Talk:RealClimate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article was nominated for deletion on 28/11/2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents 1 Involvement 2 Some posts... 3 CA 4 Biased 5 verifiable proof

[edit] Involvement

I understood that we were not to create articles about organizations of which we are part. --Wtshymanski 05:58, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 09:02, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)) I don't think there is any such hard ban: what precisely are you referring to? Also, I've removed the attention tag, which doesn't seem to be justified: its a stub, but no more in need of attention than many another stub.

WMC pushing his pet Blog here ... tsk, tsk, tsk. J. D. Redding 15:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

And you're stalking, which is rather frowned on. Has the arbcomm taught you nothing? William M. Connolley 16:11, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Hypocrisy WMC is rather frowned on too (don't stalk if you don't want to be stalked).

Anyhoo ... I'm not stalking ... I am reviewing edits ... are you paranoid? guilty conscious?

now ... why are you pushing your blog, cutting out relevant info about your co-bloggers and subjects you don't like, and editing in a POV fashion? Nothing unusual since my earlier interaction with you but I thought I'd ask. J. D. Redding 11:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some posts...

WMC, my concern about that list basically is aligned with the spirit of Wikipedia:Autobiography and Wikipedia:Avoid self-reference. The first discourages people from writing about themselves or organizations to which they belong. The second says that Wikipedia should only on rare circumstances be referenced from within Wikipedia, in part, getting at the notion that what is done in one part Wikipedia should not be given as a reason for justifying what is encyclopedic in other parts of Wikipedia.

I feel that your creating that list would be a little like my creating a "list of important climate data" and then seeding it with many of my plots, and claiming that they are obviously important since they appear in Wikipedia.

(William M. Connolley 19:40, 22 May 2005 (UTC)) I don't think the comparison works. The RC posts have been added because they are useful, not for any other reason.

So you presumably you are saying that both my figures aren't useful and admitting that the only useful RC articles are the ones that get into Wikipedia. Is that how it is?  :-) Dragons flight 05:38, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 15:53, 26 May 2005 (UTC)) You seem determined to misunderstand. However, I'm crippled in this.

The above short comment is sarcasm. The bottom one is serious. Dragons flight 16:08, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Things shouldn't work that way, and even if you dropped the self-reference, I would still object to your creating that list because I think you are too close to it. What you think are the most important articles on RealClimate may be totally different from what a unaffiliated reader might think. For example, a naive reader probably cares more about the meta-posts where you introduce RealClimate and say what it is about, then about the more technical articles. And why should a series of articles of global dimming, a concept most people have never heard of, be considered more important than posts on glacial retreats or ozone loss, which are widely recognized phenomena. These are just some examples of ways people can disagree, and I don't want to bicker about the details of what would make a good list cause that argument could go on forever.

Instead, what I would like to suggest you do is not include any links to specific RealClimate posts, except perhaps to posts that explain what RealClimate is, and rather than selecting certain posts you like, you create some navigational aids pointing to the most important categories of posts on RealClimate. That way you are helping people find what they are looking for without getting too caught up in the personal and POV trap of what makes a good RealClimate post.

Dragons flight 19:26, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 19:40, 22 May 2005 (UTC)) The reason I didn't write a list of top posts was precisely the selction criteria problem. Which is neatly avoided by using only those used in wiki. If you object to the explicit self-reference, how would it be if we simply listed those used on wiki, but without explicitly stating that is the criterion?

It is only "neatly avoided" up to the point at which you chose the "objective" criterion, and frankly I think that relying on which posts find their way into Wikipedia is a fairly poor criterion. For one thing, it potentially misses many important RC articles that don't neatly fit into any wikipedia space. For another, it only serves to enhance one of the basic fears of Wikipedia:Autobiography, that you would be pushing RC content into Wikipedia to boost your own ego or agenda. Your site has credentials and press coverage and a following, but it is not that far removed from any crackpot with a website and an agenda trying to push content on Wikipedia and I certainly don't want to encourage the crackpots.

Let's think of it another way, would you judge the important/useful posts of the NY Times based on what Wikipedia cites? How about the important articles in Science? or Scientific American? or even for that matter http://www.climateaudit.org? At its base, it is a poor criterion, as I would think virtually any Wiki referencing criterion would be, and making it a stealth criterion would only make it worse not better.

