such thing as human sacrifice in the Roman Empire (and possibly ever; these legends appear to be polemical myths; we can’t find secure evidence that even Canannites or Archaic Greeks practiced it, despite myths and legends of rare occasions of it).
The closest thing that existed was devotio, the voluntary sacrifice of a general who charged to his death into enemy lines after a ritual asking God grant victory to his army for the exchange. But this is identical to martyr theology in Judaism (giving your life voluntarily to atone for your society’s sins and satisfy God; we see this in the Maccabeean literature, although again whether that’s telling the truth is a vexed question; and of course Christians also had tons of voluntary sacrifice of the same model, in Persecution Myths, which Candida Moss has thrown cold water on as also probably ficticious, in her book The Myth of Persecution).
Thanks! Here’s a quote from a Christian which O think illustrates that attitude of towards Rome and pagans: “ Who first made a public provision to meet these evils?—Constantine it was, the first Christian that sat upon a throne. Had, then, rich Pagans before his time no charity—no pity?—no money available for hopeless poverty? Not much—very little, I conceive; about so much as Shakspeare insinuates that there is of milk in a male tiger. Think, for instance, of that black-hearted reprobate, Cicero, the moralist. This moral knave, who wrote such beautiful Ethics, and was so wicked—who spoke so charmingly and acted so horribly—mentions, with a petrifying coolness, that he knew of desolate old women in Rome who passed three days in succession without tasting food. Did not the wretch, when thinking of this, leap up, and tumble down stairs in his anxiety to rush abroad and call a public meeting for considering so dreadful a case? Not he; the man continued to strut about his library, in a huge toga as big as the Times newspaper, singing out, ‘Oh! fortunatam natam me Consule Romam!’ and he mentioned the fact at all only for the sake of Natural Philosophers or of the curious in old women. Charity, even in that sense, had little existence—nay, as a duty, it had no place or rubric in human conceptions before Christianity,”
The opposite is of course the case; hence my article Christians Did Not Invent Charity and Philanthropy. As usual, the reference is out of context: no old women “passed by” anywhere with nothing to eat. Cicero is talking about the elderly voluntarily not taking food for a few days (or perhaps rumored to endure the hardship; Cicero makes clear he has never met any such women, this is just a thing “we hear about”), in order to shame athletes who complain of missing a single meal (the joke being that they must be less hardy than even “old women”).
It looks so far like nonce errors have gone away. I’ll watch for a while and see, then experiment with turning things back on. Thanks for your help!
Test
My last three comments (2 in antinatalism, 1 here) have not gone through.
So, they do appear to be going through, just to the moderation queue. If you are a Patreon patron then this means a White List problem, not a nonce error. Let me know if that’s the case.
Only if it actually sent you a “nonce” error did one occur. Otherwise everything’s working fine. Because all comments go to queue except from Patrons who are supposed to be White Listed.
But this one did?
Did the others say “nonce” error? Or just not post? (As those are different problems)
Test – Now losing count of how many times this has been tried. I have not been able to comment in over a month now.
This went through. If it gave you no “nonce” error message, then your comments ARE going through, just landing in the moderation queue. If you are a Patreon patron, let me know, then that means there is a problem with my White List which should cause your comments to immediately post and not go to the queue. But everyone else goes to queue (and I’m travling now so I am backlogged on clearing that, as evidenced by this example!).
Dr. Carrier I was recently watching the debate on YouTube between yourself and Dr Randal Rauser. The title of the debate was “A Good & Violent God”.
Anyway there was one point in the debate where you were questioning Dr. Rauser about some of the horrific things found in the Old Testament, and he responded with something to the effect of needing to read the Old Testament using the “framework” of Jesus teachings in the New Testament. I think your response was something along the lines of (paraphrasing here) why would a God make it so complicated and confusing for us to understand what he wants us to know.
Which is a very good point but I wish you have pointed something else out which nobody seems to call Christians out on when they try to make this kind of argument (read the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament and Jesus teachings).
The fact is there was a notable time gap between when the Old Testament was written and when the Gospels were written. If we were to go back into a time machine when only the Old Testament was made available then one would have been able to make that argument to any believers. They would be stuck with the framework of the Old Testament and thus one is still obligated to try to defend those specific laws and commandments as the Word of God. Thus we are left to assume that it was the intention of God for believers to follow those horrific teachings.
That is indeed a very good point. I certainly concur.
I just got one while trying to post in https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/21765
Damn.
Thank you for reporting that. Keep reporting them if they continue. I am at a loss why they are returning though.