In comments on Dr. Roy’s Facebook page about him turning comments off on his blog because he’s simply tired of dealing with sockpuppeting troll Douglas J. Cotton, there was this quote that I thought was very, very succinct and appropriate. It also applies to the climate debate in general.
“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” :- Alberto Brandolini
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/11485742.Alberto_Brandolini
Spencer replied:
That quote is a great description of what has been happening. Person #1 can put together a meaningless string of technical jargon. Person #2 can say, “that makes no sense at all!” Person #1 then says, “sorry you don’t know enough to understand it.” It just goes downhill from there..
Indeed, and the amount of energy expended by me and others is great. We walk a very fine line here, trying to balance giving a legitimate forum to open and honest people, while ferreting out and limiting people who simply want to disrupt the conversation via sockpuppetry. It is a lot of work. If I didn’t have volunteer moderators for WUWT, I probably would have gone the way of Spencer long ago. Since we routinely process a thousand or more comments a day here, many of which are from sockpuppeters and posers (you know who you are with special attention to K-man) It would certainly give me more time to research and write articles. It’s certainly less effort.
So, I thought it was time to ask the question:
Doug, don’t even try to comment here again.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
A blog’s owner has the right to turn off comments if desired, but I’m not sure if generalized irritation from a troll would cause me to turn them off.
Andrew
If you read my post that started all of this, it wasn’t my view of his comments, per se, that caused all of this. I was willing to live with his posts. It’s the collateral damage he causes.
Objectively speaking, is it actual damage or is it virtual ‘internet’ damage? I’m not trying to slight your position, I’m just trying to keep all of this real – which must be done vigilantly when touching the imaginary abyss that is climate science.
Andrew
I consider spreading misunderstanding in peoples’ minds as actual damage. I don’t know what virtual damage would look like.
“I consider spreading misunderstanding in peoples’ minds as actual damage”
A lot of the internet spreads misunderstanding, official climate science sources in particular.
I don’t want to accuse you of selective outrage, but…
Andrew
Add his (and other trolls) names to the RICO investigation that is being attempted against those who spread false info regarding climate change/AGW/globale weirding/etc. This might dissuade them.
Everyone knows that Roy is always curtious and takes time to discuss issues with all comers layman or not with out exception. Doug C has been rud and disruptive to Roy on many occasions Roy is a gentleman and deserve to be treated with respect.
Is this the idiot troll ??
His screen name “In_A_Nut_Shell” seems appropriate: multiple personalities, poor grasp of reality, difficulty in communication, meager understanding of subject, probably a Billy no mates, so wanders around the internet pretending to himself he’s important but is just a laughing stock.
Don’t feed trolls; Never engage with them (including mods); Mods should snip them when doing general housework (but don’t bother to go looking for them); this one certainly seems to have had something sniped out of his life.
Remember – Don’t feed trolls however sad they are.
Actually, I’m done tolerating “Abe” he’s violated his last WUWT policy with this comment and several others that followed it that went to the bit bucket – banned
The comments quite often help me understand the articles here so by all means keep them.
That swamp of sock puppets, loons and climate zealots is part of the price we pay for a free and open discussion. Cotton has forfeited the option to participate by going to the extremes he did to spread his manure.
The comments often have a helpful mix of additional details and corrections. You might consider turning off comments a certain time after publication — but that also makes it more difficult to later point out that new information has appeared.
Real names have assorted problems associated with their use.
Can WUWT be like Bishop Hill and JoNova, without the motion picture ad? It always bogs down my computer and then I have to restart the computer because it won’t scroll after a while.
Respectfully, that is a good indicator it is time to get a new computer or at least a good cleanout of the existing one. That shouldn’t happen.
Regards Ed
Yes, time for a new box. I have an old laptop I use just for web surfing and it has a real hard time with most “busy” or just newer websites. Certain development practices that would have been forbidden just a year or two ago due to performance issues are now okay: new libraries to render web “views” mix markup and scripting code, video rendering that just assumes a graphics co-processor (that my old laptop doesn’t have so it has to render video on its anemic dual-core processor) and other event handling and language processing that expects plenty of horsepower under the hood is the trend. Do yourself a favor and get even just a ‘newer’ box, doesn’t need to be the latest since it will have multiple cores, dedicated graphics processing and boat load of memory compared to the older computers. My new job will provide me with a spanky laptop that will allow me to replace my old Ubuntu powered Acer with a my MacBook Pro, so no more slide shows… nice.
iMac,
Couldn’t those problems be solved by a browser that didn’t accept the superfluous code?
