One of the bloggers over at ScienceBlogs, this happy looking guy at left, seems to have a real problem with people (me) interpreting Twitter feeds in ways that perhaps the originators didn’t intend (or like).
I don’t follow Twitter feeds, though my blog does provide a feed to notice new posts. That’s all I use it for.
I find it hilarious that James Hrynyshyn can get upset about this, citing my “lack of research into a Twitter quote”, which I found on the Bishop Hill Blog in this post http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/1/16/mooney-on-climategate.html
(note the h/t to Bish and quote in my original article)
But truth is often stranger than fiction.
Had Bishop Hill not noticed and blogged on it, this lone tweet would never have been known by me, because as I said I don’t follow Twitter feeds. Bishop Hill’s blog is where it started, but it seems you missed that story and the 109 comments with it.
And while we are in the vein of Hrynyshyn’s “no serious journalist uses Twitter” discussion, I’ll point out that NYT’s Andy Revkin seems to put quite a bit of substance into Twitter.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/vanishing-planet-in-140-amusing-characters/
Mr. Hrynyshyn laments the 140 character limit as not being worthy of a serious journalist.
“The point is, why would anyone ever assume that a tweet was accurate, representative or useful for anything more than a starting point for further research. I mean, there’s only 140 characters to go on…”
Well, newsflash buddy, radio/TV sound bytes and quotes in newspaper articles aren’t much different in size. Take this quote in yesterday’s Guardian from NASA GISS Scientist Dr. Gavin Schmidt, International Man of Mystery, who sounded the alarm on the impossible claims of a climate paper:
In an email, Gavin Schmidt, a Nasa climatologist wrote: “2.4C by 2020 (which is 1.4C in the next 10 years – something like six to seven times the projected rate of warming) has no basis in fact.”
Let’s see…using this free online tool, it counts 137 characters for Gavin, including punctuation. That’s comfortably a tweet sized quote in a major globally read newspaper.
But, being the big evil tweet mangling guy that I am who doesn’t apparently understand the role of full context journalism, I offered my forum to Dr. Petersen in good faith to allow his side of his story (with fuller context) to be told, even though I’m not in agreement with him on many issues.
Unfortunately Mr. Hrynyshyn while at the same time bashing me for “incomplete Twitter research” (my take on his post) and supposedly holding a grudge, doesn’t do any research of his own at all and misses the facts as to why Dr. Peterson and I are at odds over surface data.
Dr. Peterson ghost wrote a critique of the surfacestations project via NCDC:
Science done anonymously from a government agency to harangue a nationwide citizen effort (650 volunteers) where we found only 1 in 10 climate stations in compliance with NOAA’s most basic 100 foot rule? It seems rather revealing that Dr. Petersen would not put his name to that. Unfortunately for him he did, but just didn’t know it at the time and he got exposed for it.
And then later, his NCDC companions “borrowed” (against my protests) my preliminary non quality controlled data (published on the website for the volunteers to check progress and compare notes) to beat me to publishing a paper before we had the surfacestations project even finished:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/rumours-of-my-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/
That’s “quality science” according to Hrynyshyn? Heh. It’s more like a dark political game if you ask me. On the plus side, being first does not always mean being best.
Dr. Peterson and the 2011 Sci bloggers conference have probably learned a valuable lesson. If you don’t want people to write about something without full context, don’t provide a live Twitter feed left hanging in the Ether afterwards without also providing a recording of the live video/audio feed afterwards.
Having a live feed of an event is great, but not everyone can catch it; as Bish lamented: “I discovered the talk too late to pick up the live stream…“. A video/audio recording is what’s really needed. I looked for one, and found none that day I wrote about Peterson’s “knife fight” comment. It’s dead now:
I would venture that if you don’t want people to draw conclusions you don’t like from Twitter, don’t use it to post a stream of snippeted consciousness. But they seemed pretty big on the idea of Tweets, as it got top billing on the website header:
In fact, they seem pretty darned proud of all the @scio11 tweets, as the top entry in the Scio2011 conference blog displays:
Gosh, almost 10,000 tweets from 1200 contributors and 3000 tweets the day that Dr. Petersen spoke. It seems like a veritable Tweet Orgy. But Mr. Hrynyshyn seems to think that I should not have paid any attention at all to this mass of well advertised (and apparently proud of) tweeting. He writes:
Clearly, the major offender here was not Chris Rowan, but Anthony Watts
For those who don’t know, Chris Rowan of Highly Allochtonous is the guy who made the tweet about Dr. Peterson. He made no follow ups to explain the context, as his next few tweets on his feed show (timeline runs bottom to top):
It seems nobody else was much concerned about the “knife fight” context then either. Ditto for the main Scio2011 Twitter feed at the same time:
Had Scio2011 provided a web accessible recording of their live video/audio feed, anybody could check the context in which Dr. Peterson delivered the “knife fight” remark. As it stands now, many (involved or not) seem to be speculating about the context that Petersen delivered that remark.
