Guest post by WUWT moderator Mike Lorrey
One of the nice tools that alexa.com has is that it lets you compare multiple sites against each other. For those with competition of either economic or political nature, this is of high importance to gauge how well one is doing achieving one’s marketshare or mindshare goals, and how badly one’s competition is stumbling in delivering its message or attracting customers.
Today I did a four-way comparison between WUWT, Climate Progress and Real Climate, as well as Climateaudit.org, run by our good friend Steve McIntyre, going back through the entire traffic record that alexa has for these sites.
As you can see, there is a rather dramatic evolution over time.
Prior to the 2008 US Presidential election of Barack Obama, three of the four blogs were pretty well competitive (realclimate.org was always the least popular, indicating the general public got that this was an astroturfing site by climate alarmists who tolerated no dissent). Even though Steve McIntyre tended to be the most technical, he still attracted a competitive following. His television appearances and congressional testimony really helped his exposure even if the layman had difficulty avoiding the glaze-over on some of his blog content. After the election, when it became clear that climate change legislation was a top priority for this president, people clearly started educating themselves about it. Our Surfacestations.org project and the resulting report brought us additional attention in the major media. WUWT started clearly distinguishing itself as providing content that was understandable to the layman, did not talk down to the average bloke (like was typical at CP and RC) and did not regularly attack people based on their political leanings. Commentary from all directions was encouraged, with postings by non-skeptic scientists to provide a balanced view, and which only limited commentary when it came to personal attacks and off-topic thread hijacking (again, unlike CP and RC).
This resulted in our weblog award for 2008 as the number one science blog, beating out alarmist blogs, leading to much tooth gnashing by the warmist press.
Our popularity grew as we reported on the growing controversies over FOIA compliance, IPCC dissenting opinions, the dendro-wars, and the continuing spotlessness of the sun while arctic ice coverage recovered from its 2007 low, meeting our predictions and smashing the hopes of the AGW alarmists.
Then Climategate and the CRUtape Letters hit the blogosphere. The alexa stats clearly demonstrate who won the narrative with the public with a dramatic step change in the popularity of WUWT along with a crash of CP and RC after brief spurts. Similarly, climateaudit.org reached its highest ever rankings since the FOIA requests of Steve and friends were so central to the scandal. WUWT peaked several times into the top 10,000 websites globally.
As of this writing, WUWT is ranked #6 by Alexa in the world for Environmental websites, not just climate blog sites. We are higher ranked than the Environmental Working Group, WWF, National Wildlife Federation, Mother Earth News, The Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy and The Environmental Defense Fund. We rank just behind The Oil Drum, the primary Peak Oil website.
While things have settled down a bit since climategate broke, we are seeing a recent spurt of activity due in part to Anthony’s speaking tour, where he has spoken to packed and enthusiastic crowds. As we add more reference pages on different topics, we expect to see more traffic grow as these references become additional traffic generators in their own right.
We should reach our 50 millionth website hit some time this coming week, a major milestone in the development of this site. Stay tuned for the announcement.
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Zilla,
Last time I checked, the AGW alarmist camp didn’t consider the opinions of the “little people” to matter at all in their “scientific consensus”, so trying to compare our Alexa ranking to logically fallacious appeals to authority is an apples vs oranges argument. Our Alexa ranking means that we have been more successful in communicating our arguments, period, stop.
WUWT references more peer reviewed science than RC, and definitely tons more than CP. As a percent of our total article publishing rate, though, our references to other peer reviewed publications is lower, but the overall quantity is larger, simply because we publish far more articles each day than RC does. We also publish a lot of original research and analysis of data here, though less than, say, ClimateAudit.org.
WUWT and ClimateAudit.org are a new form of science publishing. A more democratic and open form, where people lay things out in the open for anybody to criticize, rebut, and post opposing data or analysis. One of the reasons this is necessary has been demonstrated by Climategate, where it was conclusively proven that the AGW alarmists were operating as gatekeepers and blacklisters to prevent opposing views from being published in the peer reviewed literature, and corrupting the process of peer review itself. It is time for peer review to open up.