I would gladly pay to have a browser that gave control over my web use to me, not to the suppliers of ads that I have no time for anyway.
Your comments would be appreciated.
Dr. Doug – yes, there are plug-ins that can arrest some of the more annoying additions: flash and ad blockers to name two. The problem that people will start to see as they bravely forge on with their old-faithful computer comes from a trend toward isomorphic web pages – ones that can either be rendered on a server or on the client (web browser). This is for several reasons going from allowing web crawlers to “see” what the web page might contain, to providing “richer” transition experience for the user in the browser with the tsunami of features, options and behaviors to mimic mobile devices or native applications. The later requires the dynamic generation of html on the client which until recently wasn’t too great until script engines were sufficiently optimized as well as the other performance options provided by newer computers – available RAM and solid state drives (SSDs) being two of the biggies – since IO was typically the bottleneck once processors acquired multiple cores and graphics co-processors. If one has the time to experiment and search for a browser that offers the most configuration and customization via 3rd party cleverness, you could probably squeeze more useful service life from the hardware on hand. If your budget rather demands that, then yes getting more hands-on with your device can yield, if not performance gains, certainly extended utility.
Just giving you all a heads up to this fro yesterday:
Environmental Bullies: How Conservation Ideologues Attack Scientists Who Don’t Agree With Them.
https://medium.com/@Tuna/environmental-bullies-how-conservation-ideologues-attack-scientists-who-don-t-agree-with-them-8b48e57385bd#.hr4zvp98p
I’d like to think that it’s not personal. I like to think it’s because an environmental writer needs to make a living and sell his books, any way he/she can. And needs to rack up awards for saving the planet, or the fish, or the sea turtles…
In science, there’s always disagreement among experts and well-respected, conscientious non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working on tough questions. We are used to that. And we work things out as a team using objective scientific methods and evidence. A good scientist should be ready to make mistakes, to be wrong sometimes, to be called out, or to miss something obvious that someone else runs with and gets credit for. Or to get lucky with research, to be in the right place at the right time – we experience it all. And woman scientists that make it all the way to professional positions most likely have already been hit on or harassed or received unfair treatment, because there are fewer of us. Women scientists know plenty of these stories. We receive training for that too, even though it rarely helps.
But I was not trained how to respond to environmental bullies. Or scientific fraud. How do you react to false, deceitful accusations from non-experts, from unethical individuals, from persons or NGO’s with books to sell, or a point of view to peddle to an unsuspecting public or community, or politicians. Points of view, that when challenged by facts and data, get in the way of fund-raising campaigns, messages to the media, book sales, rich donors, and perhaps the most insidious – attempts to influence US fisheries and ocean policies.
I voted no. The reason being is that many comments do contain very good information that would otherwise be missed. Don’t let a few bad apples ruin the bushel.
Anthony,
My 2¢: Don’t mess with success!
… there you go! Half way down the page before somebody said it.
of the options given – i voted Yes for shutting down comments – altho i think other nuanced options are available – eg – allow comments for a day – allow only technical responses (there go my posts 🙂
put up a “Looney Hall of Fame” with Cotten as 1st member – list his latest pseudonyms when discovered – if there isn’t an article analyzing his “ideas” – add one – the strategy of ignoring him doesn’t appear to be working – but keeping comments on the article open might keep him busy
Many sites have a “I am not a robot” to verify comments etc. Could you have an “I am not an idiot” button – that should confuse the buggers
good 1
I enjoy reading the comments most of the time. I don’t get fussed by some of the nonsense. Just thinking on the fly, one option, particularly if the software supports it, is for you, Anthony, to create your own list of “proven” users. You could then continue to show all comments, but have comments from those on your proven-user list show up in pale blue background or something. By “proven-user”, I don’t mean everyone who you have confirmed the identity of, but a much shorter list of those you are certain of their identity AND bona-fides, such as Dr. Curry, Bob Tisdale, etc. Just a thought. It avoids eliminating the comments, which I would see as a greater evil.
Regards,
I agree, PJ. I often learn more from comments than from the article itself. I prefer to retain commenting privileges myself, but I’d still follow this blog even if only a privileged few (Roy Spencer, RGB, Bob Tisdale, lsvalgaard, etc) were allowed to comment.
I don’t think WordPress gives that option.
Im happy to see the majority have voted no. We lose so much when we regulate the free exchange of ideas. Unfortunately sometimes that means you have to filter out the nonsense from what is meaningfull. I think most can see the difference for themselves. In the end I dont think they do themselves a service and staying above the fray distinguishes the valid points from the trash.
