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2010-12-16 06:01:25 | Trolls | |
Riccardo riccardoreitano@tiscali... 93.147.82.147 |
We should keep their existence in mind and be aware that they suddenly come out of nowhere to derail discussions. damorbel comes to mind, but he's just the latest example. Here's Mombiot take plus other things. | |
2010-12-16 21:47:32 | Disturbing piece by Monbiot | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 121.222.210.74 |
The thought of corporate funding of trolling is disturbing. Problem is Monbiot doesn't provide a solution. But at SkS, we have a unique structure that empowers us to stop trolling and that is all our existing rebuttals. If someone trolls, we either delete them or redirect them to an existing rebuttal. Just the act of posting a colored box response, saying "already covered that" has a psychological impact. So I reiterate the #1 moderator rule - don't feed the trolls. Be vigilant, delete the trolling comments or redirect them, spoil their fun, they'll get bored and go elsewhere. | |
2010-12-17 04:25:15 | Bored vs. boring | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
Damorbel seems incapable of becoming bored. Boring, yes; bored, no.
Has anyone looked into this hfranzen guy? | |
2010-12-17 05:17:50 | ||
Daniel Bailey Daniel Bailey yooper49855@hotmail... 99.169.190.81 |
Based on just 2 posts thus far, I'd say TheCaz is a troll, waiting to hatch from his denialist origins. Sigh. Hope he proves me wrong. | |
2010-12-18 16:54:24 | Hfranzen | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 121.222.210.74 |
I've been corresponding with hfranzen. His background is in physical chemistry and his main assertion is you can prove AGW based on purely physical chemistry arguments. Its an interesting perspective. I've invited him to write a guest post and he's accepted the offer. Should spark some interesting discussion. | |
2010-12-19 01:51:50 | hfranzen | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
Yep, that'll be a fun one. He may know his pchem, but he's treating the environment like its purely a lab experiment. There doesn't seem to be any reality checking in his work.
I backed off when he postulated that rivers must be carrying dissolved carbonates to the ocean. | |
2010-12-20 08:41:28 | RW1 | |
Riccardo riccardoreitano@tiscali... 93.147.82.93 |
RW1 sounds very much like another troll. damorbel disappeared and RW1 jumped in. Same person? Organized substitution of trolls? Or just chance? | |
2010-12-20 14:16:06 | Riccardo is onto something | |
Daniel Bailey Daniel Bailey yooper49855@hotmail... 68.188.192.170 |
The pattern I have seen is to engage as many regular commenters and contributors for as long as possible, both tying up resources (people's time) and contributing to commenter burnout and frustration. Then denier A exits, stage left, and denier B starts up. Shake, repeat as necessary. Guerrilla tactics by an organized group? You decide.
The result is making the threads a mess to follow for the lurkers. | |
2010-12-20 18:19:18 | Upcoming article on ABC Unleashed - please help in comments thread | |
James Wight jameswight@southernphone.com... 112.213.166.150 |
Possibly tomorrow, or possibly later in the week, an "opinion" piece about climate change written by me will be published on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's website, in the "Unleashed" section. I don't know which day it will be published, but I am mentioning it in advance because I expect it to be attacked by the usual cohort of climate denier trolls and would appreciate some informed, hopefully positive comments. After all, if the other side really is making organised campaigns in comment threads then we might as well do the same thing. | |
2010-12-21 13:40:15 | ABC Unleashed article | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 121.222.210.74 |
James, post here when it goes online and drop me an email also - I'll go post a comment and hopefully more of us will post comments. The comments in that section are off the scale so important to get some good quality supportive comments early. Pity the ABC don't tell the author when the article gets published. | |
2010-12-22 13:16:39 | Department of Redundancy Department | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
Is there a rule (or even a guideline) about senseless repetition? RSVP, damorbel and now RW1 (among others) seem only capable of repeating their opinions regardless of how many times they are shown actual evidence that they are out-to-lunch. This is beginning to choke the site with noise: As threads grow to multiple hundreds of comments, it becomes harder to keep track of what was rebutted up-thread. But the trolls just keep trolling, repeating the same lines ad nauseum. The re-write of stratospheric cooling was a great idea, as it allowed some of the garbage to be filtered out. I realize that's a lot of work, but it might be a good model to adopt with other topics. | |
2010-12-22 16:14:29 | Guideline on repetition | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 121.222.210.74 |
One guideline is:
If you like, I can make it more general to give moderators some more flexibility to filter out noise. Eg - instead of "No copying and pasting from earlier comments", I could have "no repeating arguments from earlier comments" | |
2010-12-22 23:18:13 | ||
Ned ned.flounders@yahoo... 129.170.23.45 |