The open source movement has proven in the software industry that open sourcing computer science results in more robust, secure, and transparently easier to maintain software. The same is starting to happen in the other sciences. WUWT and CA represent some of the vanguard of this movement in the climate science community. The obsolescent bastions of closed door, smoke filled back room politicized science naturally see us as a threat to their power and influence. They have good reason to do so. They also have no hope of winning.
There are far too many people in this world trained in the principles and processes of science and engineering, mathematics and logic today for a cloistered few to continue to shut out the overwhelming majority from being involved in shaping the discussion and process of scientific progress. We are tearing down the walls, shattering the gates, and destroying the ring of power, to set the world of science free of the control of those who would be our masters.
Our Alexa rank merely demonstrates that we are beginning to win.
old construction worker says:
July 27, 2010 at 9:32 am
I remember a time went Anthony was about to scrap this site. It was becoming too much with his family, his day job and surface station study.
So again, thank all of you.
REPLY: It’s still too much, but I have to see through. – Anthony
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Would adding a few good moderators help share the load? As I think about it, I don’t know how you do it all.
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
You’ve got my vote on that
Just about the only thing we have not covered here is Rule 34.
Oh, wait ……
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/30/ipcc-now-in-bizzaroland-pachauri-releases-smutty-romance-novel/
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 3:43 pm
[…]
For hro001,
If you don’t like what gets published in the so called peer reviewed journals, feel free to do research and publish.
It is a human system after all, and bound not to be perfect.
If some have trouble getting published, well maybe they need to do better science.
===
Sorry, bob. You missed the point. It matters not in the slightest whether I – or anyone else for that matter – “like what gets published in the so called peer reviewed journals”.
But as Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet also noted in an article in the Guardian around the time of the release of Muir Russell’s creative writing exercise:
“[S]cientists need to take peer review off its pedestal. As an editor, I know that rigorous peer review is indispensable. But I also know that it is widely misunderstood.
“Peer review is not the absolute or final arbiter of scientific quality. It does not test the validity of a piece of research. It does not guarantee truth. Peer review can improve the quality of a research paper – it tells you something about the acceptability of new findings among fellow scientists – but the prevailing myths need to be debunked. We need a more realistic understanding about what peer review can do and what it can’t. If we treat peer review as a sacred academic cow, we will continue to let the public down again and again.”
[emphases added -hro]
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/a-catalyst-for-thorough-reappraisal/
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
‘I propose that on November 17th this year, WUWT’s fourth birthday, we ALL raise a glass of a suitable beverage…… Tip jar…….
Sound like a party to me. Count me in.
I can’t remember went I first stumbled through the WUWT’s door in 2007, but I started doing my investigation shortly after AL Gore’s movie came out. I have nothing personally against AL, I just don’t trust politicians. One of the first article I found was about “CO2 leads temperature” but what it showed was CO2 lags temperature and a quote by one of the scientist said something like ‘it was the opposite of what we though we would find’. I believe the article was published back in 1992.
old construction worker says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
‘I propose that on November 17th this year, WUWT’s fourth birthday, we ALL raise a glass of a suitable beverage…… Tip jar…….
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
What day is the 4th anniversary (birthday) on?
If everyone gave just $10.00 it would be a huge 4th birthday gift to Anthony!!!! 1000’s of $10.00 gifts—NICE!!! 🙂
old construction worker,
Nov 17?
That pesky truth. Hard for Gore, Hansen, Jones etc. to keep suppressed.
50 million thank yous to Anthony, CTM and team. We are winning.
Tips & Notes seems to be offline at the moment, so this is OT
documentary being made “The Boy Who Cried Warming”
trailer:
Monckton will be in it:
November17 goes into the diary. Right!
Oh, and Zilla, if you didn’t comprehend that long comment of mine, I’ll just quote Richard Feynman: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
Therefore, “consensus science” is an oxymoron when the group under consensus is a significantly minority subset of the entire body of those of scientific bent, and “peer review” is the examination of the ignorance of one expert or group of experts, by the ignorance of another group of experts. Logically, if you claim that science can be arrived at by consensus, then breaking down the walls of peer review and opening science to critical examination and challenge by anyone with scientific, mathematical, or engineering training via democratic media like the blogosphere is the natural end result. You therefore shouldn’t have any problem to how things are done at WUWT or ClimateAudit.org. Those who oppose us actually oppose the achievement of consensus via open sourced democratic peer review. Even then, everyone should still accept as a given that we are all ignorant of what we don’t yet know, hence consensus views should never be used to hinder the creation of new science.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:20 pm
old construction worker,
‘Nov 17?’