Make it easier to ban the trolls. I’ve never understood why it’s better to cave to the pressure they apply and ruin a great site/community. The free exchange of ideas needs to be preserved. Due to the nature of the anonymity of the internet, people can be badly behaved and never have to pay a price.
Register users or some other means to filter out the trolls. I’m not a web person so I don’t know all that’s available or what the problems are but surely it would be worth exploring to save the special conversation that goes on here despite the occasional or persistent idiot.
Jakee, we all bin here bifore. Google Eternal September and Usenet and *plonk*.
What works, is rapid dissemination of a known trolls new identity, and a one click way to simply hide all his/her posts.
Let people with axes to grind, grind them in a vacuum.
If someone else is revealed responding, say ‘oh is that well known troll still here: I haven’t seen him since I clicked on ‘hide all this trolls posts, forever”
Moderation doesn’t work. And neither does letting users report posts, because the trolls use that to suppress genuine comment.
By their comments yea shall know them — and we NEED to know them. Ignorance, now easier to identify than ever, needs to be labeled as such, out of hand, No need for tedious refutation. A teacher or publisher might simply reject a submission with ‘Check your facts’ or ‘Lacking attribution’ or ‘Doesn’t meet minimum Syntax Standards, thank you’. But the comments are invaluable for ‘context’ and understanding the characteristics of the readership.
I learn a lot from the comments, usually as much as I learn from the article itself.
if comments were shut off I most likely would lose interest in the site.
thats not a threat of ultimatum, please don’t take it as such, its just I find the comments usually very useful.
Absolutely do not eliminate comments.
The last thing the world needs is another SkepticalScience.
I think deciding if something is a ‘good’ choice depends on what criteria are selected to judge ‘good’, and from whom’s perspective.
I can’t speak to the headache that moderating comments must cause, except to say that I imagine it’s a big one. Perhaps from that perspective it’d be a good choice to shut down comments. Certainly it’d be easier.
As a reader who contributes virtually nothing, I’ll say that I enjoy the comments and often find the discussions more interesting than the headline post. From that perspective I’d say shutting down comments would be a mistake.
Just some thoughts. As always, thanks for running this blog! It’s much appreciated.
…from whose perspective. Sorry…
My original comment was a bit too wishy-washy. I’ve got a little more to say:
Why run WUWT? How do you view it? Is it a site for disseminating a particular / specific point of view, teaching something specific? I’d never thought so, but maybe I’ve got it wrong.
I realize now that I’ve always assumed WUWT was about discussion at the end of the day. Sometimes some moderately nutty stuff gets posted; I never thought that the point of these posts were to endorse their point of view, but rather to generate discussion about them. I think this is a substantial part of the value of this blog to readers.
Just my opinion though, and the longer I live the more I realize that I’m wrong more often than I think. 🙂
Thanks for the opportunity to comment on this.
In this instance – you are more right than you think and you HAVE contributed to the conversation. It IS, what this is all about, GK
People who comment sometimes become contributors. I discovered, after commenting on various posts, that there was lots more I wanted to talk about.
Eric, Your posts are case in point. I generally like the broader tone of your content and Anthony is wise to allow you to post. Often your posts enable ” a step back ” and an opportunity to reflect on broader implications of the AGW soup. Some, albeit important, data processing posts are narrow and tedious.
Since I see AGW as essentially a political/social issue that abuses science, Anthony seems to strike a good mix.
Thanks Paul :-).
I certainly feel Anthony’s pain. I’ve wasted many hours arguing with the heat transfer challenged. But, when I think of all the great comments over the years including some that were made into posts by Dr. Brown and others I can’t justify shutting off comments in my mind. I’ve certainly learned more because of the comments. And that’s what seperates WUWT from RC and their ilk, commenters are given a fair chance to make valid points and counter points and that difference has probably generated more skeptics than we’ll ever realize.
I wish I new a better way to deal with them, but I don’t. Sorry.
The one option several people have mentioned over the years, and one that I would dearly love to see is the “Ignore” button. Ignore this person; sweet, I never need to read their ramblings again.
Let the reader decide.
I’ve discovered over the years that the comments section is usually of far more interest than the article itself. The article makes a claim and a case for “whatever”, and the comments section pick it pieces or provide evidence of its truth. The comments section must be kept.
I’m no expert at anything, certainly not science. Sometimes I give accounts of personal observations related to a topic.Other times I make little quips in replies that serve no constructive purpose. I can see where those kinds of replies just adds work for the moderators. I will still visit daily, more like several times daily but I’ll try to refrain from attempts at humor.
