Yesterday we had an enlightening guest post by Ian Rons titled Further Down the “Bore Hole” which presented some comment data and graphs, along with some observations about that nature of RealClimate.org and the way they treat visitors and commenters. Ian pointed out something I didn’t know, and that is this:
“The Bore Hole”, which started on 6th January 2011 (the date being evident from the post_id of 6013 and the moderator’s response to the first comment, although they have since re-dated it 6th December 2004 for some reason)
So I decided to have a look myself to see if this was true or not. Here is what I found. Note the yellow highlights:
…and here is the first comment, actually labeled first by the inline response of the moderator:
Using the search feature on RealClimate for “Borehole” yields this:
So, it seems clear that RC set the starting date for the Borehole thread back to 6 December, 2004, which incidentally is close to the Dec 1 2004 start date for the RC blog. Why? One could speculate that maybe they were trying to give the impression of it always have been a feature to use as tool to ward off the stinging criticism of the way they treat any member of the public who might disagree with them. Or, maybe they planned to put older comments in there. But, since there are no comments in “The Borehole” prior to 6 Jan 2011, it can’t be about them trying to put older, previously approved comments they don’t like from years past in there. They’ve had six months to do that and none have appeared. It is as they say, a curiosity.
Dr. Gavin Schmidt, in his recent inline comment in Unforced Variations 2, says we here at WUWT want to make this a “giant ad hom argument” all about “personalities”. Well no, the post was about data analysis of comment ID’s and why so many just “disappear” at RC. It isn’t anecdotal (though scads of first hand accounts exist) RC’s own comments ID database suggests a systemic removal.
If Dr. Schmidt wants to focus on it being personal, then I say it is about whether we should be trusting scientists that have no reason whatsover to alter the start date of a feature, but actually did so for reasons that are unexplainable.
And I’ll point out that whether Gavin likes it or not, science has always been coupled to personalities; Aristotle, Pythagoras, Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Volta, Rutherford, Curie, Mendel, Darwin, Hertz, Pasteur, Bohr, Planck, Hawking, and Einstein, who had one of the most interesting personalities ever. Science doesn’t make itself known by suddenly appearing in the Ether. It makes itself known through the curious personalities of people. For us here at WUWT, we often wonder if curiosity is dead at NASA GISS and their web-portal, Real Climate, and has been replaced with dogma.
Sure, changing the date on “The Borehole” is a small thing of and by itself, but it reminds me of this well known saying:
He who is true in a little, is true in much; he who is false in small things, is false in great.
Dr. Schmidt is of course, welcome to present his blog comment ID data for evaluation here and explain why RC does the things we are curious about.
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Perhaps a typo near the end? “For us here at RC…” should that read “For us here at WUWT…”
Otherwise, a wonderful post. Quite interesting…
REPLY: Heh, trying to put myself in their shoes, went a bit too far, fixed. Thanks. – Anthony
Prolly something innocuous like the date that the “group@ur momisugly” pseudo was started or some such.
Even if it is some Machiavellian mischief, are we really interested when there is so much else, of greater import, to deal with?
REPLY: I checked, here’s a nearby “group” entry
So it isn’t that. It appears to be a manual edit. As I said it is a curiosity. – Anthony
If “One could speculate that maybe they were trying to give the impression of it always have been a feature” were an accurate speculation, why would they say “we will institute a thread for all the troll-like comments to be called the bore-hole” on a post dated Jan 2011?
REPLY: Because it appears to be a post facto date change
You must really be bored.
REPLY: No, just boreholed – Anthony
It’s possible he edited the date so the “Borehole” gets indexed on the first page in his control panel. Pages you keep coming back to are easier to access that way.
I don’t understand why you are making a song and dance about this. Gavin makes it perfectly clear when the post first went up.
REPLY: RC runs WordPress, so do I, so no that’s not it. The WP control panel doesn’t index like that. As I said, it’s a curiosity for which there appears no good reason. Following things for curiosity’s sake is exactly why I’m here today. Had I not started wondering about IR and paint, and checked some local weather stations for paint, we’d probably not know that 90% of the USHCN network doesn’t meet spec. – Anthony
In using the internet for more years than I want to think about I have always found one fact about websites very telling: the sites to which they provide links. It always seems that when sites have something to hide or don’t wish to discuss they will not link to other sites with contrary or dissenting views.
Thus you can look at ClimateAudit or WUWT and see links to RealClimate, Tamino, Stoat, etc. Got nothing to hide.
But at RealClimate you will not see any links to ClimateAudit, WUWT, Lucia’s, Lubos, etc. Makes you want to go hmmmmmmm.
OT. On June 8, WUWT posted “Heat burst hits Wichita:” by Ryan Maue.
