Recently, this blog passed a few milestones that I thought would be worth sharing with readers. For all of our critics and the vitriol all they throw our way, I challenge any of them to find a climate related blog that even comes close to the level of readership we enjoy here. We recently passed 300 million views and 2 million approved comments (more on that later).Here are screen grabs from the WUWT dashboard showing the numbers:
We also recently passed 40,000 email subscribers.
Given these events, I thought it might be time to refresh some of our readers on the most contentious part of operating this blog and that is the comments section. One of the downsides of being number one is that you’re also the biggest target. And being the biggest target we have a plethora of “anonymous cowards” who try to post comments here that are either wildly off-topic, inappropriate, angry, hateful, or otherwise uncivil. Some of the serial offenders use fake IDs, fake e-mail addresses, and even fake IP addresses to try to get their unwelcome point of view or hate-mongering across.
Because of that I’ve had to implement a strong filter to catch a lot of these people so that such inappropriate comments are not published. Occasionally some get through but fortunately readers tend to point them out and they get deleted by moderators or myself because they don’t adhere to site policy. This would be a good opportunity for all readers to review the site policy which you can view here.
Some of our critics say that we should allow for some of the other points of view to be discussed here such as barycentrism, atmospheric pressure theories, chemtrails, electric universe, geo-engineering theories, etc. etc. etc. In the earlier days we did some of that, and quite frankly a lot of that stuff proved to be nothing more than nonsense, and turned into food fights in the comment section. Been there, done that, not going to do it again. There are other venues and blogs to discuss those things, feel free to go there but don’t ask for them to be discussed here or make comments about those topics. They will be deleted. I don’t allow those topics here for the same reason I don’t share my home with a honey-badger; it’s not productive, it’s noisy, and somebody gets hurt in the end. And like a honey-badger meme, I just don’t care. 😉
For those of you that have wondered why some comments may disappear that contain what you seem to think are very innocuous words, this is the reason; some of the most persistent fake commenters use particular word combinations or phrases that are part of their writing style that we have identified, and sometimes regular commenters fall into that trap accidentally. Bear in mind that each comment is reviewed and if it meets the site policy it will be published. Occasionally there are some comments that may not fit into the categories defined by the site policy but don’t get published. That’s why we have a clause for “on an event basis” to cover such instances. There’s no need to e-mail us to say my comment disappeared! We will find it and recover it if it meets site policy, if you don’t see it after a few hours, you can consider it out of bound for site policy.
There is also no need to keep posting the same identical comment dozens of times hoping that if you just keep trying it will somehow get through. All that does is just create extra work for the moderation staff to clean out duplicate comments. Speaking of extra work, we cannot move comments between threads if you somehow accidentally commented on the wrong thread, and generally we don’t have time to edit people’s comments when they request such things. It would be better if you would just post a new comment directly below it saying the previous comment had an error and fix it, or just simply repost the appropriate comment in the appropriate thread.
Some of our critics say that we should publish all comments because otherwise we’re engaging in censorship. To that I say, bollocks. We wouldn’t have reached 2 million comments in my opinion if this blog allowed a Wild West policy for commentators, and I think the success speaks for itself in the numbers. I challenge any other blog that covers climate to show me their numbers.
I’d also like to make a note about e-mail subscribers. We don’t have a management tool for e-mail subscribers because the entire system is run by WordPress.com and it is designed to be self maintaining by the end-user. Therefore if you want to unsubscribe you have to do that yourself. Each e-mail that comes from each blog post contains a link that will allow you to unsubscribe if you look carefully.
Finally, I’d like to mention that occasionally some of the ads here cause some readers problems due to the ads injecting inappropriate code or badly formed code. Over the past year I have worked very closely with WordPress.com to help them weed out some of the advertisers that have done stupid things with their ads like injecting code that causes the scrolling the jump right back to the ad every 5 seconds. Largely as a result of complaints from our readers about these problems and due to the efforts I put into troubleshooting and relaying the information to WordPress.com staff, I’m happy to announce that about two months ago they implemented a “predatory code filter” that weeds out these kinds of advertiser tricks. I’m happy to report that since this has been done the number of complaints I received has dropped to near zero.