You will have to go back to Stephen Brown’s post and read it.
Stephen Brown says:
July 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
‘I propose that on November 17th this year, WUWT’s fourth birthday, we ALL raise a glass of a suitable beverage…… Tip jar…….’
LOL – Well, damn! I am AMAZED that no one got in a jab about RC’s extended SC24 sunspot minimum look-alike curve, and that Michael Mann hasn’t hasn’t somehow leaned on Keith Briffa to somehow hide the decline. Bully Mann must be busy with his slap shot.
ROFL
(Is it a curve if it isn’t even above the X-axis? – and what IS the X-axis on a rankings chart like this? Infinity?)
Oh, the X-axis must be the 1900-1980 average.
Except when it is the 1970-2000 average.
Or the 1950-1980 average.
Or the 1980-1990 average.
Or. . . whichever one gives the biggest slope today.
There is a lot of debate here regarding peer-review, and what it means and is worth.
Anyone reading in depth the emails from and to “The Team” can see that the current formal peer-review process is very probably deeply flawed. When so few are reviewing each-other’s work and actively bullying in order to prevent contrary views being aired, it is clear that something must change.
Peer-review was introduced mid-20th century in order to (and ONLY to) make sure that papers were suitable for publication by journals when the content was beyond the editors’ understanding, and certainly it was not ‘required’ in the world of science. It seems to have morphed into a requirement, but it is not clear to me how or why. Even Einstein was not formally peer-reviewed, yet his work stands well.
The Internet is here, and has been for a while. It allows fast and effective communication to millions of interested parties in very short time-scales. Publishers are able to show their work, their data and any code required, so that anyone, yes ‘anyone’ [gasp!] can reproduce their findings. Imagine that: nobody hiding their data or processes in case anyone ‘wants to prove it incorrect’. Well, welcome to the real world, because that is the only way it can really work, if results can be openly reproduced and challenged.
Yes, we may get the problem that he who shouts loudest gets heard, but it is far better, and more easily and openly fixed than the current incestuous and secretive machinations that typify the mainstream ‘climate science’ at present. Dusty old journals are dead (or dying). Long live the Internet!
Zilla writes:
“Another possibility: stoked by mob mentality, our post-Cold-War-paranoia of government, the overall jitters that affects cultures during times of economic recession, and a concerted smear campaign by people with only a secondary understanding of the science, the public is attracted to blogs which give them easy answers to complex problems and provide fall guys (Michael Mann, Jim Hansen, take your pick) to blame for large-scale weather phenomenon in the real world. ”
You sound like you might be up for a challenge. I will give you one. For some time, I have been traveling the blogosphere looking for global warming science. So far, I see no evidence of its existence. The only thing warmists have that they can call science is the science of the CO2 molecule. I accept that science. With it and the assumption that CO2 molecules are distributed randomly in the atmosphere, one can arrive at the conclusion that the Earth will increase in temperature about one degree this century. Everyone accepts this and I accept it because Richard Lindzen accepts it, but I do want to point out that the randomness assumption is implausible, as nothing else is distributed randomly, including oxygen, and warmists have done no experimental work to establish it. They do no experimental work at all.
However, Warmist claims of harm to the environment require something along the lines of three or four degrees of warming this century. To arrive at that kind of warming, Warmists claim that there are “forcings” caused by CO2. These “forcings” consist of phenomena such as changes in cloud cover that would have the effect of amplifying the effects of warming from CO2. Now comes my criticism. Any scientist worthy of the name would not dare assert that there are such “forcings” without having a set of hypotheses that explain how these “forcings” are caused and what regular patterns of change they cause in the behavior of clouds. Of course, these hypotheses would be reasonably confirmed through observation. Yet no climate scientist has any such set of hypotheses. They make assertions about mankind’s coming climate doom when they have no explanatory hypotheses; that is, Warmists suffer from Hubris. Instead of hypotheses, Warmists offer us model runs. But anyone with a minimum of understanding of models and hypotheses knows that models are analytical tools and cannot be used, as hypotheses are, to make predictions. Models only make explicit what is assumed when the model is constructed. Models are not up to the level of science.
