Running this blog is a lot of work. The comment moderation is the biggest portion of it and it is becoming oppressive. A lot of our volunteer moderators simply don’t have the time to keep up with it all. I find I keep running into the same things over and over again, answering the same questions over and over again. So….I’ve decided to make a post in hopes that I can reach enough people with some do’s and don’ts to make a difference in the moderation workload.
Here’s a few things I hope you’ll read and heed:
1. No, for the ten gazillionth time, I cannot install wordpress plugins on this blog to get feature “X” that somebody wants.
The reason: This blog is hosted on wordpress.com for free, and they don’t allow plugins like you can get on self hosted wordpress installs. Why free? see item #10
Here’s why I use wordpress.com instead of running my own private server:
“We run hundreds of servers in three datacenters (Chicago, Dallas, San Antonio) with instant copies of all your data and uploads in each. This allows us to serve your blog very quickly, and also if something catastrophic were to happen, like Chicago falling into Lake Michigan or Dallas being hit by a meteor, your blog would be okay.”
Longtime readers may recall that when Climategate broke in late November 2009, so did Climate Audit, who was on a single server box that simply could not handle the load. WUWT stayed running, thanks to wordpress.com “hundreds of servers” and distributed processing. After ClimateGate, Mr. Pete, JohnA, and I got CA migrated to wordpress.com so this won’t ever happen again. I’ll take uptime and reliability over features any day.
If you want comment preview/editing, see this post on how to do so. Use the Test page to practice.
2. Lucia has a great self hosted wordpress blog install -and has all sorts of nifty plugins, but:
Blog out last night. ’nuff said
3. When writing a comment, you do NOT need to use HTML tags, just put in the URL and WordPress will auto-link it for you – like this http://wattsupwiththat.com
4. If you are writing sarcasm, end it with /sarc so that everybody KNOWS it is sarcasm. Don’t make extra work for moderators by making a flame up.
5. Please, don’t think that declaring “Off topic but…see this” will make your comment OK. I’m going to start wholesale deleting these because they end up steering threads all over the place.
6. Pursuant to #5 we have a Tips and Notes page for things you want to bring to attention…yes we see them all.
7. Pursuant to #6 Please don’t leave blind links, tell us WHY we should click on it. Otherwise each moderator has to look at it to decide if it takes you someplace we don’t want to promote or is a link that goes someplace bad. Please add a short description as to why you think this link is worth visiting.
8. If you are leaving a tip, be sure to check the front page of WUWT first and use the SCROLL BAR to look at previous stories. About a third of our Tips and Notes are things we’ve already covered.
9. Please don’t ask WUWT to research things for you. Do it yourself, add to the conversation. If you can’t use Google you don’t belong here.
10. Why free hosting? Simply put, I like my freedom. Freedom works best for this venue. Unlike Joe Romm at Climate Progress (Sponsor – Center for American Progress $28 million income declaration here) and Marc Morano Climate Depot (Sponsor – CFACT $3 million income declaration here) this blog isn’t paid for by any organization, nor sponsored, nor under anyone’s external control. There’s no data quotas to watch, no demands to carry diktats, no steering committee, no server maintenance. It’s all done by wordpress.com free hosting, volunteers who moderate and contribute essays, and bit of occasional help from the Google ad clicks and some kind folks that find the donation button. Compared to the organizations above, it isn’t even chump change. “Big Oil” doesn’t shop here.
And yet we still beat the pants off the whole sponsored climate blog pack:
Stats from Alexa.com Learn more about Alexa Traffic Stats
So please, read and heed, help our moderation team, and be thankful I’m not burned out yet like poor Jeff Id who recently closed The Air Vent.
Thanks for your consideration – Anthony
[ADDENDUM] I trust that Anthony will allow me to add a few more items, as some one who endures this stuff daily.
11. Quote the exact words of the person with whom you are disagreeing. I write as clearly as I know how, and yet I am often misunderstood. That’s life, we have to live with that. But if you quote what I said, then I know where the misunderstanding may lie. And if there is no misunderstanding, I know exactly what you are referring to.
12. Speculations and personal attacks as to someone’s motives, honesty, credibility, education, publishing record, and ancestry all have negative weight in a scientific discussion. In other words, doing any of those will detract from your argument, and make it less likely to be believed, despite the fact that it may be valid. Those kinds of attacks are simultaneously bad tactics, bad strategy, and give the attacker a bad odor of desperation. Please avoid them. Me, I bite back at that kind of stuff, so definitely avoid them on my threads. I’m human, and like anyone else, I make mistakes, but I’m doing my honest best.
