Many readers have commented about their experiences at Real Climate with posts being deleted and being run over roughshod by hostile comments there. I was sent this YouTube link by a WUWT web affiliate, and as I was watching it, it occurred to me that the phrase “tightly controlled” really describes the Real Climate methodology.
Watch Helen Thomas at the end. For those of you who don’t know Helen Thomas, may I suggest reading up on her. She’s a fixture with the White House Press Corp and her statements to Robert Gibbs are simply stunning. Helen mentioned “openness and transparency”, from my view she could have just as easily been talking about Michael Mann and his famous “censored” FTP folder discovered by McIntyre.
Now if we can just get Andy Revkin to ask questions like Chip Reid and Helen Thomas, we might get somewhere.
Now every time I think of Chip Reid, I’ll think of Real Climate’s “tightly controlled” environment.
I should add that I’ve experienced the same thing at RC, valid questions I have posed have been wholesale deleted personally by Gavin Schmidt. I’ve kept a record and screencaps of such things, I would suggest that you all do the same.
Deleting rude comments or comments that are badly OT or inflaming is one thing, but when you start deleting valid scientific questions posed by people in your circle of interest, it doesn’t take long for all of those individually affected to start comparing notes.
RC seems to have a small following of the same people that make up a core group, but when you examine the web statistics, it seems obvious that such a strategy is failing their primary mission of reaching out to people:
My blue stats start in October of last year because that is when I started the full domain name. Prior to that they are in the olive green color plot. In both reach and traffic, WUWT grows and RC declines.
Here is the URL to see for yourself:
http://alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com+realclimate.org+%20wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com
Of course, these are unadjusted numbers so any conclusion drawn from them may be premature. Best to wait for the adjusted data set.
UPDATE: Since there is some confusion in comments, I’m adding this. That first graph is a “top sites” graph, with sites like Google and iTunes and Amazon being at the very top. It shows where WUWT and RC exist in the “top sites” pecking order. WUWT is now somewhere around the top 30,000 web sites while RC has fallen below the top 100,000 mark. – Anthony
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I do *NOT* represent NCAR in any way, shape or form. If you’ve gotten that impression, then you’re wrong. I’m here on my own time, and the only relevance that my position at NCAR has is that I’ve got some expertise and understanding of the issue of anthropogenic climate change.
I am not speaking officially in any sense.
REPLY: Then you should NOT use your NCAR email address in postings, because by doing so it does in fact become an official NCAR document. In all cases on WUWT you did in fact use your official NCAR email address. Also during many (but not all) of your postings you posted from the IP address 128.117.65.29 which resolves to NCAR.
Thus anything that originates from NCAR’s domain does in fact become an official document, subject to all appropriate policy.
You say “I’m here on my own time”, but the WP log (which shows all traffic, not singling you out) says otherwise. For example on 6/28 there was a string of posts from 128.117.65.29 by you on:
Submitted on 2009/06/28 at 8:37am PST
to
Submitted on 2009/06/28 at 11:29am PST
and more on 6/27/08:
Submitted on 2009/06/27 at 10:57am
to
Submitted on 2009/06/27 at 5:37pm
…which if you subtract the hour for PST to MST (NCAR is in Boulder, CO) , it clearly shows NCAR office hours for messages originating from that IP address. There are more examples.
Granted some came from addresses outside of NCAR and outside of NCAR office hours but many clearly show you spending time here on the taxpayers nickel. Busted. Happy to provide documentation here if you wish to dispute it.
My friendly advice; if you don’t want your communications to be regarded as coming from NCAR, don’t use the taxpayer funded NCAR system as the basis for communications, particularly when you have a webcam that shows you sitting at your office desk working at your computer.
– Anthony
I’m not representing NCAR, the National Science Foundation, or any other agency, nor are my opinions representative of NCAR or any other agency or institution.
Check the timestamps on the webcam.
As of right now, I happen to be on NCAR’s network, but on my own machine, on my own time.
REPLY: Still using the taxpayer’s dime when you use the NCAR network. Get your own private DSL like the rest of us. We don’t get free government access and a majority of people if using their business network for such things would get fired for breaching the acceptable use policy. – Anthony
I am paying for my own access – I just happen to be running VPN, because of security restrictions as well as doing some work on the side as I’m online.
Besides, last I checked, June 27th and June 28th were weekend days.
The all-too-quick assessment of wrongdoing (on your part) is just silly.
In the old days of the Internet, no-one much bothered with who was posting what, when, and from where. These days, there are too many folks who are more interested in those trivialities than in the substance of what’s being said.
You know, Anthony, if you want to make a legalistic case of it, you’re welcome to – but from those of us who’ve been around the ‘Net for a while now know, that makes you out to be a harasser with thinly-veiled threats; not exactly a welcoming environment.
REPLY: Legalistic case? Gosh golly Gary talk about too-quick assessment. Well like I said in my first friendly advice, if you don’t want your name attached to NCAR don’t post from the NCAR network, talk about silly, your defense of saying I’m not using the NCAR network when it comes from that IP, while also using your NCAR email address is pretty laughable.