Seven years ago, (Wow time flies), I was doing the majority of moderation on this site and it was a LOT of work, probably more than 40 hours/week at all hours for no pay. It drained me in psychological ways as well as in time and energy.
I can truly empathize with Anthony and Roy’s angst. I had the option of backing off after we recruited a bunch of volunteers from around the world and I have.
Another option to assist in keeping options open would be another round of moderator recruitment, but this new round of moderators would have a very tightly defined role, specifically to keep an eye out for sock puppets, repeat offenders, and crack pots.
These recruits may not even have moderator permissions in the beginning, but could be specifically tasked with emailing the existing moderator team and alerting them to the offending comments. I’m not sure how many active moderators are currently operating, but they would have the experience to step in and deal with the issue. The downside of this is the big brother aspect of tattle tales, but if we could tightly define what constitutes an issue worthy of alert, and then have these people notify the existing team, we may be able to reduce the strain on Anthony without being overly censorious.
It may also be time to expand the existing standard moderation team as attrition has likely reduced the numbers to the point where Anthony is being required to take a more active role. This has happened slowly over time, so Anthony may not realize it is the shrinking moderation team causing the increase in stress, and emotional drain, and not just the sock puppets and crack pots.
Just a few thoughts. I like open comments, but definitely see the downside.
Could I contribute just a few hours of my time a week, irregularly? No experience in moderation .. errr .. moderating.
Special thanks to Charles and all the other moderators and especially Anthony.
I know that I could not read the articles without commenting on them if I thought I had something to add or even correct. I mostly stick to things I have already spent a lot of time researching but every now and again, it might be something I don’t know much about.
I don’t know how to stop the Doug Cotton’s for example. Many commenters have a degree of compulsion that borders on an illness and only a qualified doctor or psychologist working one-on-one with the individual will be able to do that.
I vote comments continue. The price for voting that way means ihave to accept that there will be off-the-wall comments from some. Being a moderator is a different price of course.
Perhaps a comment limit of 3 or 4 comments per thread per poster would help. Doesn’t stop the sock-puppets but it makes them put in an extra effort that they might not want to do.
Bill: you have hit on something that really hasn’t been mentioned yet. There are a lot of unnecessary comments posted. Each commenter has a responsibility to assess what they have to say before posting. Some comments are predictable because some commenters bring their own personal turf wars and established animosities with others to the table. Person X says something and inevitably persons A, B, and C will throw ad homs and jabs that really add nothing to the discussion. Others carry on endlessly with personal conversations that are better put on email because they don’t relate to the topic. The mods have to go through all the posts. I don’t mind some humour, but some things really aren’t funny, or appropriate. A little judgement among the respondents could lessen the load on the mods. This is the best science site on the net- period!
There is a way to stop him since he gives himself away so quickly with his babbling. I helped expose him at one blog and myself banned the creep at Principia International when I was the administrator. I have since left that place as it is too loony for me to swallow.
Having been Moderator in WordPress and Joomla, based blogs I know that bad people can be corralled.
Every time he post, move it to moderation bin where it rots, no one sees them He starts another sockpuppet post the usual revealing comment, move it out of sight quickly. Rinse and repeat.
Maybe just assign one Moderator for him and other obvious sockpuppets,move the comments into Moderation bin where it dies a deserved death?
An anti sockpuppet Moderator?
I have never read a Doug Cotton post or comment to my knowledge. I don’t recall doing so. I also have no appreciation of the scope of Cotton’s impact. He must rotate his aliases I guess.
It seems to me that he has no visible impact on this site so are we anticipating a non-problem?
I feel for the moderators and maybe Cotton’s invisibility is a testament to their effectiveness.
Effectiveness, yes. Cotton comments and sends story submissions almost daily, under a wide variety of persona.
It’s been a long time since he posted as himself!
Equally, I’d like to volunteer to be a trainee moderator, hopefully to become a full-fledged moderator.
I appreciate the immense value this site has provided to the world. Even more so I appreciate the value it’s had for me. I’d like to repay some of the benefit I’ve gained, but I’m not in a financial situation to do so. Feel free to email me.
Charles TM,
Your suggestion sounds similar to other sites where there is a box to check if the comment is offensive or advertising spam. The readership could be entrusted with flagging trolls or sock puppets. After all, it is the readership that suffers if someone hijacks the post. If there were more than two or three flags, then the moderators could review the comment(s) and decide whether it deserves to be removed. Fundamentally I don’t like the idea of censorship, but if one or more individuals disrupt the function and purpose of a blog such as WUWT, then they have to go!
