A refined comment policy

I've thought about whether to post this article, but having received feedback from HotWhopper friends, I've decided to let people know about a couple of changes I'm making.

First of all, in the interests of everyone, I've amended the comment policy.

Very rarely HotWhopper attracts unsavoury comments that are from real people, not your regular spam.  (I'm not referring to comments from contrarians here.) Up to now I've been very liberal and, apart from rare extreme cases, I've shown where a comment has been removed, explaining the reasons.

With the growth of readership, there is the risk that more people will happen upon something quite ugly in the comments.  It happens only very rarely (barely half a dozen times since HotWhopper was born a year ago, including yesterday and today by a past transgressor), but HotWhopper now has quite a large stream of visitors each day so even a very rare comment may be seen by a lot of people.  And showing deleted comments and the reasons doesn't add any value, in fact, the reverse.

That's not the experience I want people to have when they visit here. So I've amended the comment policy and will now delete extreme comments, without explanation and leaving no record of their existence on public display. It's not pleasant to come across and there is no reason for me to make everyone suffer for the sake of being "open".

In the same manner, comments from banned people will also be deleted.  (Only three four people have been banned so far and, with around 600,000 page views to date, to my way of thinking that speaks to the high calibre of the readership overall.)

In regard to comments about science, they are more than welcome.  That's what HotWhopper is all about.

I draw the line at maligning scientists, repeated disinformation, thread-bombing, circularity of discussion and other Gish gallop techniques, persistent tone trolling and comments that are way off topic (ie deliberate thread hijacking as opposed to alerting people to something topical of interest to readers).

I hope that these small changes are viewed as a positive for everyone.

Sou.

Good in moderation

HotWhopper has caught the attention of a person or persons unhinged (heatstroke?) and of limited vocabulary.  So comments will be subject to moderation until they find something else to distract them.

Sorry about that.

Don't let that stop you from posting comments with information, support, outrage, amusement, denial, alarm or whatever :D

The delay shouldn't be too long except for overnight comments.

Testing WUWT Moderation

Update: Test 2 Fail! See below.


Apparently Anthony Watts has a new system of moderation for his blog, WUWT.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this:

@petergleick @michaelemann Funny, if its blacklisting how come we let you comment there? Entire system is far more open now, less moderation
— Watts Up With That (@wattsupwiththat) May 5, 2013

I think Anthony is saying that if he was going to blacklist people, Professors Mann and Gleick would be at the top of his list.

Why, you may ask?  If Anthony wanted to run a science blog with a focus on climate science, wouldn't he want to attract the top scientists in the field?  No?

Update:  It's obviously Wattsonian doublespeak.  Anthony means that Dr Gleick at least is still banned (click here to read then scroll down) and I seriously doubt that Dr Mann would be welcomed there.

WUWT Moderation Test

Since Anthony has blocked me from his twitter feed and told me I'm not welcome to post on WUWT, I thought I'd test out the new WUWT moderation system and see if he really has opened it to all and sundry.  I'm posing a question that's occurred to me every time Dr Spencer posts his UAH charts.  I don't know why WUWT-ers aren't calling for the data, or even the 'raw data', if any of them knew what to do with raw data from satellites.  (WUWT commenters seem to call for 'links to data' a lot but give Dr Spencer a free pass for some reason.)

Test Result 1: Pass

Indeed Anthony has opened up moderation.  My post didn't disappear without trace as in the past.  It didn't even go to a moderation queue.  It looks as if Anthony's now allowing any ratbag scum to make a comment!

Test result 2: Fail!

This next comment lasted a whole hour before Tony got things back in order...

...and decided his new "open policy" is not quite all it was cracked up to be after all.

Click here to see what my comment was all about.

Attention-seeker banned from WUWT

There's more, way down the bottom after Anthony's ad hom dogwhistle got all his lynch mob piling on.  Any excuse to trash a real scientist (Peter Gleick):

Skiphil says:
May 7, 2013 at 4:08 pm  Sou, you must be a special kind of ignorant if you imagine that the “Union of Concerned Scientists” is a “scientific organisation.” No qualifications for membership, specializes in bleating and whining for political activism…. obviously, a renowned “scientific organisation” to be sure. Sou, are you mendacious or merely ignorant?

[note: don't engage this person - she's a persona non grata attention seeker - mod]

It's not that attention seekers aren't welcome at WUWT.  The blog wouldn't have survived this long but for attention seekers.  After all, look at Anthony himself and who he promotes.  There's 'Wondering' Willis E who throws a hissy fit if he senses the least bit of criticism.  And Backward Bob who cannot tolerate anyone disagreeing.  Anyway freedom of speech is considered sacred on WUWT, provided you say what Anthony and his mob want to hear.

It's just that attention seekers must be of the right ideological persuasion and fully paid up members of the scientific illiterati.  Anthony and his mods don't want any competition for him or his plebs <:o

Who is Sou?

Wait, there's still more (and we haven't got to the free steak knives yet).  How's this for conspiracy ideation.  Apologies to Dr Gleick. (But I have to say I'm deeply flattered)...

Jimbo says:
May 7, 2013 at 5:51 pm  Is Sou Peter Gleick?

[Reply: Not sure. But he/she also posts as "A. Crowe". — mod.]

You'll notice that the mod's response puts the lie to this!