Last year I banned per/David Bell from commenting for a few days after he abused another commenter. This prompted an attack on me from ClimateAudit where commenters wrote falsehoods like this:
Lambert knows his facts are weak, as such he does not allow others to comment upon them, otherwise the house of cards tumbles down.
Recently Lee and John Hunter were banned from commenting at ClimateAudit. The pretext was incivility. Here's what Lee wrote that got him banned:
JohnA, as always, you misstate my argument into something that is not what I actually said, and then argue based on what you claim I said. You can go to hell.
(That's this John A if you are unfamiliar with his work.) Far worse comments from McIntyre supporters do not result in a ban. After Lee was banned, TCO protested by making exactly the same comment, but was not banned. Hunter and Lee were banned because they disagreed with McIntyre. My comments and trackbacks there are frequently deleted, which is why I rarely comment there.
Anyway, you can use this thread to discuss ClimateAudit's censorship policy, and as a place to put comments that get censored from there.
Update: McIntyre deleted all discussion of the ban. I left a comment saying that people could discuss it here. That comment was deleted as well.
CA is the kind of place where if you're a critic you have to accept the rules differ for you. You need to remember who's 'modding'. You also need to develop a filter for the taunts, mispresentations and under hand comments of John A (and at times the plain thuggishness of tco (still it clearly gets him noticed)). It's not easy, and at times, amongst others, both John Hunter and Lee have been snared by these tactics (or maybe not tactics, maybe the John A's and tco's are really just like that ...) while John A goes on his merry way accusing people of being liars or similar and tco busily insulting all and sundry.
Me? They think I don't know it all and can expose me thus or tie me in knots with statistics and win points (I don't know it all, so, if points, not the way the planet is going, drives you to comment it IS a win...). Oh well, this is just the blogsphere.
I was just about to offer a five dollar bet that when Steve comes back he'll rescind Lee's ban (replacing it with a warning), but I see I'm too late. Given that Lee can come back on Monday when Steve does, it looks like this was more of a "time-out" than a ban. Which is actually an interesting intermediate blog policy option, come to think of it.
Actually you banned him for getting the upper hand in the argument. Sure he had some ad homs. So what. They were minor. In that same thread, your side had been indulging in plenty. Oh...ban me. I do ad homs all the time.
Oh...and BTW, I disagree with the Lee banning or really with having JohnA have any power at the blog. I mean, look. He's supposed to be a computer consultant and look at that side bar!
Hlp ws dsmvwlld. r f ws, ths s wht t wld lk lk.
One minor clarification - I was supposedly banned for the weekend. We'll see. IIRC, Hunter is banned for 6 months.
For what its worth, I disagree with banning people for any reason too, or censoring posts in any way.
It is better to let discussions run. If a discussion roams too far from a topic, create a new thread where those interested in continuing can have it out, and let those really interested in the first thread go ahead.
It soon becomes evident to observers where the various posters are coming from, and whether they are prepared to back up their statements with scientific support or not, or whether they stoop to dealing in ad hominems.
In Steve Mc's defence, I think that his censoring/banning is more directed at keeping his blog on topic (which is his prerogative as blog owner) than it is censorious. John A on the other hand sometimes (as is evident in the current Lee case) takes a censoring/banning decision that Steve Mc disagrees with. In those cases Steve Mc will over-rule John A.
It all looks pretty transparent to me on CA.
And actually, a rare tip of the hat to you Tim. So far as I can see, you have a very open policy on your blog (no doubt other more regular posters will tell me if I am wrong on that).
I don't like censorship, that is one reason why I like posting here at Deltoid. Yes, ClimateAudit seems to have come down too hard on Lee, but what about RealClimate censorship policies? I haven't seen a post of mine go up there in months.
I have to give Lambert credit; he leaves my flames up every time.
But seriously Tim, if you were interested in exposing censorship in a fair way you'd have a similiar post on the "filtering" at RealClimate.
I often wonder what percentage of comments actually make it to the big board at RC. 50%? 25%? 10%?
McIntyre has been a study in civility since he started his blog, which makes his association with this JohnA fellow all the more curious. I'd be willing to bet that McIntyre insists that Lee be allowed back...although it's not often on a blog or a board that telling a moderator to "go to hell" won't result in some sort of ban.
Hi there
Yet another blog pertaing to science. This should be called bitch blogs, not science blogs.
Regards
Peter Bickle
Tim - "McIntyre has been a study in civility since he started his blog, which makes his association with this JohnA fellow all the more curious"
Sock Puppet?
Dennis, McIntyre insists that JohnA is not a moderator, just someone who helps him out with some computer issues from time to time.
