Discussion > On being banned
I think it's quite a good idea to have a discussion post where examples of this can be recorded. One of the earliest places where this was discussed (which newbies may not be aware of) is the Climate Audit thread Is Gavin Schmidt Honest. There's a lot to digest there, from the example in the main post, to the experiment discussed by commenter Jonathan, to the climategate email about screening and holding up comments.
Paul Matthews
Raff,
I find it impossible to believe you cannot come up with a sceptical question. I can come up with a hundred warmist questions to poke holes in any sceptic argument, and frequently do. Nonsense is nonsense, whoever said it. Being able to see the flaws in an argument is the number one quality in a scientist - asking pointed tough questions and refining a hypothesis until they are all gone is the essential skill - THE essential toolkit of science - if you do not possess it, then you are no scientist.
No, I believe you are claiming not to be able to, not because you can't, but because you are trying to imply that coming up with a sceptical question would involve such an unnatural, insane or illogical way of thinking that it is impossible for you to manage it. In effect your post is one huge ad hom.
Raff, are you being paid to troll, or do you consider it a freebie?
TheBigYinJames
Messenger
I quite look forward to those sneaking through, best left unanswered. ZDB makes it a lot easier to discuss with Raff* and Entropic by reminding us how much worse things could be and they, Entropic man in particular, things to think about and to research.
*TBYJ post above restates my point of Oct 26, 2014 at 10:40 PM that Raff should be able to post a seriously sceptical question, as any true scientifically minded person should.
SandyS
Here's an example, which is ironic because it comes from Jim Bouldin, who used to be part of the RealClimate team but is now sounding increasingly sceptical about climate alarmism.
https://ecologicallyoriented.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/yeah-who-cares-about-climate-change-consensus-anyway/
Paul Matthews
*double sigh*
And why does that thread excite you…It doesn’t, particularly. You wanted us to provide an example of what we were talking about – I provided it. As I have said, it is not the information, correct or otherwise, that is of relevance, it is the responses to that given: Rcina responds in a calm, measured way (we shall ignore whether or not he is correct in his conclusions about the data), giving sites and quotes from where he has gained his information (much of it from the IPCC and alarmist sites, which you declare as "little factual information", an interesting insight to your opinions of those sites, but let’s skip over that, too), and why it has influenced his opinions. Publicola et al respond with nothing – absolutely nothing – but insults and invective. Can you truly not see that? Does your ideology blind you that much?
As for Arrhenius, yes, it is an interesting hypothesis, as yet unproven. My own inkling is that it is flawed, based simply upon my own observations: when it is a clear night, surface temperatures plummet; on a cloudy night, surface temperatures do not fall quite so dramatically. Is there less CO2 and water vapour in the air on clear nights? Unlikely; however, what there is less of is liquid water (i.e. clouds). Until something a bit more substantive comes of the hypothesis, I will hold onto my doubts about it.
As others are pointing out here, Raff, you are ducking and dodging the issue, unwilling to concede one point where you might be wrong, unwilling to accept that scepticism is an essential part of science. Instead, you leap onto one perceived flaw in my logic, and beat it to death, and wonder why we are not all falling over ourselves in amazement at your perspicacity.
Now, until you can either (1) provide me with one (just one; one is all I need. Is that too difficult?) item of proof that a model can give, other than whether or not the assumptions made in its construction were correct or (2) admit that it is not possible to get such proof, I shall consider you nothing more than a troll on this site, and ignore you.
Radical Rodent
Yep, deletion or extremly long moderation is far more prevalent than banning. There are several incidents where the person whose works was under discussion didn't even have a right to reply. I know one of them was at the Guardian but I can't remember who it was but there's this bit of foul play at Real Climate.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/07/boreholed/
Reddit and L A Times have stated they have banned sceptic letters full stop and several other media organisations are considering doing the same. The BBC have their policies on how infrequently they intend to let sceptics have a voice. The only reason the Guardian lets some comments through is because they need the readership the arguments generate.
Yes TBYJ and SandyS, it does look suspiciously like lying when Raff claims he can't pretend to be a sceptic but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he just isn't very clever.
TinyCO2
I once did an experiment at Guardian “Comment is Free” which I wrote up at
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=337
which proved pretty definitively that deletion of posts (which can lead to pre-moderation and eventual banning) can be the result of a single commenter reporting your comments.
I also had a conversation with the Guardian's Readers' Editor, who said I'd been banned (or placed on pre-moderation, I don't remember)- for “persistently criticising the journalists”.
I've reproduced the famous Conversation thread that got wiped out and led to a rewriting of their moderation policy at
http://geoffchambers.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/the-conversation/
geoffchambers
Radical rodent
"Is there less CO2 and water vapour in the air on clear nights?"
