Earlier this year I had mentioned that I had been blogging on Watts Up With That for over 10 years straight. Because of that I felt the need to take a sabbatical this summer, and I asked readers for some help in doing that. Many, many, people generously responded with offers of help, offers of visits and lodging, and many other things. I’m eternally grateful to all those who have stepped up to help to keep this website running during my absence, as well as those who made my rest and relaxation possible. We added a crop of new moderators who have kept comments flowing, and I thank you for what is essentially a thankless job. I want to give particular thanks to our own Charles the Moderator a.k.a. CTM, who has kept WUWT populated with stories while I took some much needed rest. I also want to give thanks to the many guest authors who have contributed stories and to our regular authors Eric Worrall and David Middleton who have regularly published stories here. If I’ve missed anyone, it’s not intentional.
Those of you that have been watching closely have noted that I have published a few stories this summer (when the mood struck me) as well as recently a series of stories for hurricanes Harvey and Irma, I also outlined the excellent adventure Charles and I had watching the total solar eclipse. I have to tell you that was truly the experience of a lifetime.
As of yesterday (Monday 10/2) I’m officially back and I feel good. I’m recharged and I have some fresh ideas that you’ll see taking place here on a regular basis. I also have a book in the works and another new project which I will outline at a future date that holds promise for putting climate modeling and climate modelers feet to the fire.Details on that will be forthcoming in a future post.
Amazon Deal: 44% off on Universal OBD II Scanner Car Engine Fault Code Reader
In the short term I’d like to ask our readers to take a moment to look at the sidebar and the advertisement for the Q-Lav. This is an invention marketing of our own Charles the moderator, and I’m running this ad as a favor to him in thanks for all he has done. If readers have a need for such a device I urge you to take a moment and purchase it. He also has a very special chocolate that prevents gastrointestinal distress for people that are sensitive to certain types of sugars. It’s called Crotter’s Best.
Some of the things that you’ll see in the coming weeks:
- Some site reorganization – for example some of the reference pages are getting a bit stale due to broken links, I will be working on those
- A new front page format – the current format does not keep stories front and center very long and as a result useful conversations often get pushed out of sight. A good example is the recent story on a random walk analysis of temperature data which has scrolled off the main page after just two days.
- In-line ads from Amazon.com – (an example is above) these will be fairly unobtrusive and will link to deals of the day and lightning deals, and of course things like Climate related Books. Dr. Roy Spencer’s recent success in publishing two eBooks on Climate and Hurricanes owe their success in no small part to WUWT readers. This is a no-additional-cost way for readers to support WUWT, as it nets small percentage of each Amazon purchase.
- Regular features will return – such as “quote of the week” and “climate craziness of the week” plus some new features.
- Comment submission improvement – some comments end up flagged that should not be, some tuning is needed to keep the flow going while weeding out junk comments or comments that violate site policy
Of course, I’m open to suggestions any of you might have for making WUWT better and more effective. Leave a comment if you have an idea.
Again, my sincere thanks to everyone for all of your help, let’s make the next 10 years is even better!
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ANTHONY ==> re comments streamlining and improvement. You might change permissions so that frequent trusted authors can edit comments on any post — thus allowing them to catch off-policy comments and spamming in real time that slips through the auto-checkers. Such authors could then “snip — violates WUWT policy — kh” with their initials, taking responsibility for their edit.
Sounds like a good idea. I’ll see if that permission level exists.
I personally do NOT want that right for my posts. I sometimes see rather crude language that makes me cringe. If I had that power, but did nothing, I would feel guilty that I was responsible for allowing those comments.
Werner ==> I do not understand your objection to the idea….if your are posting as an author you have edit rights to all comments on your post — you will see the little link “edit” to the right of each comments header line. You could, if you wished, edit content of those comments such as
bleepstrike through, [snip ] offending portions, or vanish the comments and leave an explanation as to why it was deleted.If you are being posted as a guest, you will not see “edit” next to each CommenterName Date Time heading to comments.
I only very rarely am forced to snip out part of a comment — and only do so when there are gross and blatant violations of WUWT policy. I ignore simple bad manners and ill-humor — but do not allow things like calling people Nazis or vague threats of violence against persons.
An occasional enforcement of the very clear policy to be collegial, civil, and constructive keeps the comment section cleaner and tends to weed out those who only wish to tear down others.
If you author here, you are responsible for the comments section under your post — responsible for your own civil interaction with commenters and in some small way, policing the comments. It is unfair to post and then expect someone else to handle the responses for you.
I understand where you are coming from. Personally, I find OMG offensive as I believe it takes the Lord’s name in vain. However most people would not bat an eye over this. If everyone could edit, we would have as many standards as editors. Either that, or let things pass that you do not feel right about.