That said, I still occasionally get complaints from readers about pages being slow or pages not loading completely, etc. a lot of this has to do with browsers and the state of the computer hosting their web browser. I have noted a common theme in many complaints like this which is: fear of upgrade. The Internet is an evolving animal and if you don’t keep your web browser updated and most importantly your computer updated you may find that you get left behind at the back of the herd. For those that are interested, I consider the best browser for viewing this website is Chrome with at least 4 GB of memory and processor that’s running at least 1.5 GHz. About two years ago Firefox was my browser of choice but it had become buggy and unstable and I abandoned it. If you are still using Firefox you might want to consider downloading Chrome for a better experience.
As always, I thank you the reader for making the success of WUWT possible. I also thank the many moderators and guest contributors that keep this blog running smoothly and make the wide variety of content available here.
My best regards to all – Anthony Watts
[note: about 10 minutes after publication, a number of typos were corrected that came from voice recognition dictation imperfections]
Congratulations, Anthony!
And many thanks to you, your contributors, and especially the moderators.
Anthony,
You are a hero in the same class at Curry, Spencer, Ball, Lindzen, and Australia’s own Carter, Paltridge and Plimer.. Keep up the good work! and thanks again.
Pat
Good job.
I usually have no problems when using Chrome but an occasional post does seem to use up a lot more CPU time than most sites with only a few adverts, which causes the computer to slow markedly.
Thank you so much Anthony. An avid reader of this blog for the past 8 years or so. Even though I do not understand some of the posts, especially the ones with that math or chemistry stuff, it is still fascinating to read. Please keep up the good work. Just flung some coin for your next trip.
Good job, Anthony and crew. Thank you.
Congratulations Anthony, well done. It seems more like twenty years of WUWT as there is so much packed into each day’s posting. Thank you for a running great site.
Wish I had time to read all the posts and comment threads, but—alas!—the creek has become a mighty river. Still, I try to take a dip every day. Many thanks to you and the moderators for maintaining such a high level of civil discourse; I often cite your moderation strategy as an example of blogging done right.
One day I’d like to see a Reference Page devoted to The Basics of Skeptical Climatology, to which one could refer laymen who want a succinct explanation of the problems with the CAGW position and how to counter the smug assertions of its proponents. I refer people to WUWT, but fear they will be overwhelmed by its often-technical content and deterred by its appeal to an in-group of readers and contributors.
Re computers, I have no problems with WUWT on my 2009 iMac running OS X 10.9.5 and Safari 9.1.3. Runs just fine!
/Mr Lynn
I have expressed my heartfelt gratitude many times over these many years reading and enjoying articles and comments alike . What you may recognize as a trend, lol. All the best, Anthony!!
The AGW debate is going to get very interesting very soon.
Best site on the Information Superhighway…oops I’m dating myself. I rarely miss a post, and sometimes I just spend too much time here (and don’t get my “work” done).
But thanks so much Anthony, the moderators, Willis, and all the other posters.
I spread a lot of this information around on my social media, But I’m sad to say that most of my social media friends seem to be on the AGW side.
I find no problem with using Firefox, but I do have Chrome just in case.
I have learned much from reading this site, and from all the links provided.
Muchas gracias from the Baja, Mexico…
Megadittoes.
Some of our critics say that we should publish all comments because otherwise we’re engaging in censorship. To that I say, bollocks.
With vocabulary like that you sound like an Englishman!
But seriously – you take a lot of stress so that we don’t have to, and tolerate our intemperate outbursts with patience, showing a light yet effective touch in moderation. We hugely appreciate all you do to give the world one of its best blogs!
Judith Curry and Roy Spencer allow (IMHO) far too many comments that deserve to be deleted from commenters that deserve to be banned.
One of the great accomplishments at WUWT is that Anthony and the moderators seem to have found the sweet spot of moderation. That is just as important as the content because it has encouraged people to stay here and learn.
RW, agee. I guest post more at Judith’s than here for tactical reasons. She does her own moderation, which becomes quite problematic at times. Kudos to all moderators here. The ballpark difference between AA and the Major League show. And that is no disrespect to Judith’s blog.
Perhaps someone should suggest to Judith she recruits helpers for moderation? And Roy also.
I’m sure there would be plenty of suitable volunteers.
(Not to pull any away from WUWT of course!)
Congratulations Anthony. You are doing the world a great service.
Hear! Hear! Paul!!
The original comment was:
“For all of our critics and the vitriol all they throw our way, I challenge any of them to find a climate related blog that even comes close to the level of readership we enjoy here.”