13. Be as specific as you can. Numbers are preferable to words. Code is preferable to a description of the method. Observations are infinitely preferable to model results. If you are using data, link to either your data or where the data was obtained. Details are often vital. Citations should indicate page numbers and paragraphs; waving the IPCC Report like a demented fundamentalist preacher and saying “the answer’s in there” doesn’t help anyone.
14. Civility roolz. Like the song says, “I’m just a fool whose intentions are good”, and I assume the same about others. The less aggro the tone is, the more people will participate.
PS – way cool photo, Anthony, and many thanks for the blog.
w.
Fantastic puppy. Never see one with such attitude before.
John Whitman
I only mentioned R Gates because he appeared relatively recently and was at first accused by some of being a troll because he did not agree with the mainstrream view here.
I would agree that there appear to be some hit and run merchants who in hind sight were not here to learn but to cause disruption. I guess as this blog is increasingly being targetted by those with no intention of hearing other views we will get more trolls.
tonyb
John Whitman says:
February 3, 2011 at 4:19 am
”
I do not understand why you mentioned R Gates? Is there some previous discussion involving him/her? Sorry I am unaware.”
John
R. Gates is very welcome here in that he/she is one of the few on the AGW side who will stay around and have an intelligent conversation.
I am sure that many climate watchers only read the blogs that support their opinion. However, any neutral observer or anyone looking into AGW for the first time that looks at both sides, cannot help but notice how your blog and and that of Bishop Hill handle the rare contributions from the other side. It is in stark contrast to heavy handed censorship of such as the Guardian (CIF) and Gavin Schmidt. Keep up the good work and grateful thanks from this regular visitor.
First off, thanks for running this site. It’s a breath of fresh air in today’s hyper-polemicised web milieu. Any rules/posting guidelines needed to keep it informative, interesting and readable are welcome.
Secondly, you and your mods do a fantastic job. I frequent some political blogs which frankly make this site look like a church picnic on a warm sunny summer afternoon in comparison. Bless you for that. I’m old enough to remember when civility was the rule, not the exception.
Thirdly, your WP installation allows for the most frequently need HTML tags, with the possible exception of and . If you can’t produce an intelligible, interesting and expressive comment with the tools available, it’s likely that you either don’t know what you’re doing or you’re foisting the blame for your own shortcomings onto others.
Fourthly, your success with this site is no accident or fluke. A lot of work and care is self-evident in the design, content and management of the site. Again, when comparing this with many other sites, the quality is very apparent.
A few well made points, and mostly not for the first time. Perhaps a ‘Guidelines for Comments’ link on the front page? No, make that ‘Absolute Rules for Comments Unless You Want the Order of the Boot’.
Congratulations and respect to everyone involved in WUWT.
Anthony – you and your moderators have set a standard for the industry and spoiled me for less. Now when I visit a blog (or an article with comments) in supposedly respectable journals like The Economist or Science News etc. and find a topic that begs intelligent comments and all we see is infantile name calling, I have to let them know in no uncertain terms that they have lost my business. And of course, referring them to WUWT for a positive example of how it is done right.
In fact, it’s probably time to make a donation…
Jimmy Haigh says:
February 3, 2011 at 4:37 am
——–
Jimmy Haigh,
Yes, well said! And it is due to Anthony’s kind presence that all are welcome here.
John
[Reply: Linking to WUWT on oother blogs is one of the most effective means of raising Alexa traffic stats. ~dbs, mod.]
Thank you Mr Moderator,
I used to provide links, but in more recent times I have just stated Watts Up With That, thinking you are so famous the link is not required. In future I will provide the link.
I am so glad that you are maintaining the integrity of the site by not offerring me the coin of the realm.
The Guardener banned me three or four times for linking to Watts and CA.
On my shoulder is a little devil at the moment:-
Badme “Go on mention the spell checker, you did before and the international clock”
Goodme” You must be joking haven’t you seen what he said above”
Badme ” Don’t worry I’m sure you’ll be alright? Go on ask him to do something?
GregO says:
February 2, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Anthony and Moderators,
Thank you for keeping up the good work on this site. It has been a great source of information and education for me and I appreciate all your hard work. I have no idea how you pull this off day in, day out. Please don’t get too frustrated with all the madness.