If you want to create a list of important/useful RC posts, I would think that the way to do it would be to create such a list on the RC site itself and then add a link to it from here. You need to be careful not to use Wikipedia as an extension of RC. If a third party wants to create a list of useful RC posts in the wikipedia article, then fine, but I don't believe you should make such a list, and a really don't think you should provide a poor quality list in an attempt to avoid your own subjective biases. Dragons flight 05:38, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] CA

You can't create an entry in wikipedia on Realclimate without mentioning Climate audit. Hans Erren 12:11, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Ooooooohh yes you can. RC is general; CA is very focussed on minutiae; RC as far as I can tell doesn't engage with CA. I don't know what CA does. Implying that there are only two climate blogs is absurd... William M. Connolley 21:12, 28 December 2005 (UTC).

RealClimate doesn't engage with Climate Audit for the very good reason that RealClimate is afraid to engage with Steve McIntyre and heavily censors comments that don't fit the party line. Having lost the Hockey Stick debate (not even the Democrats nor Michael Mann dared defend it to Congress recently after the Wegman Report confirmed that the Hockey Stick is a statistical crock of shit), RealClimate spends much of its time dealing with politics and not science. CA is very focussed on minutiae, like how three climate scientists fabricated a reconstruction of past climate and got it inserted into the IPCC TAR. And then censored all criticism by blocking publication of refuting papers.

There are more climate blogs out there, but RealClimate is not a climate blog - its a political blog for a radical environmentalist agenda - and you are promoting the blog that you administer in defiance of any ethical considerations about conflict of interest or rules about self-promotion on Wikipedia. But then who needs ethics when you're trying to save the planet? Certainly not you Bill --86.138.65.171 09:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biased

Mr Connolley decided to remove this line:

The blog, however, is strictly moderated and has frequently prevented scientists from posting on topic.

Well Stephen McIntyre and Ian Castles wouldn't count as scientists then? I wasn't allowed a single entry on the Luterbacher thread.

Try posting something that contains "bristlecones" or "R2 statistic"... Hans Erren 23:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Who is this Mr Connolley of whom you write? Castles has many comments on the blog, many of them critical. William M. Connolley 11:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC).

In internet debates I learned that the most important part of an answer is that part that is not addressed. Now, who did you leave out in the above line, Doctor Connolley? Hans Erren 23:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Search me guv. Please don't play silly games. And if you don't want to type my username, "WMC" is quite acceptable. William M. Connolley 11:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC).

We'll mention your name when Michael Mann actually uses the names "Stephen McIntyre" and "Ross McKitrick" in any post. --86.138.65.171 09:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] verifiable proof

[1]

RC’s efforts to prevent any links to climateaudit.org can lead to farcical situations, such as that at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=199 :

To their credit, RC had finally gotten around to mentioning von Storch’s and Huyber’s published comments on M&M. On that RC page, they provided free links to vS and H’s comments, but no links to M&M’s replies, although they at least mentioned that the replies existed! When queried about this (comment #1), Gavin posted links to *subscription-only* versions of the M&M replies, ensuring that most would be unable to access them, and claimed he couldn’t find any non-subscription links. Michael Mayson then posted a comment pointing out that the replies were freely available to all at climateaudit.org, and the RC moderators even commented on it. Shortly thereafter, a higher authority at RC then decided that either (a) perhaps M&M’s replies were too good for public consumption or (b) that having posted links to climateaudit.org just wouldn’t do, and deleted Mayson’s posted comment and the RC reply! (See comment #23 here: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=419) The later ruckus about RC adhering to its own posting policy shamed them into allowing my much later repost of the links to the climateaudit.org M&M replies.

Similarly to TCO’s experiences, my questions about why postings don’t appear have been ignored. As for “I wonder if what you calling censorship is just things falling through the cracks…”, I don’t consider my posts as censored until 3 business days have passed, and many other posts & moderators’ replies have appeared.

Hans is spot-on in post #91 about the effect this has on serious discussion at RC: why bother investing serious time and thought in a comment when chances are high it either won’t appear or will be ignored if the RC moderators can’t quickly dismiss it without spending much time on it? The RC staff seem most comfortable with a lecture-type model where they impart wisdom as set-piece presentations and avoid engaging very deeply with the readers.

Comment by Armand MacMurray — 2 January 2006 @ 2:23 pm

Hans Erren 20:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)