John, I used that in an "ad-hoc" way (meaning, I didn't ask your permission first!) last month, in the thread on Naomi Oreskes's Australian tour. There was a huge fight (starring Poptech, naturally) over the nature of Fred Seitz's relationship to the tobacco industry. It got very repetitive, so I made this intervention (and another, a little later). I deleted a lot of posts at the same time, from both Poptech and his opponents. I did let through longer comments that had "new" information, so the discussion wasn't completely killed. I felt OK doing that, because I hadn't been involved in the thread at all, was not particularly emotionally invested in either side of the argument, and felt confident that I could be a more or less even-handed moderator. Hope that was OK. | |
2010-12-23 01:45:16 | Repetition | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
I'm guilty of cut-an-paste, but I find it an effective means of responding to specific points. I keep the cuts to mere 'snips' and respond point by point. Someone said it was worthwhile using the skeptic's own words against them; I agree completely with that. I'm referring to the way threads degenerate into a cycle of A: The world is flat; B: Do you have any data to support that? C: That's incorrect because ___ ; D: Here are some examples of why its incorrect; A: The world is flat. It doesn't feel right to 'make a ruling' as a participant-moderator. Other blogs have agree/disagree buttons or such on each comment, but that can turn nasty; is it possible to have just an 'I agree' button, so that comments can be seconded, but not dissed, without the need to add more text? | |
2010-12-24 11:14:56 | By cut and paste, I mean copying your own comments | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 123.211.206.13 |
Eg - someone who just repastes an old comment of theirs to make the same point. Copying and pasting someone else's comment to respond to is fine - I do it all the time as a good way to answer their exact words. | |
2010-12-27 04:54:46 | Our own Energizer bunnies | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
RW1 and Eric are still going... we should be charging them rent. BTW, I believe that RW1 is the Robert Weber, who is linked to the doubling CO2 pdf on the 'How sensitive is our climate' thread. In that one, he gets 1C by adding albedo and emissivity, which seems like a questionable act to me. | |
2010-12-28 07:29:35 | RW1 | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
Is it high time that the nonsense on Lindzen and Choi be moderated? It seems to be driving away more people each day it goes on. Especially now that a new voice, co2isnotevil, has arrived; RW1 will be starting over from the beginning.
I hesitate to step in, as I have been an active contributor. I've suggested a number of different ways for a graceful exit, but he's not interested. | |
2010-12-28 08:21:02 | ||
Daniel Bailey Daniel Bailey yooper49855@hotmail... 174.10.252.73 |
Are we certain RW1 and co2isnotevil are not one and the same? Seems convenient that as the former is getting TKO'D that the latter shows up with basically the same disinformation and sources... | |
2010-12-28 09:15:32 | ||
Rob Painting Rob paintingskeri@vodafone.co... 118.93.212.59 |
Seems convenient that as the former is getting TKO'D How many readers would come to that conclusion?. The whole point of their pseudo-scientific twaddle is to create confusion in the mind of an uninformed lurker. Seems to me like they are probably succeeding. | |
2010-12-28 11:23:00 | ;) | |
Daniel Bailey Daniel Bailey yooper49855@hotmail... 68.188.192.170 |
I may still be uninformed, but I no longer lurk, heh, heh... | |
2010-12-28 12:14:41 | ||
e Ed eu.junk@gmail... 67.177.227.110 |
The upside is that to anyone who is even slightly informed, those guys make skeptics look like idiots. Notice how "Eric(skeptic)" is suddenly arguing strongly on the pro-AGW side. | |
2010-12-28 14:15:03 | A whack-whack here, a whack-whack there... | |
Daniel Bailey Daniel Bailey yooper49855@hotmail... 130.36.62.142 |
I see e has waded into the fray in inimitable Paul Bunyan-esque idiom, laying about with Gimli's axe in true Lizzie Borden fashion... (to mix a metaphor or three). | |
2010-12-28 14:48:19 | Who is who | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
Google finds co2isnotevil = George White = palisad.com; although he denied it, I still think RW is the author of the climate doubling paper linked on the original climate sensitivity page. It reads almost verbatim with his basic premise, whatever that is or was. I had to object to their taking the discussion to how White came up with ideas on his page. So now they're whining about moderation. Thanks to our Jedi e and Chris for taking on this particular Dark Lord and his minions with their twin light-sabers 'Reason' and 'Logic' (take that metaphor, Yooper), although it bothers me that so many others seem to have checked out (although some may be on holiday). I think its clear that the ultimate goal of this charade is to drive off any fence-sitting lurkers who don't understand their minutiae and get bored by it. 400 comments in a week is making me long for the days of good-old-damorbel. | |
2010-12-28 15:24:12 | RW is probably not co2isnotevil | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 123.211.206.13 |
One IP is from New Jersey, the other is from Sacremento, california. Not foolproof but the two are probably not the same person. One of these days, I'll set it up so moderators can access this info.
