Shub: Does this reduce the community by one? Not if I remember what Paul said to me once: that there was another PaulM who wasn't him. But which Paul was that? Was there more than one? How could the Paul telling me know how many?

I doubt the community posited in the title. For instance, at the top of the last page Dung and Chris M are finding an outburst by Anthony Watts against Doug Cotton funny. There are two views of community possible here: those who view 'Tony n Doug' as equals in the community and those who would put far greater value on Watts. Anybody who didn't feel the same as I do on this I wouldn't really want to associate with in any meaningful way. There are many similar issues.

UKIP I would see as an effective community. A certain subset of climate skeptics in the UK may be becoming so too - in fact I think there are hopeful signs of this, including the guy at 11 Downing Street. But I think like Richard Bacon on This Week on Thursday we have to dial back on the idea of online community. (Same with the front story of 'The Week', the weekly review of the news from Dennis Publishing, funnily enough, based on one I just saw on the Tube in London.) There is less than meets the eye here and it's best to be real about that.

No, you're over-analysing Dung. Give it a rest, there's a good chap.

And nobody else does that on Bishop Hill? You're a bit obsessed with me, poor chap.

Dung:

Nobody else does what you do Richard, nobody else makes a statement about how things should work and then"suggests" that everyone who thinks differently has a big problem.

Two problems there:

a) Richard Drake doesn't think that everyone who thinks differently to him has a big problem. I just don't, it's not in my nature.

b) But even if I did, on one occasion, in one particular case of a person blatantly defaming me, say, are you really saying that nobody else on Bishop Hill does this? Not BBD? Not Zed? The one person you have become obsessed with is, alone, doing this?

Dungo, your obsession seems to be blinding you, preventing you now from even reading what I am saying. And I have to admit that this has started to make me laugh.

One of the key elements in community is laughter - and separate communities laugh at very different things. This is well illustrated in the reaction to the Watts diatribe against Cotton. You have explained that you and Chris M find it funny in the same way as watching the mad Basil Fawlty beating an inanimate object is funny - in other words Watts has become a figure of ridicule for you.

But it is you and Chris M I find funny - because you seem to want to put Doug Cotton on an equal footing with Anthony Watts, or even place him above Watts. This I find hilarious and ridiculous - a bit like when mydog claimed to have more knowledge of radiative physics than some experts known to Richard Betts and Richard fell off his chair laughing. I was laughing with Richard then and I am both laughing and crying with Anthony Watts (in his obvious frustration and anger) as I read this outburst.

The fact that we laugh at such different things tells me that we are nothing like part of the same community. As I say, there is less here than seems to meet the eye.

And I don't appreciate your attempt to censor this point of view, Dung and Chris M. Community by exclusion of unpalatable feedback? Don't you hate the way the climate consensus does that? I suggest you don't become like them.

Geoff: and you're a very naughty boy.

Meanwhile, can I draw the attention of latecomers to this bunfight to the final paragraph of my original observation, which caused such trauma to the People's Front for the Liberation of Judaea:

UKIP I would see as an effective community. A certain subset of climate skeptics in the UK may be becoming so too - in fact I think there are hopeful signs of this, including the guy at 11 Downing Street. But I think like Richard Bacon on This Week on Thursday we have to dial back on the idea of online community. (Same with the front story of 'The Week', the weekly review of the news from Dennis Publishing, funnily enough, based on one I just saw on the Tube in London.) There is less than meets the eye here and it's best to be real about that.

I wanted to ground this discussion in what I feel is really going on in the UK as far as community is concerned (and I only feel competent to judge the UK). I think the growth of UKIP is very relevant to the skeptic community but there is more than that. Geoff Chambers himself comes from a different place from UKIP politically, I believe, and there are many on all parts of the political spectrum waking up to fuel poverty and much else that has flowed from climate chicanery.

My point being that the climate sceptic community in the UK is in fact in increasingly good shape but online attempts can mislead in various ways. And realism is vital, at every level, when dealing with an ideology based on so much illusion.

Dung, you've become obsessed about this and you are the one now derailing this thread, like a few before it. A quick point made on 9th November assumed any honest differences, which I welcomed, would be over within 24 hours. Instead you are still going on about the stuff sixteen days later. Get over it. There are different opinions here about many things. Isn't that precisely one of the points of this thread?

I also sense that for some reason you don't want this debate to be placed in the wider context of the sceptic community in the UK. We see a lot coming together at the moment but you don't want to go there. Issues slayers harp on about online, about which Watts is for me rightly exercised, are by no means central to what is happening in the UK. In fact, I'm convinced that they are a completely separate community in practice, doing damage to the effective coming together of others in the real world. In recent public appearances I think our host has made quite clear that he is mindful of this.

I'm arguing that the UK sceptic community is not too fragmented to be effective but that some online versions may be. I do not see why this should be called poison unless you and the originator of this thread want to give any opinion not meeting your approval - or from the wrong kind of person - that crude epithet.

Thanks for the lesson on politeness, 'poison' pal. I notice that when such insults have ceased you have failed to address a single substantive point I've made. I doubt you have it in you to do that with Richard Drake. But I don't see why your obsessive, fantasy-filled view of me as the ultimate demon of Bishop Hill posters should stop me keeping calm and carrying on. Someone else will eventually come along. And I remain interested in the right shape of future web-based support for many and varied real-world communities protesting against the climate con. The UK, with its history of non-conformity and technical innovation, could still be a great base for that.

Thanks for that Chris, very helpful. I agree of course that Anthony is one of the good guys - that was my point throughout. I had the impression that you and Dung thought Doug Cotton was one of the good guys too, despite his continued misuse of the rules and social norms of WUWT and other places, that has exasperated Anthony so much. I take it that you're saying that was a false impression of mine? Because of course that fellow-feeling for Watts changes the nature of any laughter big-time.