Look, we don’t get along, we don’t see eye to eye on much of anything, and you mostly just exist here to waste time for me and others. You won’t answer even the simplest of questions. You dialog is one-way. You think I’m irrelevant and the feeling is mutual. You haven’t the integrity to even read essays relevant to your workplace and the lack of peer review integrity of Caspar Amman. As part of the problem, I expect you’ll never perceive what the public does, so there really isn’t any point in continuing. zip
– Anthony
Gary Strand
I admire your persistence. Without wishing to mean any offense your comments remind me of the scene between the Black Knight and King Arthur in Monty Pythons Holy Grail.
Given the extraordinarily large and diverse readership of this site your comments (and perhaps there timing) will be read by interested people from all sides of the climate debate.
This blog gives new meaning to ‘freedom of speech’.
You can say anything without fear that what you message conveys won’t be ignored or censored.
Unlike Realclimate. That alone makes this site superior, all arguments aside.
Gary Strand:
Ri-i-i-i-i-ght.
Who are you trying to kid, Gary? You hide out from commenting on the Bishop Hill article [for the very good reason that it completely destroys Caspar Amman’s credibility]. And you use taxpayer funded resources… for your own personal propaganda!
What’s your boss’s name? Maybe we should get him involved, eh? What do you say to that, Gary?
You’re a software engineer Gary, not a scientist, and the use of engineer in your title is a slap in the face for those(two relatives)who’ve been schooled for years and years to achieve that title. I question your ability to even write a program.
AGW scientists/modelers have a belief that drives them like a religion. Modeling/GIS is infecting real science data and becoming the equivalent of a modern day soothsayer using a CPU as your crystal ball and input of statistics as throwing the bones, of course all corrected with programs, proxies or any manipulation in the right direction.
Even the crystal ball readers blame some outside factor if it doesn’t come true. You’re even worse with CPU GIGO(garbage in garbage out), a unscientific mind with no understanding of REAL science, just a knowledge of the software use. People are starting to see through modelers/GIS BS(bad science) and blogs are AGW believers (like you Gary) worst enemy.
Open dialogue brings forth truth or should I say shows ignorance of the subject. The public are wiser and more educated then you give them credit for Gary. In the modern Internet world we demand real figures and factual data. Bad data, blatant mistakes and lies are found out pretty darn quick.
WUWT is the number one blog science site because of it’s openness, inclusion of the average person without censorship or ad hom. A large community of thinkers and questioners exists here, your closed minded view and side step of questions, is a testament to your inability for constructive discussion.
IMO, you are not one who looks through scientific eyes for answers and understanding.
Just a data puncher looking down your nose at critical thinkers.
This site might look like just another deniers blog to you Gary, but this is just the beginning of how truth and information will be shared to the public in the future. We don’t get the truth on MSM or even government sites. So we search out resources and sites with unbiased information. The truth will always revel itself with more voices asking the right questions.
So expect more scrutiny on the trumpeting of models and predictions into the future on AGW and I would expect you’d agree that more transparency and explanations should be shown with data for public consumption?Right?
Ive worked on a few federal projects dealing with software problems. I’m like a nerdy detective deciphering user error from software settings, limitations and procedural use. I’ve learned dealing with computer scientists about glitches and errors in their programs. They DON’T like to admit that their software might be the problem. Just asking them questions on an error can come off as assigning blame to them and government computer scientists are always paranoid about that kind of stuff.
GIS/modelers like you don’t know any better, you think anything can be modeled, even sociological or chaotic patterns in nature. The excuse for a wrong predictions are blamed on the capacity of the computing for modeling or the proxies they have inputed are in need of a slight adjusting. Which is true, except for the fact that modeling doesn’t resemble anything that exists in the real world.
I couldn’t imagine how threatening it must be to a real scientist who has been indoctrinated into the BS of modeling CO2 as a truth, and then being questioned on their data/belief.
It’s like when the theory of a flat earth or the sun revolving around the earth, you’d be a heretic to have a differing opinion on these issues, only through outside science did the beliefs change.
Oh of course, not before destroying careers and lives along the way.
Gary you must understand, there is never a consensus in science, just more questions.
Gary Strand has become the poster boy for limited government.
Many years ago, surveys found gov ernment workers were the worst employees in America when it comes to making personal long distance phone calls using their office phone. I suspect online ordering of merchandise and blogging is also rampently abused. I knew a man that ran a business from his desk when he was paid by the government. He was writing and selling software while working in It for the employer. I think gary just went into lurking mode.
I just followed the link to alexa.com and set the graph to 6 months. And I think I see a hockey stick.
Any updates from our government representative gary Strand?
henrychance,
Gary Strand got such a painful spanking here that he skedaddled.
Gary Strand (08:22:10) :
Why is there such an insistence on some kind of face-to-face debate between one side and the other? I don’t understand that. ————————————————————————————-This has to be one of the most asinine statements I have ever read in my life. It is a great example of the delusion that is going on in “climate science”, and it is a tactic used by those whose argument is indefensible.