Now, Zilla, the ball is in your court. Produce the hypotheses described above and I will salute you. Do not produce them and admit that Warmist work is not up to the level of science.
mikelorrey says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Could not have said it better myself
Theo Goodwin posts:
“These “forcings” consist of phenomena such as changes in cloud cover that would have the effect of amplifying the effects of warming from CO2. Now comes my criticism. Any scientist worthy of the name would not dare assert that there are such “forcings” without having a set of hypotheses that explain how these “forcings” are caused and what regular patterns of change they cause in the behavior of clouds. ”
Just check out any reference showing the vapor pressure of water and it’s relationship to temperature.
The higher the temperature, the more water that can exist in the atmosphere in form of water vapor, thus the less likely are clouds to form. Thus more water vapor in the atmosphere, more greenhouse gas heating to the atmosphere, or a positive feedback.
Bob writes:
“Just check out any reference showing the vapor pressure of water and it’s relationship to temperature.”
That’s a scream, Bob. Warmists do work at the level of a high-school chem lab.
Congratulations! You’re bigger than US Steel!
Zilla, any web site that deliberately deletes opinions, contrary to the the “consensus” at RC, would be be highly suspect by most intelligent, and honest, people. It would certainly removes it from a objective standpoint.
If RC, has to resort to deleting opposing opinions, and they do, their faith is indeed weak.
Mike says, “WUWT and ClimateAudit.org are a new form of science publishing. A more democratic and open form, where people lay things out in the open for anybody to criticize, rebut, and post opposing data or analysis. ”
The question, however, is no matter how many articles WUWT publishes, how many of them are accurate? It is not clear that Mr. Watts et al are telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Just because one lays “things out in the open” does not mean those things laid out are an honest representation of the science involved. I do not trust Mr. Watts – I believe he has an agenda. Do you?
And who is doing the judging?
Does anyone here know enough to criticize the actual science involved? Look at the above posts – is anyone actually engaging in scientific criticism? Or is there a good deal of groupthink going on?
REPLY: Heh, I always get a kick out of people that cite trust issues about me, then hide behind a fake name and email address. Some self examination is in order. – Anthony
****”Produce the hypotheses described above and I will salute you. Do not produce them and admit that Warmist work is not up to the level of science.”
Certainly, Theo, you understand that the scientists involved use other resources than simply computer models.
Radiosondes
Paleo-climate reconstructions
Ocean and land temperature measurements
Satellite temperature measurements
You have failed in your essential reasoning in that you, like a great many skeptics, prefer to obsess over a single (and actually accurate) practice of model prediction. But fine, if you want observations (your post was a little unclear) I’ll provide you with
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#Climate_data_raw
OR here
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data.htm
Now, this is a great deal of complicated information here. I certainly can’t understand it all. But if you do not have the time or patience or wherewithal to go through it all before accusing scientists of not having “hypothesis” then you probably should not accuse scientists of not having “hypothesis.” If you are like your typical skeptic, you will simply refuse to actually look at the information, preferring instead to declare science theory a untrustworthy and therefore you will not give it a shot.
There are plenty of “hypothesis” out there, Theo, as there is data freely available and only a click away, admit it or not.
****”cite trust issues about me, then hide behind a fake name and email address”
I’m sorry, Mr. Watts, I fail to see the connection. Do you tell the entire story behind your articles or not? Do you present all the information at all times, or do you cherry-pick what you post?
Some self examination is also in order in your case, my friend.
REPLY: ok that’s it, calling people deniers, (which was snipped), fake email address (see policy page) + idiotic accusatory question (so, do newspapers “cherry pick what they print”, can they present “all the information at all times”) = off the island. Have a nice day – Anthony