So if there’s any recording from the conference, let’s settle that issue once and for all by putting up a video/audio recording of the 2011 Sci Bloggers conference during the session Dr. Peterson spoke in, so we can all see exactly what that context was.
So far, the video recordings they’ve produced out of Scio2011 amount to a whole lotta nothing. Hopefully that’s just a temporary oversight while everyone is letting their thumbs recover.
UPDATE: Bishop Hill writes in comments:
I actually emailed the organisers about when the archive of the “knife fight” session would be available. No reply.
Just had to google the H riny shin (whatever that is?).
http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/
Then he changed horses: http://scienceblogs.com/classm/
IMHO, now he’s gone Ian Dury: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasticus_Autisticus
@CodeTech says:
January 20, 2011 at 9:47 am
“It would have been entertaining to see a character count in every comment in this thread… :)”
Yes, entertaining. I was born to tweet, however I’ve never and won’t because I type twice as fast when I use two fingers instead of one ;o)
> I find it hilarious that James Hrynyshyn can get upset about this, citing my “lack of research into a Twitter quote”,
I have no idea how one is supposed to research a Twitter quote (or entire tweet, for that matter).
Perhaps you can offer posting space to Mr. Hrynyshyn to teach us all how to do that, or at least offer some good URLs on the subject.
Dear Anthony
There are lots of boneheads who assume all kinds of things about people, just because they are a bit slow to fold over to the AGW theory.
It is curious this talk of a knife fight and nukes. I thought only [snip] the right used such insensitive violent terms. NOT that Obama is not short on violent metaphores.
His own condescending remarks and violent metaphors against the right are well known. Obama predicted “hand-to-hand combat” with his political opponents and has made such remarks as “if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun” — making Obama the first American president to advocate gun fights since Andrew Jackson. His speaking of certain Americans as “clinging to their guns and religion”, his telling a group of hispanics “We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re going to reward our friends who stand with us” Obama’s, some Israelis are “suspicious of me because my middle name is Hussein …… “Jews see Hussein and they think Muslim, and that’s why they don’t like me”- So politically Obama is denying any credible intellectual reason for an Israel’s suspicion of him and calling them prejudiced. I can give many more examples but will attempt some brevity.
It is our president’s association with those that wish to go well past metaphores that is disturbing. His church gave the life time achievment award to the man who said this; “”The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years.”
Louis Farrakhan
Nation of Islam
Sorry Anthony my mistake it was on that thread:
http://deepclimate.org/2011/01/06/wegman-on-deep-climate/#comments
REPLY: Just the normal baseline noise, nothing new, but thanks -A
David says:
January 20, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Obama predicted “hand-to-hand combat” with his political opponents and has made such remarks as “if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun” —
Let’s these kinds of perspectives in order . . . today’s DOJ release
Provident Capital Indemnity, Its President and Auditor Charged in $670 Million Fraud Scheme
Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:07:34 -0600
The president and the auditor of a Costa Rican company selling reinsurance bonds to life settlement companies were arrested and charged, along with the company itself, in a seven-count indictment unsealed today for their alleged role in a $670 million fraud scheme involving victims throughout the United States and abroad.
——————————————————————————–
Belarusian National Pleads Guilty to International Online Scheme to Steal U.S. Tax Refunds
Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:03:48 -0600
A Belarusian national and resident of Nantucket, Mass., pleaded guilty today to charges stemming from his participation in an international online scheme to steal income tax refunds from U.S. taxpayers around the country.
——————————————————————————–
Alleged Terrorist Charged with Conspiracy to Kill Americans in Iraq
Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:15:26 -0600
Faruq Khalil Muhammad ‘Isa, 38, was arrested in Canada today pursuant to a U.S. provisional arrest warrant, based on a complaint in the United States charging him with conspiring to kill Americans abroad and with providing material support to that terrorist conspiracy to kill Americans abroad.
——————————————————————————–
Lufkin, Texas, Man Pleads Guilty to Involvement in Murders
Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:18:38 -0600
A Lufkin, Texas, man pleaded guilty today to charges related to a double homicide that took place in Nacogdoches, Texas, in August 2007.
Clearly, only peer reviewed tweets should be accepted as legitimate scientific evidence, and the approved texts need to be published in the Journal of Convenient Climate Tweets to make them available to all serious investigative journalists.
David says:
January 20, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Obama predicted “hand-to-hand combat” with his political opponents and has made such remarks as “if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun” —
I say . . . . Let’s get this conversational perspective in order . . . some of today’s DOJ release.