WUWT has, it seems, encouraged and accommodated all(?) sub-sectors of the vast embrace of “Climate Change Studies”. Where else, pray, can one find such a repository of critiques of the Received Wisdom according to the Apostles of Global Warming, challenges, alternative critical thinking, and the acceptance of alternative theories — hitherto disregarded by the Apostles — that are relevant to the greater understnading (and ever-growing) multifaceted Study of Earth’s Climate?
WUWT has truly been a Life-raft of Excellence in a sea of inadequately & unprofessionally conducted Science (according to proper ‘Scientific Principles’)…. perhaps deliberately corrupted by practitioners with a vested interested in results skewed to the furtherance of their careers & pocket-books.
Without WUWT (and fellow bold brethren … let’s hear it for them too!), who else would have been there to hold the feet of the Charlatans ‘to the fire’?
To repeat Paul:
“You are doing the world a great service.”
Keep up the good work, gang!
On my go to list every day, well every couple of hours actually.
I use Chrome, but if I don’t stop loading the page by clicking that (X) up there in the corner it will crash.
Sometimes my posts don’t post. I tried to link to Peter Sinclair’s “Climate Crock of the week” to illustrate a point. I gave up and said “Google it” and my post appeared. I guess he’s verboten.
May I add that this is the best “Earth Blog” on Earth.
Was gonna draft something original but then saw Paul Beckwith’s “Congratulations Anthony. You are doing the world a great service.” I second that!
Congratulations Anthony & mods & others who help with this great blog.
I learned a lot here and many comments from readers with tips and links inspired me to learn even more.
The best compliment I can give is I am happy with the many hours of sleep I missed because I just could not stop reading on and on…
Bravo Anthony, Thank You for all the hard work , for the integrity, for the courage, for the willingness to share your knoledge !!! Hourray to you !
Thank’s to all of the contributors of the site for your insight and always interesting articles.
Thank’s to all of the commentators, trolls inculded. Reading the conversations sharpens my mind – I’m a better sceptic, scientific, than before I discovered this site. My bullshit-o-meter is much better calibrated than ever before.
I don’t use the email subscription service, but I do follow WUWT on Twitter. Now I know that a lot of people have a rather low opinion of Twitter, and for the most part I agree. I don’t tweet, but I’ve found Twitter to be useful as a news-ticker of sorts. I follow a handful of news and info sources, including WUWT. So when a tweet from WUWT appears with a link to the latest article, I can read it right away if I have a moment.
As for Firefox, I haven’t had any issues of note with the WUWT site. I think it helps if you keep the add-ons to an absolute minimum.
Thank you for continuing to fight the good fight!
Anthony, congratulations on reaching another milestone. Your website is indeed an incredible success. My hope is that it is producing enough income to reward you properly for this accomplishment. It feel like a MS level student when I read the articles and comments. I feel as though all of we daily readers should be invited to our graduation ceremony soon. But, I will not stop my daily studies here in this lifetime.
Happy Birthday ! After lurking around several climate blogs for a year or so I have settled on 2 which I look at most days, this one and Dr.Curry’s Climate etc. I have recently started commenting here and , yes, have already had a comment disappear. Not moaning – it’s a learning curve, but whether the workings of WordPress and moderator action are more or less difficult to fathom than atmospheric physics is, as yet, undecided (need more data).
Anthony’s work here speaks for itself, and the site stats are mega impressive but I cannot help wondering what it has actually achieved in it’s 10 years. Is some kind of survey in order to see how many percentage points the 97% consensus has been reduced ? My initial straw poll would seem to suggest -3% (with a 95% certainty) but according to my model we should be seeing something like -9% owing to consensus forcing.
Congratulations Anthony!!
Great job. Thanks so much for your leadership and courage in bringing the real story and understanding of climate science into view and for exposing the world of dishonesty, deceitfulness. deception and out right lies driven by the politics of climate alarmism.
My you and your team have 10 more years of success.
For 64-bit Windoze users (v 7, 8, 10…), there are 64 bit browsers available. The difference between 32-bit and 64-bit browsers is that 32 bit programs are limited to using a 4GB address space, while 64 bit programs are limited to what the operating system supports. In browser world, this relates directly to the amount of concurrent TABS you can open, as well as the size of the code the web page is trying to stuff into the browser. This does not necessarily lead to a performance increase.There are 64-bit browsers available for pretty much all browsers out there, but they are not usually offered as a default because many users still have only 4GB of memory.
In the free market of ideas I think Anthony’s forum is a leader.
The effort is an honor to all involved; owner, moderators, contributors & commenters alike.
John
WUWT is the best climate/science discussion group on the internet.