Moderation

chrisd

May I ask what the moderation policy, if any, is going to be? After many years of doing this sort of thing, I'm more than a bit tired of boards where every thread gets hijacked with the usual conspiracy theories ('NASA fudges the numbers!'), crackpot physics ('There's no greenhouse effect!'), false 'facts' ('It's cooling!'), and invalid arguments ('Climate's changed before!').

Many science realists have learned a lot about climate and climate science over the years, but no one knows everything. What I'd really like to see is a great resource where we can ask real questions about matters that aren't clear to us, and get real answers without having to wade through hundreds of the same tired denier diversions we've all seen a million times.

Sou

What do you think, ChrisD? Delete comments like that or send them to a "conspiracy dump" section (with no discussion)? Or set some guidelines so everyone can see that this isn't a denier forum (together with one of the other).

VictorVenema

I am happy to trust the moderation, but if you want some transparency to avoid the but-real-climate-moderation syndrome, the offending posts could also go to a dump. However it is done, without strong moderation it is not possible to have an informative discussion, unfortunately, thus I am strongly in favor of moderation.

Chris

Sending off-beam comments to a dump sounds like a good idea. Sometimes it's helpful for sensible folk to get a whiff of what nonsense the denialistas are spouting. Maybe call it "The Naughty Corner".

VictorVenema

Real questions sounds nice. Could we have a section similar to Reddit's Ask Me Anything (AMA). The Reddit version is typically just 1 or 2 hours. Here they could run longer. Main thing is that they are real questions, I would exclude general question that are in the list of climate myths of Skeptical Science.

I am not expecting any real questions from mitigation skeptics, they could have come to my blog and ask questions and my email is also know to all, they do not want to understand climate change. But if people interested in science have questions on climate data quality, I am happy to answer them and I am sure that goes for many scientists.

chrisd

Well, if it were me, and if I'm correctly gauging what it is you're trying to do here, I'd just delete obvious denial/trolling/etc. There's no lack of other venues for that stuff.


I'd post something about moderation, maybe to the general effect that we're interested in serious discussion and are happy to see any serious questions, but we are not interested in, and will not tolerate, conspiracy theories, invalid 'arguments,' and outright denial of established science (even if they're camouflaged as 'questions'). I might give a few examples of what's not allowed:


It's not warming!
The greenhouse effect has never been observed!
Arctic ice has recovered!
NASA is faking the data!
There's no consensus!
Climate's always changing!
Al Gore!!

You know the arguments, probably better than I do.

CCHolley

I would prefer a place for discussion reserved just for those concerned with AGW...those that have a desire to learn and share more about the science along with having discussions about what we can do to help change public perceptions and public policy. Debate with deniers is best left for other venues...throw the trash out.

dcpetterson

The dumpster can serve a purpose for those of us with an interest in keeping abreast of denialist memes. Forewarned, after all, is forearmed.

Of course, the ongoing review of denialist blogs also helps there. 

CCHolley

dcpetterson...I would suggest a thread dedicated to the latest denier memes and the fallacies behind them. I could also see a thread dedicated to where on the web there are deniers posting nonsense that could use rebuttals from those interested in providing such.

FlyingDutchman

Moderation sounds like a good idea, though I think we should really keep the crazy stuff around. Deniers already have a tendency to project 'you're all oppressing us' without having them kicked out of a discussion. Perhaps something like on Reddit where posts/users are auto-hidden once they drop below a certain threshold, but can be made visible by those who want to see them? Not sure how workable that is or if it's just going to attract a few thousand sockpuppets. Or a few thousand more than usual, anyway.

tadaaa

I contribute to a forum called www.metabunk.org - it is quite a focused forum dealing with specific "claims of evidence"
Like most science blogs it has incredibly knowledgeable posters - on a whole range of stuff
it does not attempt (in the main section anyway) to deal with whole "theories" as these are, in a sense impossible to "debunk"
but a specific claim is - it has a very strict and politeness and moderation policy (actually a little more leeway is given to the claimant (usually a bat sh1t crazy conspiritard anyway, and the they tend not to last )
they get snipped and move to "rambles", and off topic posts & diversions get subdivided into separate threads on the whole it works quite well - needles to say I have been pulled up a few times :-) it was start by a guy called Mick West - mainly to debunk claims around the Chemtrail's conspiracy, but also tackles the others

@JohnRussell40

I'm in two minds about the 'chat' thing. I'm not really interested in discussing climate change as a sort of amateur hobby interest; I'm only interested in persuading 'the uninformed' that climate change is a real and serious problem that we must all do something about. Will this chat help to achieve that? How many  'uninformed' will read what is written here?

dcpetterson

John, while the contrarians are likely not to read this chat forum, interested readers are likely to pick up information that can be used in persuasion outside of the forum. I've learned lots from HW and the other blogs, and not a little of what I learned came from the comments. A chat forum encourages still more depth in comments.