Same amount of CO2, less water vapour. It gets precipitated out as frost or dew. Hence the faster cooling as the greenhouse effect decreases.
Clouds damp convection and reflect outgoing IR produced by the ground and lower atmosphere. Both help retain heat and reduce the nocturnal cooling rate.
Entropic man
Link to the page where the Bish got pre moderated on his own article.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2010/9/10/moderation-in-all-things.html
TinyCO2
SandyS
Watts banned me off after I pointed out some dodgy graphs.
Tallbloke banned me after I pointed out some dodgy science.
Tisdale banned me after I pointed out that his ideas violated the second law of thermodynamics.
Entropic man
Same amount of CO2, less water vapour. It gets precipitated out as frost or dew.Such precipitation only occurs after the ground has cooled below the dew-point temperature of the air (and if the air movement is just right, but let’s not get too picky); while the ground is cooling, the water vapour remains in the air. So, why is it not acting properly greenhousey, and keeping the ground warm by reflecting all that heat back?
As for those banning you; I have followed those sites quite well, and they have shown no fear of being pointed out as being wrong, and will correct themselves, or (more often) correct the commenter. The more likely explanation is that they became fed up with your pedantry, however erroneous it may be, and your ability to completely misread information that is in front of your face.
Radical Rodent
How curious. I wonder what happened, there? I have seen (and been) double-postings before, but never 1.5-postingor
[Half a comment removed for the sake of tidiness. BH]
Radical Rodent
Radical Rodent
Greenhouse gases do not keep the ground warm. They reduce the cooling rate.
After sunset on a clear night the ground and lower atmosphere radiate IR to space at rate X. CO2 nd water vapour redirect some of that heat back towards the surface at rates Y and Z respectively. The overall rate of heat loss is X-Y-Z
As the temperature drops frost and/or dew form and Y reduces with the reduction in water vapour. The overall rate of heat loss increases as the night goes on, then the rate becomes constant at X-Z once most of the water vapour has gone.
In terms of temperature you get a slower rate of temperature drop early on and a faster rate once dew or frost form.
Don't talk about the greenhouse effect keeping the ground warm. It can you into the mistaken belief that the greenhouse effect adds heat, rather than reducing the rate of heat loss.
Entropic man
Another warmist blog Dirty Trick "the ambush name"
eg. 1 SkepticalScience.com after spending a few minutes on the site you realised you've been lured in by the promise that the site is about Skepticism & Science.. and that actually it's real name should be Non-Skeptic.Dogma.com
- there was Wotts Up With That Blog - pretending to be Watts Up With That
which decided it wasn't credible to use an ambush name so changed it to and "Then There's Physics Blog" which to me sounds like another ambush as the guy is trying to claim the good high ground of physics yet I don't think Anders the owner is a physicist, and is accused of mass censorship
- Similarly in a milder way : I couldn't understand why the discussion on the Australian Skeptics facebook page was so visciously alarmist compared to the people I had met at meetings, then I realised it wasn't the same org. It had actually been created by a bunch of climate alarm true believers, that why my posts were met with smearing, bullying and censoring. I notice now after 3 years they have added a disclaimer
"this is not the official presence of Australian Skeptics Inc on Facebook." and they have a non-free debate policy "All posts are placed into a queue to be approved by admins before publishing."
stewgreen
- I have basically been scared off from raising my head above the parapet on all those I previously listed when I have just tried to participate civily.
...Doubtful News was another one I was driven away from. They were excited to scream "big Oil Funds Skeptics", but not pleased to be challenged that it was an activist smear job.
... Much Later they added a correction at the end alluding to the fact their original story came from info STOLEN by activist Peter Gleick.
as you started this post "that they were once true believers (or some such) but were driven away from the consensus side by the arrogance and rudeness of others. "
I am not saying I was converted by the toxic atmosphere of alarmist blogs, just that I can see how others could have been. .. I am giving examples of the context : the toxicity of warmist blogs
stewgreen
@Raff .. the Bottomline
- Can you name any Skeptic blogs where the debate atmosphere is less than super-civilised ?
- Can you name any Alarmist blogs where the debate atmosphere is non-toxic ?
stewgreen
I forgot that there was a blog set up some time ago specifically to record examples of comment deletion from realclimate and elsewhere, rcrejects.wordpress.com.
Also here is a more recent discussion at Hockeyschtick.
Paul Matthews
we had a sceptical science contributor (John Russell ) turn up (as a moderator) at the Carbon Brief and delete everything in sight, because anndthentheresphysic guy got himself in a mess (being wrong) , recently
http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/lewis-and-curry/
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/09/your-questions-on-climate-sensitivity-answered/
so unaware they chatted on twitter about it.
https://twitter.com/JohnRussell40/status/515789561822453760
JohnRussell40
@theresphysics I deleted much of the CB Sensitivity thread (getting out of hand). Did leave your main point to @RozPidcock. Hope that's OK.
