Dung - as they told you in primary school, stop telling tales.

And anyway RD's purported comment seems to be neither a personal comment nor a discussion of pseudonyms. If he had used the term "commenters", I don't think it would have changed anything.

Can I suggest my critics here keep calm and carry on. Or meditate on this adapted old saying:

If you are sure the cap doesn't fit, why take offence as if it does?

How about this: Don't fit your cap on everything that you see.

It's funny you should say that because it reminds me of something I saw a few hours ago on the Holloway Road in London: a lady wearing a niqab chatting away with a middle-eastern-looking man selling vegetables, both speaking in impeccable London English accents and idioms. Know what I mean, for real, innit. Or words to that effect.

The lady turned away smiling (well, I think she was, though it was a little hard to tell) and began to walk in the same direction as I was south along the pavement. I almost thought to begin a conversation with her, in a very friendly manner, about how I was glad she could enjoy such interactions in such garb. Then I thought better of it. I had to cross the road in any case. As I did I went through phrases like "I hope you don't mind discussing such a thing face to face" and the like.

Yesterday I wandered through Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park, noting as usual the many radical Muslim preachers there these days. I told a friend who was with me about the time a few years ago I had approached the place and found a large group of Arab speakers having what seemed like a heated, no-holds-barred debate in their native tongue. On that occasion I did butt in to a group on the edge to ask what the discussion was about. "The man over there is Egyptian and is arguing that Egypt is the best Arabic country whereas his opponent is from Algeria and vehemently disagrees." I smiled and asked them if they liked this remarkable place where such arguments could take place so freely. They gladly agreed, as I felt sure they would. "And would you have that freedom in the countries you come from?" Again, agreement was readily obtained and no offence taken.

Sometimes I take risks in what I believe is the service of truth and sometimes I think better of doing so. In both the cases mentioned I think I would have got the people concerned to think a bit more deeply about some complex and controversial subjects. And I think I've done the same with the area of pseudonymity on Bishop Hill, with a eye to the great wide yonder of the blogo- and twitter-verses. My concern throughout has been those that abuse this great priviledge and I make no apologies about it. Of course, one day I may get myself killed but hey, what's life for but for throwing away in the service of truth, freedom and sheer good fun?

Since this isn’t the sort of subject I read in detail I don’t know why real names has become such an issue but:-

Many of the warmist sites are dying for want of comments. If you were to insist on real names then possibly sceptic sites would go the same way.

You would rarely get new, uncertain commenters because they wouldn’t bother revealing themselves just to make what might be a stupid point or question. People who have good reasons to remain anonymous would fade away. Those with different opinions wouldn’t risk their identity to the enemy and you’d have no opposing voices to inspire glorious rebuttals. The moment you make it difficult for people to express themselves, many of them stop. Are you sure the only people you want to hear from are those confident/arrogant enough to ‘come out’? Eventually you’d end up as a small coterie of people with nothing new to discuss.

You might attract more climate scientists and less sceptics if names were genuine and rules of politeness were observed at all times but that would be a new type of site. Would it not be better to create a new site (like the climatedialog.org) rather than reinvent one that is successful in its current form?

Would the gains outweigh the costs?

Words of wisdom TinyCO2, thanks! I for one have a very good reason for not disclosing my full name, which may, and hopefully will, become irrelevant with the further passage of time. In the meantime I am one of those who has had to put up with RD's belittling attitude, as a 'nym' who allegedly does not accept responsibility for my own words. And yet as an IT expert he knows full well that anyone who posts on the internet is not truly anonymous, or not without great knowledge of computing possessed by only a tiny fraction of hackers.

Without the acknowledgment and support of good people like Dung I may have stopped posting here by now. An online community does not rely on names, but on recognition of the personality behind the posts, which sooner or later becomes clear. And through those "anonymous" interactions real life connections, even friendships, can and do develop, as the Oxford pub meets have amply shown.

Martin may be thinking of an incident recently on another thread when someone called 'Chris M' got angry with him and decided to ascribe a surname to him (I had and I have no idea if it was Martin's real surname) - all as some kind of retribution for the temerity of not fully pleasing him in what he had written. Appalling behaviour from someone one can only hope was a different Chris M, for the sake of non-hypocrisy everywhere.

I have never advocated pseudonyms being banned here. Here for example is what I wrote on this thread on 11th April:

Note that I want pseudonymity. Because, as Barry has said, some people have to be pseudonymous in the climate area. Those people are heroes to me. But because some heroes are pseudonymous the converse most certainly doesn't follow. Some of the worst offenders in the climate blogosphere use the 'freedom' of pseudonymity.

When I talk honestly about the bad behaviour of some nyms (for instance Chris M just now or mydog, as quoted above) why on earth should any other nym take offence at that? The doctor Harold Shipman killed many of his patients (and, please note, I'm not asserting moral equivalence with any particular BH contributor, just illustrating the principle). If I argued that because of Shipman some new safeguards were needed governing the work of doctors, would that automatically make me an evil person? Should every general practitioner take offence at my words? Of course not. They should feel free to differ on the proposed new measures but not waste energy accusing me of saying every doctor was just as evil as Shipman.

So, instead of this faux outrage the few people concerned (few compared to the bulk of nyms posting on Bishop Hill every day) should, if they wish, attend to the detail of the kinds of measure I've been proposing. They should, as I've said already, keep calm and carry on.