BaerbelW

Some sort of moderation will most likely be needed and the rules set out by the FB-group "Answers in Climate Science" might be a starting point for here as well:

We are a science-focused group.

Posts which are political in nature, or commentary on religion, evolution and GMO's will only be allowable when relevant to our focus.

Off-topic posts will be deleted, including memes.

Please refrain from posting petitions or advertisements for commercial products or services.

This group supports the current scientific consensus regarding Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Disruption. Conspiracy theory such as climate engineering, chemtrails, HAARP, Agenda 21 etc. does not belong here. Claims as to near term human extinction are required to be supported by peer reviewed scientific evidence.

If the forum software has an easy means to move comments from one thread to the other, relegating denialist stuff to some kind of dumpster might be an option. This special place could come with a warning of "head-vise area" to make it apparent that without one your head may explode when reading the comments.

Alternatively, posts which were flagged a certain number of times could perhaps be hidden within the thread but could get displayed on request (again with a head-vise warning). This would however require some logic / control to make sure that good comments do not get flagged/hidden automatically, perhaps via a white-list of usernames.

citizenschallenge

Funny you should mention Agenda 21 - Over the past couple years I've been thinking more and more that it would be cool to have a serious discussion about Agenda 21 - what it actually says.  What it's powers actually are.  What its intention was.

And also to examine the taxonomy the malicious misrepresentation it has suffered.

Then take it a step further and try to get inside the mind of why someone chooses to believe obviously off-the-wall misinformation.

But, it's a way bigger project that me.  Still, Agenda 21 deserves a little attention and respect.   ( just saying )

Club of Rome's Report Limits to Growth - is the other hugely misrepresented effort - that's long over-due for a serious revisiting.

Sou

Thanks for all the ideas for policy and for the discussions about being explicit about what is permitted and what is not. The main point is that this is not a forum for to and fro-ing with deniers. The main purpose is to discuss climate topics.

It's difficult to write a content policy that's clear, unambiguous and yet doesn't set itself up to be broken the minute it's in place (eg by being too restrictive or too explicit). I want to avoid being heavy handed with lots of rules. I'd like people to feel free to talk without worrying about someone looking over their shoulder all the time.

I've now added a Wiki/FAQ which has potential to grow into a good resource for climate. At present it's only got forum housekeeping stuff mainly but in the future it could be expanded into a good resource - as a knowledge base about climate topics, with links to good material.

Here's what it says about content.

When you post a comment, work from the assumption that climate change is real and we are causing global warming. “Climate hoax” conspiracy theories aren't welcome here, [Added this] except to point out where and why they are wrong. If you believe climate science is a hoax or that mainstream scientists as a group are faking data, then you would be better posting your ideas on one of the climate conspiracy blogs. Defamatory comments will be deleted.

That doesn't mean that questioning of a specific scientific paper isn't permitted. It's encouraged. Bear in mind that if you are challenging well-established theory you'll need to back it up with very solid evidence. Just saying “the data is fudged” isn't evidence. That's conspiratorial thinking and will get you the Tin Foil Hat award. Referring to denier blogs to support your argument won't wash either. Pseudo-science isn't welcome here. Data from reputable sources will win you friends at HotWhopper Chat.

There are also a few points about etiquette and a link to the Terms of Use.

citizenschallenge

But do we get to discuss contrarian tactics and style and try grappling with understanding their internal landscape?   and such?

Sou

Good point, CC. Yes we can - in fact there's a forum just for this purpose - plus discussions in other places about that (like the blog forum). I'll change the wording to reflect that. (That's what I meant when I talked about too much information being inadvertently restrictive, when it's not meant to be.)

I've amended that bit now:
“Climate hoax” conspiracy theories aren't welcome here, [Added this] except to point out where and why they are wrong.