Introspection is always a good thing, and with that in mind, the suggested topic today – what could we do better at WUWT? Some background first.
I get lots of requests to change things, do things differently, or if you listen to some people, just shut down altogether; because they simply can’t tolerate an opinion contrary to their own views that gets as much attention as WUWT does.
One of the great things (or not so great depending on your viewpoint) about running a successful enterprise like this is that it now has other blogs dedicated solely to taunting that success, much like Obama has invoked taunting more than half of the citizens of the United States who have a different view from him on climate change. I see such blog spawn ( I need to update that page as there are more now) as a measure of success; flak, target, and all that.
A few caveats about things I can’t change right now that I often get asked about:
1. I can’t offer comment editing post facto, to do that I either need to spend $500/month to use the WordPress Enterprise feature (which I tried on invitation and decided it was not worth the price tag) or run on a self-hosted server. Since I don’t have time to chase down script kiddies and bot attacks like Lucia does, staying on WordPress.com is the only real option.
2. I can’t do research for people. Every day I get emails asking me to do research for questions, or go to some blog/newspaper/magazine and offer commentary to counter somebody in comments. I simply don’t have the time, I’m sorry.
3. I can’t change what ads popup on WUWT. They are entirely controlled by wordpress.com. That said, they are also contextually based on your browsing behavior. If you are getting ads that you think you should not be, chances are you’ve been pigeonholed for some reason. Clearing your browser cache/cookies always helps. That said, there was a rogue advertiser this past week that attempted to do re-directs. Alert readers alerted me, and I alerted the wordpress management who booted the advertiser.
4. Climategate 3 file dump: lots of people have looked at it, searched it, and scoured the output – there was nothing new there of any value.
Now that I’m asking you to air your opinions and ideas about what we could do better at WUWT, I’m going to air mine about those of you who comment here.
What I’d like to see different about readers and commenters on WUWT:
1. Saying “off topic” and then posting an off topic comment doesn’t actually make it OK. We have Tips and Notes (see menu below the header) for that.
2. I’d like to see less cryptic comments (like from Mosher) and more in-depth comments.
3. I’d like less name calling. The temptation is great, and I myself sometimes fall victim to that temptation. I’ll do better to lead by example in any comments I make.
4. I’d like to see less trolling and more constructive commentary. One way to acheive that is to pay attention
5. I’d like to see more click-throughs on science articles. I note that articles that discuss papers sometimes don’t get as many click-throughs as articles that discuss the latest climate inanity. While such things can be entertaining, bear in mind it is important to keep up with the science too.
So, tell me, what could we do better, do different, add, or remove from WUWT?
Please be thoughtful and respectful in such comments.
Thanks for your consideration – Anthony
Like a lot of others an end to the name calling and save the sarcasm for the Friday Funny…..
Personally I would not give Christopher Monckton such prominence because of his style – I would ask him to tone down his language and simply keep to the facts – I think because he is a caricature of an upper class Brit people don’t see beyond that and the good stuff from what he writes is often lost – I think it unfortunate that the world is like this but he does like to play along like it was some public school jape – often I feel he does more harm than good by presenting himself as a spokesperson for those of us who don’t believe that man is pushing the climate beyond its natural cycles.
Gary Pearse, thanks for the feedback. You’re correct. There are important topics. I’ve added an “introduction to paleoclimatological data” to the Table of Contents for my upcoming book…
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/table-of-contents-of-book-in-the-works/
Thanks again.
Being right means nothing if we lose. Because of your dedicated efforts you have achieved the status of skeptic leader and “With great power comes great responsibility”! All of the leading skeptics and their websites are beacons of scientific truth and integrity but mostly unfunded, isolated, disjointed and uncoordinated when compared the green juggernaut of government, press, industry and Wall Street pushing this scam.
I would like to see you occasionally tap into the many logical, scientific and ethical minds who comment here and brainstorm about political action! What steps can people can take beyond being right in a blog/article comment section.
Honestly a vast majority of the population doesn’t know or understand even 1% of the information that is available about climate change and we will never convince most of them to spend the enormous amount of time it takes to figure out that the whole thing is the greatest scam in world history. All we have now is an uneasy uninformed public gradually turning away from this scam because of a plateau in the weather and some major mistakes by the climate change scam artists. Eventually we WILL have another very hot summer or a major hurricane and the green juggernaut will quickly seize the advantage once again and our fickle public will read the screaming headlines and drift back into believing and supporting the scam once again. Only this time the liars and thieves are close enough to victory with the Obama/EPA fanatics in power that they will probably win and we will watch the global suffering, chaos and death that will result from carbon markets infecting and destroying what’s left of the global economy…and the UN will finally possess the political Holy Grail; unelected, unaccountable, unlimited, uninterruptible funding.