There also arent many blogs with expectations of being taken seriously, where a co-moderator such as JohnA (much as McIntyre denies it) routinely insults participants adn then bans them when they respond in kind, either.
Ender,
I cant speak to motivation, but functionally it appears that JohnA's role is to take on the harassing and insulting attack dog role, allowing Steve to maintain the civil tone whiel still keeping teh conversation reigned in.
He's already cutting posts from another new participant at the moment: Jasmine seems to be responding with barbed good humor to several uncivil attacks, and JohnA is cutting her words and not those of her attackers. Quite telling.
"#208
No fFred, I've put Jasmine's last zinger in the moderation queue for Steve to look at on his return.
Comment by John A -- 16 July 2006 @ 3:52 pm"
I've been at a family reunion for the weekend. I checked in briefly on Saturday and said that Lee was welcome to be re-instated on Monday when I returned.
Tim, it seems to me that you suspended per for a day not too recently and I don't see much difference here.
Steve, you checked in Saturday and approved JohnA's banning of me for the weekend. JohnA uses his moderator powers to limit opposition. He does not treat people who engage in worse, anywhere near the same,a s long as they are on his side. Your co-moderator is engaging in moderation that limits debate. Your brief statement above does not address that issue - neither have your past statements when this has been brought to your attention.
I've asked you this several times before with no answer, Steve, in private and in public - why should we believe anything except what we observe? And what we observe is that Johna's role as your co-moderator acting with your approval is to act in disruptive manner (often worse than anyone else on a thread with no attempt by yo to limit his behavior) or in this case to simply remove a challenging voice, in order to limit discussion on your blog by people who offer challenges to the party line.
"There also arent many blogs with expectations of being taken seriously, where a co-moderator such as JohnA (much as McIntyre denies it) routinely insults participants adn then bans them when they respond in kind, either."
*tim blair* *cough* *andrea harris*
About the banning policy on RealClimate. RealClimate is a science blog, not a political discussion blog, and they are quite clear on that. Unlike many of their opponents, they are not paid to promote a certain agenda, and that limits how much time they can afford to use on answering comments from people with nicks like "nanny_govt_sucks"...
I've written about it before, I believe. To evaluate claims, or to distinguish signal from noise, we apply networks of trust to decide who we should use our limited time to listen to. It's not unlike google's algorithm, where a link from an important site carries more weight than from an unimportant one. Everyone does it, but in science it's institutionalized in the peer review process: a respected peer gets to set the agenda more, decide which results are important, which paths should rather be explored.
Lee, I was mostly unavailable for the weekend. I would have handled things differently. John A does not "routinely" suspend people; I can think of no prior incident where he suspended anyone. Anyway, it's Monday now and you're welcome back as I said on Saturday.
John A does, however, routinely insult participants and routinely deletes comments he doesn't like.
John Hunter is banned despite worse behaviour by John A.
**RealClimate is a science blog, not a political discussion blog, and they are quite clear on that. Unlike many of their opponents, they are not paid to promote a certain agenda**
Bologna. Mann links to "The Daily Kos" on his bio information pages.
Summer, don't be silly. RealClimate does not have Daily Kos on its blogroll.
Mr Lambert,
You have repeatedly called me a troll for doing nothing than disagreeing with you. You removed - without notice - some of my comments at your old blog. You permanently bounce all of my links to your old blog. You have falsely accused me of abusing other commnters: on one occasion for using the disemvoweled word "crtn", on another for referring to your more sycophantic lock-steppers as "toadies". You hold my comments in moderation for periods up to 12 hours or more, with some comments failing to appear at all. How, exactly, is your comments policy different to the comments policy you allege Climate Audit to employ.
Summer,
There aren't any links to dKos that I see on Mann's RealClimate bio page, either. Or his Penn State bio page. Please show your evidence, if you would.
And, Summer, assuming you didn't see that for yourself -- tell us who you're relying on for the truth of this assertion, eh?
It helps to track these stories back to the person making them up, so we can ask him why he started the story circulating.
Nice, how passive-aggressive you are, gentlemen.
Dr. Mann lists his association with The Daily Kos as a representation of the body of his works in his online resume and bio.
Summer, Mann's [online cv](http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/cv/cv_hyper.htm) contains no mention of dKos.
I reviewed my decision on Hunter with John Reid, who had suggested that we use a yellow card-red card system at the blog, which I implemented. By coincidence, John Reid knows John Hunter and does not dislike him. He agreed entirely with my decision. I'm not going to get into the details for a couple of reasons, not least of which are that I have other urgent priorities, but I can assure you that scientific censorship was not involved.
Summer,
Passive-aggressive? All I did was look at Mann's bio page and his links, and I saw nothing to substantiate your claim. I asked you to point me to where Mann (as you claim) "links to the Daily Kos on his bio information pages". I ask you again to do so.