There's Physics @theresphysics · Sep 27
@JohnRussell40 @theresphysics @RozPidcock Fine with me. I never complain about moderator decisions :-)
Christian Hunt @chr1stianh · Sep 27
@JohnRussell40 @RozPidcock Hey, I'll take a look in a bit. Thanks John. I see your comment @theresphysics.
There's Physics @theresphysics · Sep 27
@chr1stianh @JohnRussell40 @RozPidcock @theresphysics Don't reinstate it on my behalf. I wasn't really behaving myself :-)
Christian Hunt @chr1stianh · Sep 27
@theresphysics @JohnRussell40 @RozPidcock Just need to give my hangover ten minutes before I wade into a thread about climate sensitivity...
John Russell @JohnRussell40 · Sep 27
@theresphysics You suffer from same urge as me: not to let ppl get away with writing crap :-) Unfortunately it always escalates. @chr1stianh
Roz Pidcock @RozPidcock · Sep 27
@theresphysics Yes, you make a good point - I've replied in the thread. Thx all @chr1stianh @JohnRussell40
There's Physics @theresphysics · Sep 27
@RozPidcock Hi, I've left a response. I think, in a sense, I was wrong about the deep oceans. Sorry about that. @chr1stianh @JohnRussell40
John believes in the 'big oil' conspiracy, so little point of ever trying to engage.
https://twitter.com/JohnRussell40/status/516299923122577409
Barry Woods
@Paul What was it called when some alarmist blogs started "shadow banning" So that when X tried to participate in a blog debate he could see his posts .. but couldn't understand why no one replied ..only later did X realise that the warmist blog owners had secretly banned them without telling them, so that their own posts appeared on their own screens , but never actually appeared on anyone elses.
Popular Science and Sydney Morning Herald also ban skeptics as well as
"Redditt Science" ..along with LA Times
@Barry, you reminded me we know aboutsome of SkepticalSciences dirty tricks and censoring policies, cos the the secret discussion area of their blog, was actually open to the web, not hidden behind a password..and someone guessed and came across it.
stewgreen
I think this blog debate censorship all comes into the "Never debate skeptics, you might lose" rule, that the main alarmist bodies use.
- "Why don't the public believe ?" the alarmist media shout , but they fail to remember that there never has been a proper public debate , cos warmists will never turn up to proper debates.
The one time I know is one when keen amateur warmist Simon Singh tried ..he got thrashed
stewgreen
Greenhouse gases do not keep the ground warm. They reduce the cooling rate.A good enough example of your false or erroneous pedantry. So, what does keeping warm mean? In my (perhaps limited) mind, it means “reduce the cooling rate”. When out in the cold, you wrap yourself up to keep warm – in other words, to reduce the cooling rate. You are as tiresome as Raff, EM, in your own way.
Radical Rodent
I remember when Zed said that she/he hated us all - which basically is pretty unhealthy..
"Zed's object is to disrupt the blog by starting flame wars."
Jun 19, 2013 at 10:47 PM | Bishop Hill
I doubt you'll believe this, and I doubt this comment will be here more than a minute or so (thanks to the dissentience-quoshing dissentient), but I genuinely don't want either of those things. That really is the truth.I hate most of you, indeed. I think what you do is evil/stupid/selfish/often not in great mental health.
But my aim and intention is to point out outright lies when they're told here, expose hypocrisy (especially regarding supposed scepticism, when it's never applied to obvious wrongs here), and, I suppose, be the baffle in the echo chamber.
i don't really like the aggressive guerilla style Montford has forced upon me by deleting my posts on sight. If you recall, prior to automatic deletion, I genuinely did try to discuss topics, although in a robust way, on account of hating most of you.
I apply a genuinely sceptical mirror to you, and try not to let complete bullshit go unremarked. Andrew really can't allow that, for some reason..
*pointedly doesn't mention money*
Jun 19, 2013 at 11:05 PM | Unregistered CommenterZedsDeadBed
Barry Woods
Stewgreen
I come here, debate the sceptics and win.
It is not scored that way here for the same reason that Judge Gath the Philistine declared Goliath the winner.
Entropic man
EM has a strange definition of "win"...
stewgreen
Raff ably demonstrates some of the flaws of a warmist. First he picks a small part of a bigger picture and sets out an imprecise assessment of it. He then demands we jump through hoops to react to it. When we supply valid points he either ignores them or shoots off at tangents. He shows his inability to view things from another’s standpoint and sneers and jeers with all the arrogance he tries to claim isn’t a driving factor in creating scepticism. And underlying the whole thing is a wilful inability to accept the bleeding obvious.
Well done Raff, on this master class in why warmists are losing their fight.