Or...Where have all the "warmists" gone?
justthefactswuwt says:
April 26, 2013 at 8:41 pm
dbstealey says: April 26, 2013 at 8:15 pm I would save that excellent and fun question to sandbag the next presumptuous Warmist commenter pretending to pass himself off as a climate expert....It would be even better asked in person! ☺
I can’t even get a Warmist to comment on my threads these days, there has to be someone out there who can explain how this all ties back to anthropogenic CO2 emissions… I wonder if the Warmist blog troll funding is drying up…
Sandbagging? Warmist blog troll funding? Paranoid conspiracy theorising much?
jtfw only needs to ask Smokey/dbstealey or Anthony Watts.
Everyone who has the temerity to make a sensible, knowledgeable comment about climate science is automatically banned from WUWT. If not immediately, then eventually. Usually with the most scathing comment Anthony's little mind can come up with, viz: "Anonymous Coward". But the Anonymous Coward tag is a last resort when, despite his best googling efforts, Anthony can't find and post their name, current employment and personal contact details as he bans them.
Yes, I find this kind of comment amazing. As far as I can tell if you attempt to make any kind of comment that implies you're not particularly skeptical of the results of climate science, you're quickly attacked by one of the regular commentators. The one posting as richardscourtney is particularly bad and most days is accusing someone of being a "troll", "spreading falsehoods", and "misleading and distrupting the threads". He'll often "encourage" those he accuses of being trolls to go away and stop disrupting the threads.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find most amusing is that when someone thanks him for explaining something he'll respond by saying something along the lines of "this is the beauty of WUWT. We all learn from each other" and that he learns something every day. He'll then normally go on to explain that this is why he hates trolls, who - as far as I can tell - as those who disagree with him and are never likely to agree with him.
It's easy to push RSC's buttons, even without meaning to do so. He was particularly vicious towards a mild-mannered commenter the other day - as he often is. (As I recall you wrote about that nasty episode.)
Deletehttp://wottsupwiththatblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/why-dont-i-comment/
Smokey/dbstealey has a tendency to do the same. Reminds me of a guard dog. He's a staunch supporter of Tony, but unlike Tony, doesn't 'believe in' the greenhouse effect.
They are a weird mob!
Thanks for highlighting that post. I commented somewhere (can't quite remember where) that it would be interesting to do an experiment with WUWT. Get a group of people to make what would be regarded by most as scientifically credibly comments that question a post or another comment. Then wait and see what the response is. I would predict that one of RSC, Smokey or dbstealey would quickly respond and that fairly quickly their comments would include words like "lying", "falsehood", "unscientific", "mislead", "disrupt", and "Troll".
DeleteThere's probably no real point in the experiment as I suspect most scientifically literate people already realise that commenting on WUWT posts is largely pointless while those who do regularly comment (without being attacked) wouldn't be influence by the results of the experiment anyway.
Here's another nice illustration of why science-literate people shouldn't waste any of their time (or electrons) over at WUWT.
ReplyDeleteA few months ago, I was personally subjected to the full force of Anthony Watts' denialist silliness when it came to his attention that Michael Mann had retweeted one of my tweets. You can see for yourself how the whole goofy episode played out here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/13/friday-funny-dr-michael-mann-keeps-interesting-company/
Basically, when I went to create a twitter account for myself, I wanted to use "caerbannog" (in honor of the vicious lagomorph in "Holy Grail") as my handle. But "caerbannog" was already taken, so I added the "Mark of the Beast" aka 666 to create the handle "caerbannog666".
Well, when Watts saw that Dr. Mann had retweeted one of my "caerbannog666" tweets, he apparently Googled up "caerbannog666" and stumbled upon the "MySpace" page of a tattooed goth-rocker in a silly leather getup who also calls himself "caerbannog666".
Of course, that was good enough for Watts, so he decided to pick up that ball and run with it (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/13/friday-funny-dr-michael-mann-keeps-interesting-company/).
What's really amusing is that one of the respondents in that WUWT "discussion" had seen some of my "hand rolled" global temperature results that I had previously posted to the San Diego Union-Tribune climate-change forum.
He suggested that Watts and his followers check out those results, and perhaps focus a bit more on the science and less on the leather and chains. (Of course, that was not to be -- Watts and Co. were much more eager to talk about leather and chains than about the science).
In that Union-Tribune thread, I provided detailed descriptions of the algorithms I used to produce my results, and I also provided direct links to the code as it evolved. IOW, I provided enough information for anyone with the requisite computer skills to understand and replicate everything I did.
The thread is still up at the Union-Tribune (linky here http://forums.utsandiego.com/showthread.php?t=111201), but unfortunately, many image-links are now broken. But the detailed descriptions of the algorithm I used and and links to the code I wrote are still there (along with some impolite remarks about denier laziness/incompetence, remarks that ended up being further vindicated in the WUWT "caerbannog666" thread).
Since that WUWT thread was directing a lot of visitors to my old Union-Tribune global-temperature thread, I put up a final post there, a response to Watts and his minions. You can read it here: http://forums.utsandiego.com/showpost.php?s=38bb05a38a313305b8009e6dd0ae4dbc&p=4738258&postcount=113
It's really amazing how dense the WUWT crew is -- in that WUWT thread, Watts and Co insisted that I was not "forthcoming" with what I did with the data, even though a few minutes spent reading my Union-Tribune posts will reveal that I laid out in painstaking detail exactly how I got my results.
The term "sack of hammers" comes to mind here....
--caerbannog
BTW, That little WUWT episode prompted me to redo my twitter-account page in honor of Watts and Co: https://twitter.com/caerbannog666
Oh yes, Anthony has been known to be badly wrong in his "outing" of people. Your example was a classic. I thought you handled it beautifully.
DeleteTony shows more than a touch of paranoia at times. A good sign that Tony's gone way off track, jumped to ridiculous conclusions, and/or people are really getting under Tony's skin - is when he closes a thread, which he did in that case IIRC.
I do not think that commenting on WUWT is futile.
ReplyDeleteYes, you will never convince the regulars no matter how clear the lies in the posts are (such as clear cases of misquotations) and they will be impolite to you.
However, good comments can help new and casual readers find their way (back) to rationality and help them judge the reliability of WUWT.
I agree, Victor. The trick is avoiding Tony's wrath and surviving long enough. He will eventually ban people who persist in making realistic science comments, as many can attest.
DeleteEven if you do manage to somehow survive the wrath of Willard Tony, you will find it much harder to get past the likes of Richard S. Courtney (BTW, just found out he is a reverend, and a signatory of the Cornwall Alliance. Explains a lot) and/or DB Stealey. I consider the WUWT regulars to be nothing more than the on-line version of playground bullies.
ReplyDeleteIn my last and final foray to WUWT more than a year ago, one of the commentors asked how we could possibly get 1M of sea level rise by 2100. "Quite easily", I responded. "All we would need to do is melt about 1/7 of the Greenland ice cap". Well, Courtney went ballistic. He told me that was impossible because Greenland is shaped like a bowl and all the melt water would just collect harmlessly in the middle.
I guess he never heard about moulins...
--metzomagic
RSC is an appalling man. But that aside, he was quoting from denialist scripture in this case. His text was Ollier & Pain's 2009 article in AIG News Why the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are not collapsing
DeleteI only mention this as I understand that our host has had a run-in with Ollier recently.
Rsc professes to be scientist but can't read a simple graph. When I pointed out his error he went positively apoplectic. Googling his names shows him to be heavily involved with big coal. Very nasty piece of works with big ego and also fairly dumb.
Delete