Summer, who's your source for your belief? Who is it you trusted for the information you posted here? And did you check before repeating it? If so where did you find confirmation you considered reliable?
We should initiate another type of climate bet: what's the chance that astroturfers who can't/won't source their evidenceless assertions will resort to using ad hom when responding to Hank's basic questions?
PS I like the 'belief' bit
Best,
D
People do come here who read something somewhere and believe it because it's from a source they trust -- sometimes second or third or fourth hand information, passed along.
So I think asking gently is wise.
Kids come asking because they heard something from a parent or teacher -- sometimes they don't dare go back and ask "how do you know?" because they'll get smacked for being mouthy and questioning their elders. Sometimes they don't even dare ask the librarian for help, if it's a small enough town or school
Or they heard something on TV or the radio and don't remember where it came from.
We can't be sure the new person posting got their info from one of the PR/advocacy firms' sites. It may have come from someone they trust.
Yeah, some posters are intentionally trolling to waste time repeating talking points, changing userids over and over. Google helps find the cut-and-paste claims.
I didn't find Summer's claim anywhere with a quick search, so I'm hoping Summer's able to join the dialog and dig for the facts. It keeps us all honest when people do.
Summer, I can't make sense this sentence, "Dr. Mann lists his association with The Daily Kos as a representation of the body of his works in his online resume and bio." Perhaps you could rephrase your thought.
Thanks,
Paul
Steve, why wont you resopnd to the entire criticism of JohnA's behavior? Your only response is n out-of-context statement that he doesnt routinely suspend people. Does this mean that you agree with the other part of my point that he routinly harasses and insults people?
Yo say you woudl have handled things differently - which is irrelevant. JohnA, your co-moderator moderating your blog and therefore by definition acting in your name, handled things for your blog, and he handled them this way.
And again, your response has almost nothing to do with the core issue, which is that JohnA (your co-moderator) routine ly engages in insult, ad hominem, and harassment that is directed at and tends to sidetrack and drive away challenging discussions. And he does fairly routinely remove posts - in just this thread he removed a Lambert post apparently unilaterally, and one by Jasmine for 'review.'
In fact, you have a co-moderator who routinely engages in worse behavior that that which he professes to be policing and it makes your stance on this look hypocritical at best. If this is not in fact his role, his job for you at your blog, then why do you continue to tolerate a co-moderator who behaves like this?
I am now quite amused. I returned to Climate Audit this evening, and among the first handful of posts I read was this:
#281. Hmmm. Bad spelling, ultra-warmer views... I don't suppose Lee could have taken an pseudonym until Steve has time to restore him to grace, could he? Of course this fellow doesn't seem to have as much on the ball as Lee, but how hard is it to pretend to be a ultra-warmer anyway? It's not like you need to be a rocket scientist, or any sort of scientist at all.
Comment by Dave Dardinger -- 17 July 2006 @ 5:15 pm
--
So I wrote a short offhand response, saying essentially, how nice that I return and find a disparaging and false post about me. Welcome back. The post was accepted, and I then went on to write a long and substantive post about the relationship between the summary results of the NAS report and the potential problems with Mann statistics. When I went to post that substantive post, I found I was filtered, and further, my first post was removed. Appareltny my psots got marked as spam. I suspect JohnA removed it on sight, and sent it to Steve's review box - we'll see what happens to it and to my second post.
Apparently it is fine for Dardinger et al to insult me (and 'hyperwarmers') in my absense, but not for me to politely but firmly respond when I am allowed to return.
my own experience over there was comical to me. I went to confirm that it was the site being discussed on this post and I learned that climateaudit.org was "a blog that is specifically about M&M's criticisms of MBH's papers on AGW"
okey-dokey... I won't spend ANY more time there than I would spend time on a "knitting blog."
I really have better things to do than feed someone's ego regarding an error they found in an eight-year-old letter... I have suddenly (on Friday while I was trying to find out the Energy sub-committee's business and today while looking up an article in Nature) stumbled on the world of science blogs and I'm looking forward to seeing what all is there.
by the way... yes... I also got the "marked as spam" message... although I was only sending a test message (in this case a little note to TCO).
I will be at the hearing on Wednesday. This business with the "knitting" website has left me more than amused.
The funny thing about John A (who is at best a weak attack dog, "proxy" if you will, for McIntyre) is he slammed the scientist John Hunter and basically "baited" him to make an appearance on CA. So the guy shows up and John A & the usual crowd of Bush lovers circle & attack, John Hunter posts a few minor ad-homs, and the usual suspects all cry foul. John Hunter asks for basic info from John A for access to his data, and then John A goes crying to Big Daddy McIntyre that he's sort of being "stalked" and that Hunter could try to ruin his, I dunno, career as a Visual Basic program. Conclusion -- what a crybaby.