Provident Capital Indemnity, Its President and Auditor Charged in $670 Million Fraud Scheme
Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:07:34 -0600
The president and the auditor of a Costa Rican company selling reinsurance bonds to life settlement companies were arrested and charged, along with the company itself, in a seven-count indictment unsealed today for their alleged role in a $670 million fraud scheme involving victims throughout the United States and abroad.
Belarusian National Pleads Guilty to International Online Scheme to Steal U.S. Tax Refunds
Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:03:48 -0600
A Belarusian national and resident of Nantucket, Mass., pleaded guilty today to charges stemming from his participation in an international online scheme to steal income tax refunds from U.S. taxpayers around the country.
Where, I come from this is call the ‘LONG ARMS” of the law.
David says:
January 20, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Obama predicted “hand-to-hand combat” with his political opponents and has made such remarks as “if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun” —
I say . . . . Let’s get this “conversational” perspective in order . . . just some of today’s DOJ release
Belarusian National Pleads Guilty to International Online Scheme to Steal U.S. Tax Refunds
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/January/11-crm-074.html
Provident Capital Indemnity, Its President and Auditor Charged in $670 Million Fraud Scheme
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/January/11-crm-075.html
Where, I come from this is called the long ‘arms’ of the law.
Wasn’y there a Monty Python sketch, the upper Tweet of the year…? LOL
Concerning knife fights it seems to me that it is predominantly communists, or any kind of radical socialist, that bring weapons to any rally and the reason seem to be the same one, every time, they believe that their opponents are equally armed to the teeth (which of course they usually are not, disregarding, however, when their opponents are other radical socialists.)
So essentially it kind of proves they’re crazed, because after a thousand and one rally of they being the only ones to bring knives, they still, unequivocally, will spit on the statistics and still bring knives to the next rally because that might be the rally when the rational opponents bring their knives.
See, to them hippies, every decade might be the last.
And here was I thinking that Twitterers sent Tweets to each other.
I read James Hrhynyshin’s article. What the hell’s a ‘pseudoskeptic’?
Peter O’Brien says:
“I read James Hrhynyshin’s article. What the hell’s a ‘pseudoskeptic’?”
It’s an alarmist. They’re masters at the art of psychological projection.
Ignore James baby we did when he worked for our local paper spouting such wisdom ,as banning power boats from the local waterways and save the planet you diesel burning rednecks, soon he went away to save you poor ignorant Americans from yourselves. I guess the education he got was confirmation bais cause this guy is a classic dogooder just as long as he’s spending your money.I think he is hoping publicity from your blog will salve his empty little life.When he rushed out to defend the CRU emails a comment was posted on his blog,”Credibility is like virginity, you only lose it once.”.Having read his drivel for some months in our only newspaper I do not believe James H has any credibility to lose. Of course it could be another one by the same name but the eyes have it.
Hope I did not need to sarc on/off .
These people put the “twit” in Twitter.
I’m far from being a luddite (I run several web sites, do CG graphics rendering, even have a crackberry) but I refuse to use Twitter, and find Facebook extremely annoying, filled with useless crap.
Jeremy said
“That picture makes him look like he’s either scolding a child or he’s looking in the mirror trying to mimic Captain Spock’s one-eyebrow raise.”
I was thinking the same thing. Too bad he doesnt seem to be interested in ” all things accurate or logical.” 😉
@Jeremy
Everybody now, “Psychokiller, qu’est-ce que c’est? fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa better
Run run run run run run run away…”
From mikef2 on January 20, 2011 at 8:18 am:
Thanks. Now I can envision a site called TwitTwat, where primary users will post their profiles, then proceed to post whatever they can that’s their most outrageous/humorous/irritating/offensive/truly-idiotic thing they can think of. Then there will be automatic unmoderated posting of all the tweets received, with flagging and counting of the tweets saying just how STUPID those users are.
And that will be the sole reason for the site, and all that it does, period.
There will be prizes.
Thanks a lot. ☺
I am certain you are trying to make a point. I am sorry but I missed it.
Laurie;
The idea of edits and alternate versions is that you post ONE, not all of them.
David;
Make up your mind about how to spell “metaphor(e)”. Hint: it does not resemble “semaphore”.
Tweets: I don’t use them; it’s a rapidfire conversation that you must stay on top of to get the gist and the meat, but is a lot like tracking 5 conversations at once at a party. Way too much work for the payoff, for me. Lots of people enjoy that kind of thing, tho’.
Brian H says:
January 22, 2011 at 3:33 am
Laurie;
The idea of edits and alternate versions is that you post ONE, not all of them.
Sorry about that . . . . I was having difficulties . . . I simply assumed I was doing something wrong as nothing posted at all . . . as you should well tell I am a new user . . . “I know not what I do” sometimes.