We need to strike now while the enemy is weak! “Unite the clans”! (Braveheart reference…couldn’t resist!) We need a skeptics strategy for final victory and that means getting involved beyond winning insignificant personal debates.
I get email every week from OFA, WWF, EDF…etc. and the rest of the green syndicate. They are unified in their message and continuing to rake in the funds and energize their base into political action. They have a long-term winning strategy and we need one ASAP but it must begin with the skeptic leaders because there is nobody else positioned to lead.
My personal strategy idea; all skeptics and the blogs/websites that they run should unite on the debate topic. Even the uninformed masses can understand the simplicity of victory when the skeptics want to debate and the warmists run and hide. The fact that skeptics win every debate is just a bonus and every debate that we skeptics view will make us more informed and stronger for our own debates. If we had a chorus of every skeptic screaming on every website, every microphone, signs at every political gathering, letters and phone calls to elected representatives about debate, debate, debate…we will be pushing the warmists into a no win situation.
Debate…they lose.
Don’t debate…they lose.
It’s a winning strategy.
My 2 cents.
dbstealey,
Who is Steven Mosher?
Apparently someone who claims on his resume that he has a PhD in English.
I second TonyB’s suggestion of developing a section of reviewed high quality posts. Many of the components already exist here, and the review that ideas are subject to here is far more exacting than the typical periodical’s review. It would be useful if such a section were open to writings of both skeptics and warmists. MacIntyre, Curry, JoNova, and others also offer some serious contributions from time to time, so there may be ways to cooperate on something like this.
And, by the way, for those who would like to see numbered comments, note that Tony’s comment is actually numbered as follows:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/15/open-thread-what-could-we-do-better/#comment-1663114
The number is embedded in the date that accompanies each comment, as in, for example:
>>climatereason says:
>>June 16, 2014 at 1:29 am
Perhaps it is possible to offer a way for the reader so inclined to toggle visible comment numbers.
Poptech says:
June 16, 2014 at 6:56 am
Who is Steven Mosher?
Apparently someone who claims on his resume that he has a PhD in English.
_____
One of the very attractive features of WUWT is that it employs minimal censorship, allowing critics a fair chance to make their points. But I wouldn’t complain if the blog simply deleted comments that contain nothing but an ad hominem.
BTW, poptech’s remark might not technically qualify as an ad hominem, since it doesn’t attempt to make a substantive point.
REPLY: More than ad hominem, Poptech’s post is about spite over being asked to stop thread bombing WUWT over his dislike of Mosher. I warned him at the time that such things may backfire. One of the downsides is that I’m not going to let him continue to threadbomb here. If Mosher makes a claim that is relevant to Poptech’s attack piece, then sure, it will be allowed. But the pattern where he posts some rant about Mosher ever time there is a comment by him or somebody mentions his name will most certainly immediately go to the bit bucket. I’m not protecting Mosher, quite the contrary. I’m protecting WUWT from being hijacked by a food fight. – Anthony
Just one suggestion: On the Sea Ice Page, the graphic for the current ice coverage is compared to the same date in 2007. This was created when 2007 was the lowest extent ever. Now it’s 2012. Please change the 2007 date to 2012. Why compare to the second-lowest extent ever?
And a comment regarding Freerepublic.com and their comment threading advocated by another poster: While the comment threading they use is quite helpful and functional, please don’t adopt any of their other practices. The comments on Free Republic have degenerated over the years to the point that they are nearly worthless, although the site itself is a good source for web articles that have a conservative bent. Your moderators are to be congratulated, as I believe that they, along with your insistence on good standards, are the key to maintaining a useful comment system.
Eric Simpson says:
June 15, 2014 at 11:13 pm
I still Like Likes.
It’s real nice to get a bunch Likes for your comment, and it provides feedback, and may give you a better sense of what could be effective as far as arguments and so forth.
Why not try it but just eliminate Dislikes? I think that was the main objection before, that people disliked getting Dislikes. But everybody likes getting Likes.