Seeing a few Star Wars and LOTR metaphors appearing here and elsewhere on the forum. Good to see I'm not the only genre geek here :-) | |
2010-12-28 16:06:58 | Mae govannen | |
Daniel Bailey Daniel Bailey yooper49855@hotmail... 130.36.62.223 |
(channeling Olόrin) "Which Dark Lord? Sauron or Melkor?" Namárië
Time to haul out the Monty Python epithets... | |
2010-12-29 08:00:37 | Isildur's Bane | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
I was thinking Nazgul, perhaps with co2isevil as their king. Sensitivity appears to be their One Ring; however they have many names for it (gain, power, net surface flow or whatever). Interesting deleted comment, in which he is revealed in his true form. Is there a Shieldmaiden of Rohan anywhere close? | |
2010-12-29 09:01:13 | ||
Glenn Tamblyn glenn@thefoodgallery.com... 124.180.203.124 |
For what it is worth, co2isnotevil is someone who has posted regularly over at Jo Nova. He also has his own website pushing his theories here http://www.palisad.com/co2/eb/eb.html | |
2010-12-30 10:50:50 | The trolls just keep on coming | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's a testimony to the strength of John Cook's site as a buttress against the denier-world, but it seems as if orcs and trolls are massing at the gates! Glamdring, Orcrist, Anduril, where art thou? | |
2010-12-30 12:12:56 | ||
Rob Painting Rob paintingskeri@vodafone.co... 118.93.236.221 |
Mu - Yes, I have noticed that. | |
2010-12-30 12:53:11 | Empirical data on the troll factor at SkS | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 123.211.206.13 |
If you're a nerd who is fascinated with data and graphs (let's be honest with ourselves, everyone in this forum fits that description and the eagerness with which we all embrace Tolkien metaphors provides additional confirmation), you'll probably be as interested as I am in the stats on skeptic activity on SkS. I tag users as Skeptic or Warmist which then allows me to track the # of skeptic and warmist comments. All the raw data, up-to-date to the second, is available here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/stats.php
One of these days, I'll plot a graph of the # of skeptic comments as a percentage of the total # of comments. Hmm, I really need to get a life :-)
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2010-12-30 13:07:41 | Graph of percentage of skeptic comments | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 123.211.206.13 |
The problem is I just enjoy plotting these graphs too much so as soon as I mentioned it, I couldn't resist seeing the result. And while its a noisy signal, the result is the percentage of skeptic comments at SkS is increasing and now over 20%.
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2010-12-30 15:57:00 | Graphs | |
muoncounter Dan Friedman dfriedman3@comcast... 98.200.169.238 |
Your first graph looks like a couple of bad el Ninos, followed by a warming trend. Recognizing that the overall traffic level is up, is there something to the increasing density of dots in the second graph? It just seems like there's been a nonstop parade of deniers, not just the usual suspects. | |
2010-12-30 17:21:32 | Increasing density | |
John Cook john@skepticalscience... 123.211.206.13 |
The increasing density (in both graphs) is because the increasing number of blog posts. Back in 2007 to 2009 when it was mostly me writing the blog posts, they were few and far between. That huge spike in mid-2008 in the first graph is presumably (I haven't checked) because there was a big gap between blog posts so everyone just had to post comments in that latest post. I got more active in 2010 but things really exploded when we started the basic rebuttals in the middle of 2010. That's when things really liven up, both the # of comments and the skeptic activity. Looking at the second graph, it's a bit of a worry that the percentage of skeptic comments approaches 60% a couple of times. | |
2010-12-30 23:48:49 | Take that as a compliment | |
Daniel Bailey Daniel Bailey yooper49855@hotmail... 68.188.192.170 |
Means we're making headway when the deniers feel threatened enough to accost us here en masse.
The average reader should have little difficulty parsing between the well-intentioned-but-uninformed and the intentionally-obtuse.
We do seem to be attracting the attention of the boss level/overlord deniaratti and not just their usual minion-scum (yes, I am positioning us as the Rebel Alliance vs the Evil Empire; hafta find a more unique analogy)... | |
2010-12-31 07:31:33 | ||
Rob Painting Rob paintingskeri@vodafone.co... 118.93.200.77 |
Yooper, which one of the "skeptics" is Daft Vader?. | |
2010-12-31 12:28:44 | Obi-Wan taught you well.... | |
Daniel Bailey Daniel Bailey yooper49855@hotmail... 68.188.192.170 |
The only ego on the stage big enough to play Darth Helmet would have to be...Monckton. | |
2011-03-10 11:22:17 | ||
seaturtles michelle.waterman1@gmail... 216.40.71.213 |
It seems like they have also become more organized as we can see from the clustering. I'd say that skeptics problably have a central office somewhere in Texas, along the Bible Belt or something.. :-) |