Please, Please, Please do Not do away with the comments. I have learned so much from the comments at WUWT. The knowledge of many of the people commenting here and the wide variety of disciplines they argue from has been very educational.
My thanks to the regulars here who have greatly increased my understanding of the AGW debate.
For the privilege of having a forum where our own opinions can be heard, all of us need to take responsibility for deconstructing and refuting BS arguments. I believe we do that to greater or lesser degrees though we should do better so Anthony does not have to sink time into dealing with ill-informed opinion and, in some cases, outright fabrications,.
I agree with andersm0. WUWT has always come across as reasonable and well-ordered, but as Charles the M points out, there is a huge cost.
Following up on Leif’s point above: “The trolls will flag good comments as crap…” Yes they will. They do this on Jo Nova’s site. Sometimes it seems they are half asleep and manage to thumbs-down other trolls, but often only stay for a short while. Short attention span or maybe following some paymaster’s policy?
I will often thumbs-up a comment that has been hit by trolls, and I can tell that others are doing the same.
dbstealey: “Don’t mess with success!” Too right. 265,479,711 views !!! Those of us who have been viewing WUWT for years need to think carefully about what prompted us to do so in the first place, and why we stay.
Registration for commenting might deter those new to skepticism. So-called “social” media logins may also deter. (I’m sort-of forced to have LinkedIn and Google – no way I’ll get involved in MyFace, InYaFace etc).
Requirement for scientific qualifications to comment? Heaven forbid. My “scientific” qualifications are slim but my professional and technical experience with regard to climate, and promoting resilience to climatic effects, is extensive. ” … climate goes in a thousand directions … ” ” … there are over 100 technical and scientific disciplines that are relevant to the study of climate … ” I did my own check on the latter – stopped counting when I got to 84. Remember that you don’t have to be a scientist or technician to know when you are being lied to.
O/T but the complaint about adverts comes up regularly, as above. Just use the uBlock Origin extension. It is easy to toggle, eg turn it off for WUWT and other sites you support, so they earn some money. Turn it on and refresh the page if something really distracting appears. God knows what weird function selects the adverts. They are not selected by the site owner. This session I got Brother printers (unsurprising as that is what I use) and some mob worrying about my sandbox? Oh I see, it’s threat-protection technology, not the place where next-door’s cat goes to …
there is a method for analyzing a writer’s word sequences. is this publicly available? it would be nice if Word Press or whatever made it part of their service, to guess who the commenter is. Or any assessment of the comment, as to whether is coherent english, but I would not want to preclude those for whom English is a second/third language
This is an enormously important point. I’ve had arguments with warmists who reflexively dismiss WUWT because it’s “run by a TV meteorologist, not even a climate scientist,” and it’s just a bunch of amateur cranks well out of the mainstream. But I can respond that not only are professional scientists and engineers well represented (as well as professional meteorologists), but many points of view, and that the Comments threads are open to anyone willing to discuss the issues with civility, including global-warming proponents.
Here’s a suggestion: Leave commenting open to all, but create a membership category of followers (we could call them Uppers, or something), for a modest fee, and give them an avatar badge or something. Then use the revenue to help pay site expenses, and also pay the moderators. If finding more is a problem, a little pay wouldn’t hurt.
/Mr Lynn
Sometimes some of the playful wit expressed in the comments is just what the Dr. ordered when reviewing the overall state of the dialogue around energy policy. While the “hard science” articles on the state of climate science are informative there is no question that the information is to inform national and international policies with respect to our economic approach to energy production and the future well being of citizens of first our respective nations and hence the planet. It is the interactive nature of Anthony’s blog and openness to ideas that makes it unique. Whenever anyone gets too strident about their point of view and continues to club the mule that won’t pay heed it is unsettling to witness. WUWT does a fantastic job of culling those events out of the thread and while I can appreciate how tiresome it may be for the moderators I think that is preferable to wholesale censorship or “super preferred” commenters. A “wiki fee” contribution to help compensate more moderators might make sense.
I have written several posts that Anthony has generously published. I am not a climate scientist, but I am a (retired) biomedical engineer and can appreciate much of what I read here. I continue to learn every day and a lot of that comes from the comments and the links.
My few postings were crafted, in no small part, to get comments. I wanted to inform in a few perhaps “underserved” but related areas and the real sense that some contribution was informative and revealing was provided in the comments. That’s what makes WUWT alive.
I’m slowly drafting a couple of new pieces for WUWT because of the interaction. I find myself digging into an odd topic for the specific purpose = “geez, wait ‘till they read this”!
Thanks for all the hard work. This place frequently makes my day and over time reminds me that I haven’t just gone batty.