I’m not sure why Anthony doesn’t use them, but my observation has been that “Likes” generate an inordinate amount of inane comments, many of which would keep the moderators here busy snipping. Yes, some people like getting them, but they soon find that there’s an easy way to get them, usually by picking on someone who’s in disfavor at the moment (President Obama comes to mind for some reason) so that’s what they do, i.e., take the easy route to getting them.
“Likes” are the seeds of destruction of an effective comment section, or of a serious one anyway.
Steven Mosher says:
June 15, 2014 at 10:58 pm
“err no. go back to square one.”
What you probably meant to say at square one is not what you said.
Perhaps an illustration of your other point that curious people have lapses into laziness.
Supercilious sniping seldom staunches the stream of silly statements.
James
Thanks for your support. There is potentially a lot of good material here which could be brought to other audiences but they need quality checking first.
tonyb
Translation: commentators here are too stupid for him because he is such a “genius” and people need to stop disagreeing with his position on climate change or he will go where the luke warmer echo chamber is.
I love the over-inflation of Leif’s importance simply because he agrees with him on climate change.
Gunga Din says:
June 15, 2014 at 7:51 pm
“Check out http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html on the sidebar.
It’s also a good way see if additional comments have been made to an older post you are interested in.”
Thank you – that’s a helpful link.
Perhaps it makes no sense and there may be no benefit as I see it but I wish WUWT would occasionally (more often) critique some of the random alarmist’s pieces in our newspapers.
The authors and commenters would then get the hefty dose of reality they deserve and give the regular folks some better understanding of the dubious nature of the climate team.
Here’s are a couple of recent examples. One from a state climatologist and another by other officials.
http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/climate-scientist-describes-hotter-drier-oregon/article_3c8f4d90-e220-11e3-b306-001a4bcf887a.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/06/now_is_the_time_for_aggressive.html
David Riser says:
June 15, 2014 at 9:21 pm
David, thanks for your opinion. Thanks also for offering me advice on how to use a tablet. Perhaps my initial comments about using find on tablets vs PC were not clear enough for you, although I’m aware that others understood my point. However, to be clear,I know full well how to use the menus in a tablet and how to ‘find in page’ etc. (Top right on my Nexus) And I had already explained that that was what I have been doing; it’s just that a fully designed system would enable this facility to the user in a far simpler manner. That is WordPress’s failure though, not Anthony’s.
***
I can’t offer comment editing post facto, to do that I either need to spend $500/month to use the WordPress Enterprise feature (which I tried on invitation and decided it was not worth the price tag) or run on a self-hosted server.
***
$6000 a yr?!? Yes, you were right — not worth it. Maybe $60 a yr would be…
Can WordPress put a simple number on each reply? Could simplify referencing — ex: reply to comment #x (yeah, I know there’s other copy link/paste ways to do that)
Don’t allow Viscount Monckton to drag his faith and his personal politics into his discussions. They are an annoyance and a complete distraction, that promotes nothing but discord and division. (Like unessesarily bad-mouthing the US on a US-based blog.)
And yes, you might say i have been as bad as Monckton on occasions, but only in defense of rationality. I am not going to let Monckton’s ignorance and bias get traction, merely to keep the peace. Let him stick to the science, and nothing but the science.
.
Otherwise, can I say that without WUWT, scientific rationality would have been dealt a mortal blow. And we would have been all the poorer, not simply in the financial sense in terms of increased taxes, but also in the moral and rational sense too. We cannot allow science to be taken over by the political or the irrational.
And finally, it is a while since i have left a tip in the tip-jar, a lapse that I will rectify tomorrow. Many thanks for all your hard work, Anthony, and may you eventually achieve some sort of recognition for all your hard and mostly unrewarding work.
Ralph
Steven Mosher says:
June 15, 2014 at 10:58 pm
For grins, do a test,
Search out every Steven Mosher post,
Categorize the responses. See what you come up with.
@ur momisugly Harry Passfield: Like you, … been there, … done that. I have designed, programmed and installed … more in-house “user applications” than you can “shake a stick at”. Said “apps” were for a mini-computer w/keyboard, 4” crt, cassette tape drives, etc., which we were manufacturing at the time, …. and which was like 10 years before a PC ever hit the market.
I use to tell the System Programmers that were creating Customer Application Software that …. “just because that software is “user friendly” to you, …. because you designed it and worked with it, …. doesn’t mean it is going to be “user friendly” to the customer or their employees”.