Werner ==> I agree with you, even to the detail you mention …. however, I also apply Anthony’s standard of letting people be as they are, much as I would in public or while attending a public function. Even when offended by the sloppy and profane speech of others, I do not correct them in public — if the offense continues, I turn and walk away and speak with others. Only if another gets so far out of line that they have violated public norms might I speak out to correct them.
I’m sure you have your own way of coping with the lack of civility and the rising tide of profanity — it doesn’t mean we approve but, like supervising children on a playground, we only correct the worst of the behaviors.
I hope this helps.
Yes, that helps. However I am sure that if we are given these rights, the moderators will sometimes have to correct some of us for being too lenient or too strict.
Werner ==> As in all things, opinions will vary and we will all have to accept that each is doing his best to accomplish common goals.
True. If this goes through, I suppose Anthony will have to judge if our best is good enough.
Welcome back.
The Mods have done a great job following your recipe.
But, in my opinion, you’ve always been the spice that’s made WUWT more than just a recipe.
Welcome back Anthony.You have a fantastic site and I log on at least three times a day.
I did mention some years ago that I cannot understand the reasoning of leaving out punctuation in the header introductions. It’s often necessary to read the introduction several times to work out the correct meaning.
I notice the Daily Telegraph in England does the same thing, and I have yet to understand why.
Melvyn in Ecuador.
Melvyn in Ecuador ==> It is a “feature” (really, a bug) in the WordPress publishing system, and outside of Anthony’s control. I will report it to WordPress on my own account and see if their engineers can find a way to make it work the way we think it ought to.
I know. Why would I use this short infomercial from 2013 for an example of what the WUWT readers might click on? It ‘s not in their area of interest and they probably won’t buy it but they might be curious about it. Perfect for a world wide marketing test.
https://www.goodyeartrucktires.com/tires/technology/wide-base-technology.html
Goodyear Super-wide self-sealing truck tire.
Currently has 209 views.
Bit late to the party, lots have said it already but welcome back.
Welcome back Anthony from your many grateful fans in the UK. The boys did a great job of looking after the shop while you were away. Good luck with your plans for WUWT. We don’t seem to hear much from Bob Tisdale, Lord Christopher Moncton or the wonderful Willis these days. Trust they, and their beautiful brains, are still ticking over somewhere…
Welcome back from Greg in Houston!!
Glad you’re rested n feeling ‘frisky’, Anthony!
Long may you run!
Stills and Young Band: Long May You Run
https://youtu.be/dVM8_jAL86w
You did run true to form. You will bever be a sciebtisdt. Arno
At least I can spell “scientist” and quite frankly, given the rude comment you left with this that will remain unpublished, you’ll still be on moderation here for a very long time. Not the least worried about what you think about me, hot-head.
Welcome back, into the breach once more and all that…Tally Ho!
Welcome back, Anthony. I’m glad your time away allowed you to recharge and refresh.
Welcome back!
Welcome back, Anthony!
Great to have you back Anthony. Without the monumental work you have carried out for the last decade and more there would be a chasm of unfilled knowledge about the tripe purporting to be science. Armed with facts read from your blog I recently tried to have a conversation about the flawed computer modelled science of climate with a lecturer from a Carolinan university. Within fifteen minutes of him deflecting ad nauseum he started emotionalising on how we only have a few short years left to rate the planet for our grandchildren. It started out and ended being very cordial but he simply closed the conversation down when he knew i knew my facts and that i was respectfully not going to accept his deflections.
Truth fears no question. What was he so afraid of? :]
Welcome home, Anthony! It is good to have your good humor and insight back at WUWT. The moderators did a great job, but your special touch was missed.
Welcome back.
Anthony,
Like others, my continued best wishes to you and I look forward to the upgrades to WUWT. I usually cringe when you say upgrades but they always turn out well. Welcome back!
Charles did a magnificent job with everyone’s favorite web site! Interesting finds — he kept things moving and fresh.
And the guest bloggers held our interest and quenched our infinite thirst for all things brain-expanding.
Most of us are here I suspect because we love to learn and we learn from the posts and the comments as well. There’s nothing better!
Thanks to everyone for making WUWT the special place it is!
A warm welcome back from north of the 49th, we missed ya!
Anthony, you’ve helped each and every one of us.
When the world was irrationally waving their hands, predicting disaster after disaster without substantive evidence or rational explanations; you gave us a home.
An honorable, clean, organized home as reasonably swept clean of trolls, trollops, adolescent internet bullies, egocentric CAGW devotees, etc. as possible.
Truthfully, you kept published articles and following comments far cleaner than is possible in any other venue.