There have just been 3 consecutive “heat bursts” in Wichita, KS between midnight and 1AM. This morning, Saturday 23rd, the maximum-minimum recorded at 1AM was 83F-63F, but there was a peak burst of 101F during this time. Also at this same early morning hour on Friday 22nd, 88F-64F with burst of 100F, and Thursday 21st, 86F-64F with burst of 102F.
We’ve now had many consecutive days over 100F. In the late afternoon the last two days reached 105F and 106F, and today is already 105F at 4PM. As far as I can tell, there were a few clouds at the time of these 1AM bursts, but no thunderstorms.
Clifford Stoll went investigating a $0.75 difference between the official records and a private record keeping program at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, and we all know where that led. Sometimes mere curiosity leads to the most amazing discoveries.
The worst thing about the Borehole is that is shoves the true newbie down there as well as actual “trolls” (as Gavin seems to consider those who persist in questioning his authority). Woe betide the poor neophyte who looks at the alarmists’ predictions and the actual measurements and asks “Why don’t these agree?”
Down the borehole with them. Heck of a way to convince the fence-sitters.
Anthony,
“He who is true in a little, is true in much; he who is false in small things, is false in great” first found itself in literature in the Bible, Luke 16:10.
Paul Westhaver, yet another…
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. False in one, false in all.
The Real Communist’s site don’t have much to show for even though they are literally funded by tax payers’s hard earned cash.
Ought not the tax payers get some value also when a bunch of self proclaimed communists’ spend that hard earnt cash?
Some of the commenters here seem to defend RC’s moderation, the borehole, and dates as being a statistical quirk or something we just don’t understand. I understand it well enough and I don’t need statistics or RC excuse makers to explain it.
Some years back I was deleted at RC simply for asking that something be explained in context to the current blog thread. There was no intent on my part to criticize or challenge. I was new to the discussion, concerned, curious, and wanted to know the answer. I even re-posted and asked what was wrong with the question that it got deleted? Deleted again! No snip, no nothing. [crickets chirping]
Thanks Real Climate for reaffirming for me that solid science answers questions. Agenda driven science avoids them. I can’t even remember the last time I visited RC or why but I’m sure that it wasn’t to ask questions and find answers. That’s what I come to WUWT for.
I had a question that I asked at Real Climate disappear. I am no scientist but I asked a simple and reasonable question. I never read that site again.
Now folks are saying that Real Climate is government funded. Is it? If so, how does that work?
“RC set the starting date for the Borehole thread back to 6 December, 2004, which incidentally is close to the Dec 1 2004 start date for the RC blog. ”
He had to because on the 7th day he rested.
The #1 post in a group at RC is about WUWT! I’ll pick that cheery, err, cherry and distort it just a little.
Do you ever know what your taking about?
Apparently there are some scientists are there who want to delete data that is a deviation off from their preconceptions. It reminds me of fudge factoring in high school labs. Does NASA fudge factor?
I worked as a weather observer for awhile. Collecting data for the weather records in Europe. Weather forecasters would routinely call me ask to to change my observation so that their forecasting goals and requirement could be met. That was just a minor pressure to alter the records.
“I have 100 scientists that say you are wrong”. “If I am wrong you only need one”
to paraphrase Aldof Hitler & Albert Einstein
Robb876 said:
July 23, 2011 at 3:41 pm
> Do you ever know what your taking about?
“your”
“taking”
LOL
huishi says:
July 23, 2011 at 3:11 pm
Exactly the same thing happened to me. It was at the beginning when I was trying to learn about the science (to have pro GW arguments lol), I asked a question I had no idea was “not allowed” and my comment was censored. That’s how I ended up here. Lots of answers and courteous people.
So, realclimate will now have a thread which is full of interesting and topical content? Excellent (and about time, too).
Will RC have an off-topic for the off-topic?
Just nit, but your list of “personalities” left out Sir Isaac’s nemesis and sparring partner (remember the unpleasantness over the parentage of the calculus?)
Heh, as the Instapundit woulld say
JamesS says:
July 23, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Clifford Stoll went investigating a $0.75 difference between the official records and a private record keeping program at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, and we all know where that led. Sometimes mere curiosity leads to the most amazing discoveries.
…
And then he wrote a book called “silicon snake oil”, and it ruined his reputation and his career, or something like that.
Dr. Gavin Schmidt, in his recent inline comment in Unforced Variations 2, says we here at WUWT want to make this a “giant ad hom argument” all about “personalities”.
I think you bit about science always being about personalities is unfortunate. It is, but that is generally to its detriment. People listened to what Einstein said long before they knew who he was. He was no better a scientist for being famous (and was famously blacklisted for his race in his homeland, which is worse).
But The Team can hardly complain about their personalities being dragged into things. They are famously talkative in public, often about things well out of their sphere of knowledge.
Gavin is a publicity whore and quite prepared to enter the realm of politics (policy making) rather than science. As such he should expect the crap dealt out to political figures – not go crying that he’s really only a simple scientist at heart.