I now have a Dell PC just for my own entertainment but no Cell-phone or any other gadgets … and I don’t want to learn any “special” key-combo functions.
If you don’t know your “user” base then you best adhere to the “KISS” principle.
Richardscourtney:
I refer to your post at 14:23am – and as on the previous occasion when we corresponded, I note that you again first raised this whole issue upthread, in the unpleasant assertion (“anonymous cowards”) contained in your post at 3:57 pm.
The true issue, as to whether I am “an anonymous person [making] a derogatory personal remark from behind the shield of anonymity” as you suggest, is whether my remarks are legally and/or factually correct or incorrect. If they are correct it does not matter at all whether I choose to remain anonymous – truth is absolute, no matter who might state it.
And the proper issue here is not what you or I might or might not consider Lord Monckton to be, but what the law of the United Kingdom says he is. You now having raised this I would draw your attention to the letter by the Clerk to the Parliaments (the parliamentary officer with responsibility under the 1999 Act to determine whether a hereditary peer is excepted from the Act, and whose certificate under the Act is conclusive) addressed to Lord Monckton, as here:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-monckton/
and to the case of Baron Mereworth v. Ministry of Justice (referred to at the above link) and reported, for example, as here:
http://cases.iclr.co.uk/nxt/gateway.dll/WLR%20Dailies/WLRD%202011/wlrd2011-217?f=templates&fn=document-frame.htm&vid=PoC:Sum
You will see that it was judicially held in Mereworth that reference to “a member of the House of Lords” was reference “to the right to sit and vote in that House”, which I understand even Lord Monckton himself accepts he does not have. Lord Monckton of course is and remains a hereditary peer entitled to all the dignities of that title, but it follows that under Mereworth he has never to date been a member of the House and all UK legislation has therefore to date validly been enacted without input from or participation by him – rather an important issue to citizens of the UK, one might think.
Having now cited these authorities, would you please point out where you consider I have erred in law?
TimC:
re your long-winded blather at June 16, 2014 at 10:13 am.
I am not a lawyer so I have no intention of attempting to discuss legal questions posed by an anonymous and cowardly troll especially when those questions are egregious and insulting to an absent third party.
Richard
As a direct response to the question, there are a few options that I think WUWT could aim for that would be very pertinent. Not all of which would per se drive traffic but instead drive the evolution of skeptical arguments
the first suggestion I would make would be a debunking the debunkers page. SKS has a wonderful design that allows them to post pieces debunking specific skeptic claims. Unfortunately for anyone who has ever tried to read them they are filled with logical fallacies(for ex. countering the skeptics position that global emissions policies hurts the poor and middle class, with a statement regarding the consequences of global warming impacting the poor the most. This is a strawman) . I think creating a similar page separate from the blog would allow for an appropriate and useful deconstruction of their group-think.
The second suggestion I would offer would be an offshoot journal style E-publication. Such a publication should publish both the accepted and rejected manuscripts as well as reviewers comments as to why, publicly for maximum transparency. Allowing for the public to review publications at later dates and submit corrections or disqualifications. mandates that all associated data must be submitted with publication for replication would also help in this regard.You can impose much more strict limitations and requirements so that papers that utilize statistics must include 1-2 reviewers who are statisticians, or papers focused on chemistry require chemists, more specifically reviews require some experts outside of their field to review their work. There are enough people who read this blog that have the skills to peer review and many others which do this kind of work pro bono, Offering the reviewers a share of ad revenue in lieu traditional payments wont be as lucrative but it would be a great start to repairing the damage to scientific integrity.
Anthony.
When posting using WordPress my biggest problem is this message:-
“Sorry, this comment could not be posted.”
I have tried many suggested solutions, such as clear the Firefox cache, but nothing really fixes the problem long term.
The House of Lords is a voted on group of Lords who represent the larger peerage, who are also themselves titled with Lord. Only the elected Lords from this group can vote on UK legislation. The claim to an existing hereditary peerage which bestows the title of Lord is regulated by the House of Lords through its Committee for Privileges and Conduct.
Feel free to nix my last comment.
I think leighhaugen is suggesting that skeptics somehow coordinate and unify their public message. I’m not sure how or whether this could be done. But he mentions debates, so I’ll take the liberty of reminding others of my suggestion for periodic debates on contentious topics, here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/15/open-thread-what-could-we-do-better/#comment-1662974
Putting up pro and con debate posts, plus rebuttals, could greatly focus readers on the key issues.
/Mr Lynn