In spite of tremendous growth and international reach, you keep WUWT remarkably clean and sane.
As you’ve helped me and us, it was extremely easy to help you.
Let us know when you need another break, gear, trip to conference, whatever.
Side note:
While your replacements did not, can not replace Anthony at WUWT helm. Your replacements kept WUWT publishing, expanding and keeping us silly fans quite busy.
Their articles were not nor could be Anthony’s articles. That does not make any of the articles bad, just different; or in a few cases “tongue-in-cheek” or “half-baked”.
Those articles were/are enjoyed by us all! We did miss Anthony, “at the helm”.
Kudos to CTM, David Middleton, Eric Worrall, Willis, Kip, Andy and the rest of the writers for their efforts! May WUWT enjoy such wealth of moderators and authors for years to come!
Thank you Anthony, CTM, Eric, David, Willis et al!
Yes, welcome back Anthony. I think you put your foot in it ever so slightly
by saying you were back so soon! I have to agree with Janice: all those
who so ably supported the site in your absence just weren’t you. What was
missing was the atmospheric—I doubt it can be canned, at least I hope it
can’t—Essence of Anthony™
Now you are going to have to tell us a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l
about your vacation! Don’t be shy. (We aren’t. 🙂 ) Take as many articles
as you like, and spread them out a bit, pace them gently, but not too
much coz we wanna know! .
Thanks to everyone while you were on holiday.
We can all thank you for your excellent instincts throughout the spectacular growth of your blog.
So glad you took the time to step back for a good look from a distance. Clarity of the whole does not come easy when you are too close.
I watched the eclipse not far from where you did and I found that it gave gave me perspective and a sense of awe that few other things have. Perhaps it did this for you also.
It seems to me that great leaders know when to step Into the fray and when to let others do their best.
Best of luck to you and thank you.
Welcome home Mr. Watts!
You’ve built a sanctuary for free thinking and learning, a sheltered haven from the BS(bad science).
And if you think about it, even though you were away this site is still churning and alive, you’ve created a monster of a blog !
A award winning science blog.
An anomaly in the either net, something to be very proud of.
Relinquishing some of the daily duties from this experience means you can direct your attention towards more important endeavours with WUWT or other projects.
This monster can’t be killed!
All respect,
Lance A Lamont
I have enjoyed WUWT for several years now and the mods did an excellent job in your absence; welcome back! I am delighted you were able to enjoy the time away feel refreshed! I always look forward to catching up on what’s posted on WUWT!
Anthony, welcome back. You ask for
My suggestion to make WUWT better is that you come back on a PART-TIME basis. This pinche blog can swallow a man whole and not even burp.
We’ve proven that the blog can run without your participation. Surely it can run with you on a half-time basis.
My strong suggestion is that in your mind you FIRST set aside some goodly chunk of your non-working time, hopefully half, for your kids, your family, your other interests, your kids, your book, your friends, your kids, and all of the rest of your life.
Then devote the rest to WUWT. Whatever is left will be plenty.
Best regards to you and yours, glad to hear that you are doing so well,
w.
Welcome back Anthony. I say that here to second Willis’ recommendations.
Thanks Willis, well noted. I thought you had put to sea?
Anthony Watts October 4, 2017 at 8:34 am
Yeah, but the sea put me back …
w.
And after reading that, thank that fan belt for failing when it did!
Anthony Watts October 4, 2017 at 12:22 pm
Tru dat …
We were very fortunate all the way around. We were going to leave the evening before … in which case the fan belt would have gone about 2AM, darkness, strong wind gusting, Potato Patch … we’d have made it back in, but it would not have been a fun party the way this one was.
w.
CV joint could have fallen apart in a million places other than my driveway. Stroke near the hospital. Flat near the tire shop. Yeah, there is such a thing as luck.
Welcome back. I am a very frequent reader who reads lots but never felt the urge to contribute. My plea (not so much to Anthony as to the general readership) going forward is to have fewer and less polarizing comments pop up. It’s ok to agree to disagree!!
The balanced scientific debate we all cherish will not be achieved by divisive comments and caustic personal attacks. I would be happy to see these moderated out!
WUWT will not be taken fully seriously with ill-tempered and ill-timed shouting matches.
Keeping the moral high ground pays off, even when you feel your opponent does not.
Keep up the great work!
I agree. WUWT was more polite back in the day (2009), or even 2013. People didn’t fly off the handle as easily or as often then.
Reply: In 2009 I did 90% of the moderation and actually enforced my rules instead of just cringing as I read comments, as I do today. ~ctm
Moderators were quicker then to snip or suspend commenters. Their workload was lesser then, because the number of threads per week was much lower.