It hasn't cooled a single degree here, but it appears that Summer is gone.
Just more and more amusing.
Every post I make at CA is now being trapped by their spam filter. It appears as if Steve is reviewing them, and posting some (but not all: I'm being censored) of them. This means I get to make one post, wait for Steve to approve and psot it (or not) and then make another - or continue to post and get trapped and further inflame the spam filter, which somehow sems to keep getting mad at me, but not at any of the regular pro-Steve posters there. I wonder why that is?
Welcome to the club. Feel free to post your blocked comments here.
A few points from very deep off the road.
First, anyone who tries to barrack Mann on dendrology shows a significant amount of lack of clue. You want to discuss dendrology in MBH98 address yourself to Hughes. (BTW Eli has located over 20 sets of well preserved and dated trees from 1100. More on my return Aug 1.)
Second, physics is full of bad math that works, as a practical matter most data sets are not pathological in the mathematical sense. Famous examples include the subtraction of infinities to get to QED. It is not surprising that MBH98 includes a method that is formally incorrect, but the results of which are pretty much unchanged when one uses a formally correct method. (Please separate dendrology from statistics in any comment on this. Dendrology is completely outside Wegmann, Scott).
Posting here as a backup to a post on CA, in the "Survivor: Mann gets kicked off the island" thread.
After being effectively censored at CA by the spam filter for two days, this attempt actually posted, but did not get listed in the preview sidebar. My previous experience indicates that this means the post is being flagged and sent to Steve for review. Based on the observed phenotype, it appears that my post is apparently being flagged for review immediately upon posting.
---------
re 85:
Two points:
First (just to keep it in the record, since a lot of people here seem to keep losing track of it) the NAS report also cited a lot of other kinds of evidence for anomalous late 20th century climate, not dependent on paleodendro studies. Yes, the other paleodendro studies are support, but they are far from all the support.
Second, I have been finding myself puzzled by all the focus on the first couple papers of this line of investigation, with potshots but not solid aggregated investigations of the others, if the goal is to "audit" the conclusions of the overall field. I've been hanging out here for several months, reading back, looking at papers as time allows, and becasue of the scattershot approach I still dont have a good feel for the criticisms being proffered at the subsequent liteature, whether those scattered criticisms of the overal field impact the overall conclusions of the entire field, and even in the case if individual papers to what extent the criticisms imapct the conclusions of the papers.
TCO keeps pressing Steve to publish - I think that is critical if Steve feels that there are serious flaws with the later major papers in the field and expects to be taken seriously about them. Given that his posting style here makes it damnably hard to put together a good overall picture of what he is saying, I find myself thinking that until he bothers to put together good supported PUBLISHED criticims of the methodology of the major papers in the literature and how that imapcts the CONCLUSIONS of those papers, divorced from his snarky asides to the 'hockey team' he so often indulges in here, and makes those consolidated arguments available for considered responses, that it is hard to take the criticims of the later literature completely seriously.
Certainly, Steves "publishing" style here leads me to conclude either that he isnt interested in anyone being able to understand what he says outside a small cadre of long-term insider specialists (in which case, why bother and why not publish to that cadre and the rest of the specialist field?) or that he is unwillign to pull his criticisms together into a complete package taht is availabe for criticism in response. I dotn buy the third option, that he simply doesnt understand to communicate this - he does that too well for this to be the reason. I'm not saying it is one or the other, I'm saying this is what looks like the possible conclusions from here.
It IS important: even if the conclusions arent all that relevant to the basic question of whether we are moving into milenially unique climates (given the other kinds of evidence), it IS important to the questions of how we calibrate models and interpret some other kinds of data. Why Steve won't aggregate his points and publish (or even do it here, although that is less useful), if his criticisms of the subsequent literature acutally matter to the conclusions, is beyond me.
BTW, this is post #87 on that thread, at present.
I have seen previously that sometimes I've seen posts I've made, even when they have been removed by JohnA or Steve and no one else cna see them. I'd appreciate it if someone could take a quick look and see if the post actually posted, or it I am being completely censored, not just struck from the sidebar?
Thanks.
well, thatlast post has apparently been approved and posted, but my next one experienced the same thing. It looks like every post I make is vbeing filtered. This is a backup post.
My new post 90:
"re 98:
"the hockey stick has been broken"
Would those of you throwing this claim around, please define exactly what you mean? Better yet, use a phrase that actually means something? This is an extraordinarily imprecise phrase, and lends itself easily to interpretations that are simply not congruent with what has actually happened."