==========================================================
I couldn’t agree more !!!
Best of web !!
tonyb says:
February 3, 2011 at 4:34 am
John Whitman
I only mentioned R Gates because he appeared relatively recently and was at first accused by some of being a troll because he did not agree with the mainstrream view here.
tonyb
——–
tonyb,
Thank you for your explanation.
Happy Lunar New Year from Taipei . . . Its the Rabbit year.
John
Self-moderation requests only really work on less popular boards. Anthony, I fear with the popularity of your blog you may never satisfactorily cut down on moderation work. 🙁
If free-hosted WordPress has any features that require registration before posting, you might consider using them. It would cut down on the comments, sure, but would make your job much easier. Ideally you’d have a tiered system wherein those who register must behave or lose their registration but get their comments up quicker *and* posting anonymously would still be possible, but may take longer to get posted. Not sure if wp.com can do this, would be nice if it could.
what #
#
Cassandra King says:
February 2, 2011 at 10:17 pm
she says:-)
hugely appreciate your site and the effort.
I dont want the fiddly bits, cant figure em out anyway.
I love having somewhere sane and rational to send people for great info.
w,
Long live MoTown music.
Anthony,
WUWT is an incredible enterprise. There known guidelines for how to move from a ‘1 man with help’ entrepreneurial outfit to a ‘tightly controlled privately held enterprise’. Very few businesses manage to make the transition, but those that do, control the marketplace (Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc).
Anyone know any good young MBAs that could offer WUWT a transition plan?
Thanks for the timely reminder and for all your (and of course the mods’) hard work.
You’re a star.
I make it my #1 mission not to require snipping. I take it as a personal failure if I make any comment that requires moderation. Besides, a clever and well thought out evisceration carries much more weight than a mindless personal insult. As skeptics, we already have the moral and scientific high ground by default. That’s why Trenberth is trying to change the rules.
Cheers for putting in the time and effort to all involved!
And if you do not like to hear the truth you can always visit Charles Johnson. He has gone bonkers lately. /sarc
I predict that in due course WUWT will achieve case study status, not merely in climate study terms which may be almost incidental, but as the epitome of how any form of serious discussion should be handled on the web. I hail the good ship and all who sail in her.
Anthony, you are the hostess with the mostest. /sarc/snort/
Thank you.
Good on ya and keep it up.
What everyone else said.
This blog is the gold standard. 🙂
As anyone who has tried to keep a ‘swan’ gliding smoothly through the water day after day knows, there is a heck of a lot of paddling and poop under the water. But what we see is awesome, and consistently so.
Love the pup pic. Is it now the WUWT mascot?
Extremely interesting post! It is so impressive to see how “the WUWT way” defeats more traditional ways. As I have said several times before, WUWT is writing mankind history showing how to defeat the falsehoods and lies that mainstream academia & media fed us for milleniums. I will look for funds to DONATE to this history making blog. I promise. Our freedom and prosperity depends on WE THE PEOPLE being able to debunk the lies and falsehoods by mainstream academia, media & bureaucracy.
TomT says:
February 2, 2011 at 7:53 pm
“I think that is a Welsh Corgi.”
No way, Shih Tzu or some bastardized version thereof.
Nope, looks like a Japanese Chin pup to me – although the mix of black with the red/white is very unusual. Here is a picture for comparison
http://batonrouge.ebayclassifieds.com/dogs-puppies/denham-springs/rare-japanese-chin-puppy/?ad=8056274
To Anthony and the moderators. This is one of the finest blogs online. Without your sterling efforts and infinite patience, hundreds of thousands of people would find every day that little bit poorer.
Thank you so much for what you do.
As a serial offender of rule 5, I shall endeavour to obey these rules far more strictly from now on.
First, thank you Anthony and moderators for a job well done. You are *very* much appreciated.
I completely disagree with this idea. While it is true that some long comments are not worth reading through, it is easy enough to scroll past it. However, the responses from many scientists and other knowledgeable contributors to some articles are often long, but extremely valuable. An arbitrary word cap would stifle the debate, not enhance it.
Frankly, I find the short sniping comments to be more distracting then the long comments. Those short remarks are almost always worthless to read. If we followed Willis’ great idea for rules 12 and 14, we could eliminate most of the one liner snide remarks.