Were AlecM and therealviffer considered trolls on the thread in question? Yes - by steveta and myself and no doubt many others. Our host has made clear from his many deletions of AlecM that he frequently considers his contributions off topic. That's surely a guide to help us in our cogitations here.

I do have my own blog, begun just before Climategate in November 2009, and in it I talk about modern software development and other concerns of interest to me. What difference does that make? Matt Ridley also has a blog, on which he recently decided to make commenting impossible - just as Donna Laframboise has for many moons. That's relevant, of course, because Matt used Bishop Hill to make the points he wanted to in response to Joe Romm, in the thread that six days later triggered the debate here.

You'd have to ask Matt why he chose Bishop Hill but I think we could hazard some guesses. Either way, the fact that he had alternative venues makes no difference on whether discussion about the greenhouse effect was on or off topic in this one.

One thing you shouldn't have done is to broaden the discussion, the moment I challenged you, Martin A and Rhoda on this, to your take on my other views. I wasn't having a go at pseudonyms in general, I was backing steveta's call for both AlecM and therealviffer - and by extension you and those seeking to answer you - to be considered off topic for the thread.

There's no issue for me in any BH contributor making suggestions as steveta originally did. We all know that "advisers advise, ministers decide," as Margaret Thatcher once memorably said, with Nigel Lawson the minister in mind and the late Alan Walters the adviser. Here the minister is a Bishop and he decides. None of us have disputed this so it's not an issue. We're all free to give advice and, as with other things, some of it is bound to be better than others. That's what this thread is all about.

Dung: it wasn't my "nym hating theme once again" because there has never been such a theme. I don't hate anyone in this debate. I do want clarity though and I am quite certain that having discussion of general greenhouse theory - especially if this hadn't been challenged and went on for pages and pages, as it easily can - wasn't conducive to clarity for the person interested solely in Matt Ridley's issues with Joe Romm.

I do follow my own advice. I give my opinion and I let the Bishop decide. I've never advised that someone else should be banned. Having discounted the false pejoratives did you say that simply because I have often disagreed with you?

Last but not least, we now have your word that:

AlecM is indeed often deleted but he and therealviffer are not the same person ...

That is a first, that I know of, since someone first suggested that mydogsgotnonose had changed his name, many months ago. In Channelling dogginess in October we got to about ten nyms that mydog had used, or so we believed. Never did anyone authoritatively state that any of these 'sightings' were not the same underlying person.

So you have broken new ground with this claim my friend - indeed I think this could put our relationship on an entirely different footing. I hope you don't mind therefore if I ask for the basis for this statement.

Unlike a troll I answered all your points, an achievement made more difficult by your highly pejorative framing, just like the troll you've begun to portray, of my "nym hating theme" - a steaming pile of dung I also had to clean up. Now you cry 'rant' after quoting a perfectly reasonable question of mine. Could you instead please pay me and other readers the courtesy of providing quotes and URL references for the places where AlecM and therealviffer said what you claim?

By equating mydog and his ten or more alter egos and their many off-topic interjections over many months with the sturdy Latimer Alder (with whom I first exchanged emails in March 2011) and Omnologos (who we all know is Maurizio Morabito, BBC-embargo-buster) you must surely realise, even in your apparent newness to this blog, that you are pulling the other one.

But this is characteristic of your method throughout. If I gently criticise the specific misdeeds of one or two dodgy nyms I'm taken by you to be in blind hatred damning all sayings of the best ones. The kind of misdirection totalitarians have always applied before banning criticism and frequently doing violence to their source. So best to give it a rest old chap. You haven't been given totalitarian power over Bishop Hill, which means your intemperate advocacy of me being banned on 27th December 2012 was very misguided, in case you haven't yet realised.

How condescending. Write whatever you want - others will I'm sure notice if you ever provide quotes of AlecM and therealviffer, and their URLs, which I asked for last time around, on which this key statement depended:

You may or not have noticed that alecm has never denied having multiple aliases but therealviffer has strongly denied that he is alecm plus his posts are totally different.

Please note that although I dislike the condescending nature of your reply that does not constitute hatred. I think you realise that you've badly overstepped the mark in suggesting I should be banned. Because you have no hard evidence of misdeeds to back this up. You are left only with the option of substituting your totally misleading representation of what I've said for real evidence. And it's your burden of proof, for the simple reason I'm not arguing that you or anyone else should be banned.

And it also seems that I won the argument about whether the general greenhouse discussion was on topic for the Matt Ridley thread. Martin A implicitly accepted this in offering to move to email or another BH thread. All we're left with is Mr Dung backing up his claim that Richard Drake should be banned. You haven't as far as I know yet said the same about anyone else who has disagreed with you, such as steveta. But his reply on the other thread is well worth re-reading. I don't envy your position.

Thanks for the reminder of the gun incident TBYJ. You did start it and I did treat it as a joke, then Dung joined in and I again joked back, admitting at once that I had much to be modest about in the underpants department. But I did then ask that we didn't continue to joke about people shooting and maiming me. I'm really sorry that I tried to draw that line. Now I know how much affection Dung really has for me. It's clear that I should have taken the joke for as long as anyone wanted to make it and however extreme it got. Good old Dung wants me banned and he wants personally to shoot me in the groin and perhaps elsewhere. This is absolutely hilarious and I'm very sorry that I didn't see that right away.

Hilary: you have not said that you'd like to shoot me and for that I'm grateful. I did I think get it wrong on that thread when I said that you had implied that someone was being "terse" or was accusing someone of being terse. I do remember thinking that at the time, when I read what you wrote back. That is an acknowledgement that I was wrong on that point. Sorry.

Dung:

Please dont associate me with RD mate, that is the worst insult possible.

Is that a joke, like wanting to shoot me, or to be taken seriously? Is this anger, as it seems, and has it blinded you? As a consequence do you think Bishop Hill should take your suggestion to ban me less seriously?

And can you give one example when I said something - please provide both a quote and URL - which justified your anger and this talk of banning me? I asking for a specific example, please, so that I and others can begin to evaluate whether there is a rational basis for any of this. Please give the worse example you can - that would be the obvious place to start.