Shub, I haven't done what you say. I have expressed some opinions but I've also laid out a framework that I wanted you to comment on, suggest alterations, add greater precision or whatever. Rather than run before we can walk can I return to my first question:

Is all unpalatable feedback good?

It was your phrase. Isn't that a fair place to start?

Shub, I just came back to this thread. I hadn't seen your earlier comment of 11:50 when I posted mine of 11:58 or of 4:28, which refers to yours of 12:13. I've got to do some other things for a bit but I will return to this and give it some attention. Bye for now.

But never mind, because on my humble and sensitive suggestion of 9th Novermber, that kicked this episode off, I did receive unpalatable feedback and lots of it - that I was not in fact proposing what I thought I was proposing but that I was proposing the banning of pseudonymity. This feedback was unpalatable to me, because I knew it not to be true and that it would damage my reputation. Once I had pointed this out I felt that those continuing to accuse me were lying. And the lying continued for quite a while. This did not seem good to me. But I now think I was being taught an important lesson about unpalatable feedback and how it is treated by the denizens of Bishop Hill. (Most stay well clear. I thoroughly sympathize.)

That all happened a bit later. Shub's first words in response were:

Nah. That is not going to be good.

Hence my interest in what Shub meant by good. And by unpalatable feedback, which were his final words of that response and seemed to me a crucial part of it. I took good to mean (above) good for the whole blog but I was completely open to correction on that. To not want to deal with it because I "have an agenda" seems strange because my initial agenda was open. But perhaps it's because this thread is not couched as or intended to be unpalatable feedback, because it is a genuine attempt (or was - I think we probably just ran out of time, from my point of view) at reaching greater understanding of where we differ. Is that bad? Is unpalatable feedback in fact the only good around here?

Shub wrote this very interesting account yesterday (which turned into a busier day for me than expected, in some remarkable and good ways, all springing from my birthday a week ago):

When mac was pestering Betts, I felt sympathy for Betts. Betts was obviously not in a position to speak for the Met Office. But I saw Betts give quasi-officialese, carrying-the-water-for-the-IPCC, 'communicator'-ey sort of answers over a good length of time and expected kudos in return, but instead got to feel the wrath of commenters who have a traditional old-school understanding of what science means and how it ought to function. Good then. Where do you think the burden of introspection lies? I think Betts should think: 'huh, so that is how a cross-section of British taxpayers think about science 'communicators'?'. The commenters should go: 'huh, maybe I shouldn't have bitten the head off of someone who reached out (so he can keep doing more of his 'communication')'.

This perspective is not unpalatable to me but very to the point. Best for me to leave it here. This one paragraph shows that there is much more agreement on the underlying issues than for a while it seemed. And that, for me, at least, is good.