Guide for commenting

We welcome your comments and ask only for:

Politeness (please)

But repeated failures of logic (ad homs, argument from authority) and a dishonest tactic of demanding answers to your questions without providing answers to ours, will get you on the moderated list sooner or later. After 17,000 comments less than 20 names are moderated. Until they provide evidence to back up their claims, or apologize, their comments will be held.
The fastest way to lose your freedom to comment, is with ad hominem arguments.

AD homine…

On this page:

│ FAQ │Comment Buttons │ Code

Like & Dislike buttons │ Who reads this blog?

Numbered points│ Links │ Quotes │Images

Your picture or icon (Gravatar)

10 Steps to being a classy commentator

Privacy

FAQ

Why are some comments hidden? (See the Like and Dislike Buttons)
I don’t like the monster face! How do I put a better image next to my comment? (See Gravatars)
How do I report an offensive comment? Email joanne AT joannenova.com.au (Replace the “AT” with “@”).

How to use comments formatting buttons

I’ve put buttons on the comments box.

These are the buttons (subject to change) and what they do.

buttons for comments

Write your comment, then highlight, say the word “bold” (or whatever) and click the “b” button. The button will add the code to make the word bold for you. This is what I do.
If somehow you know in advance (I never do) what you want bolded before your type, you can click the button b then type bold, then click the button b (which will have changed to look like “/b” meaning it is waiting for you to finish the bold part you write.
Test what is written by clicking PREVIEW (at the bottom) before you click “submit”.

These buttons insert the html code you can see below. I’m not 100% sure they work for everyone so lets test them on this thread. To bold the word “bold” in this sentence you need code like this:

Make this word <b>bold</b>, or make this word <em>bold</em>. (Both types of tags work).

That sentence will display as “Make this word bold, or make this word bold“. Instead of writing those tags in front and behind your comments, you can use the buttons to make it faster. There are two ways to use the buttons, or you can just hand-write code in as below (sure ).

Here’s what you see in the window except the code is not red (it would be useful if it was).

Image: Comment window

Code to format comments

Layout, links and images make your comments easier to read and more informative. You can cut and paste these lines into your comments.

Numbered points code (generates numbers in a list automatically):

<ol>
<li>”point1″</li>
<li>”point 2″</li>
<li>”point 3″</li>
</ol>

Quotes: <blockquote> author: “quote here” </blockquote>

Images: <img src=”http://www.address_of_image” style=”width: 600px; height: 450px;”/>

Links: <a href=”….”> Link subject</a>

First time posters: If you are polite, non repetitive, and genuinely interested in the topic, we’d love to hear from you. All open minded, genuine comments and questions are welcome. (And no, you don’t need to read this page, just type something in the comment box…)

…

To add a custom Gravatar (a picture or icon on your comments)

If you sign up here it all happens automatically. You need to use the same email address that you’ve used to post comments here and all the comments from that email will appear (inc retrospectively) with your photo.

Then you can log in to the Gravatar site and change the image any time you like. But be aware any other sites you post on that have gravatars will also display the photo. The gravatar site stores them for wide use.

The Like & Dislike Buttons

These buttons at the bottom of each comment record simple clicks of “approve” or “disapprove”. Please click “like” when someone writes something that really appeals to you, especially those commentors who have done research or written a particularly inspiring comment. It highlights the most useful comments, and also gives people some indication of how many people are reading the thread.

Please save the dislike button for comments that are rude, threatening, or illogical, not just for comments by people you may disagree with. It’s also very appropriate for “vaporware” comments that don’t add anything to the debate, especially if people make claims without backing anything up (and even more so when it’s a serial offender).

After 12 people have clicked “dislike” a comment will be temporarily hidden. It can always be displayed by clicking on it.

Why have some comments been hidden?

See “The Like & Dislike Buttons”

…	Visitors Jan – Dec, 2009.			…
	1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.	United States Australia United Kingdom Canada New Zealand Sweden Germany Norway Netherlands France	160,000 90,000 30,000 23,000 7,300 6,800 6,000 3,200 3,200 3,200
		PageViews	740,000

…

Who reads this site?

So far, around 210,000 people from 186 countries have visited the site this year (Hello to that visitor from Bangladesh). It includes people who are Professors of University science faculties, some top ranking climate researchers, we have an ex-radiosonde (or rather, dropsonde) expert, high school teachers, and people who are curious about science. Note there are many who may find slang or convoluted English harder work to make sense of. Speak clearly thanks.

For first time posters: click here.

Think about whether you’d say it if they were in the same room.

…WhyWhy

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10 Easy Steps to be a Classy Commentator

1. Real names get respect. Real people post more carefully than anonymous pseudonyms (something to do with having friends, family and an employer maybe?). Anonymous comments that attack real people deserve to be razed.

2. Numbered points impress us. Sort your thoughts into single points, rather than compounding sentences. We can refer to your points and follow them up. See the html code for lists.

3. Punctuation matters. It’s the mark of a good commentator when they get it right. It becomes very difficult to follow comments when it’s not clear who said what. (Take care with quotes).

4. Quotes: please quote commentors directly and exactly. Use the format their name: ” their quote “. Please keep these quotes short. Please avoid long repetitive quotes. Instead summarize your point. Star commentators do the hard work of distilling long pages into succinct points. We appreciate them. Thank you. See the html code to do blockquotes.

Real names get more respect

5. Images: Please don’t abuse this! And try to keep them smaller than 600 * 450 px. See the html code to add an image.

6. Good links come with a summary. Anyone can google ‘a term’ and cut n paste 10 links. We’re impressed if you save us the time of reading a 3,000 word page to find one point. See the html code to embed your link.

7. Substantiate your claims. ‘There are hundreds of papers that show X’ (so name and link some).

And quote people exactly…

8. Focus on the science and not the personalities: If you get attacked, if there is any hint of libel, email me joanne AT Joannenova.com.au. I will probably edit or remove the attack.

9. Argument by authority is usually a waste of space. If you don’t understand why visit wikipedia.

10. Manners earn you respect. Top notch commentators thank people who correct them. They also acknowledge their own errors… It takes Class.

Skip rude obnoxious language, and illogical and unreasoned writing… (unless it’s incredibly entertaining or illuminating. Mostly swearing isn’t.)

There is a helpful list of false arguments here.

Privacy and Rules and Legal policies change from time to time (without warning).

Posted on February 17th, 2009 under - Guide for Commenting • Print This Post • Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback

Phillip Bratby:
February 18th, 2009 at 3:03 am

Joanne,

I agree with your guide. In particular, I am in favour of using real names. There are very few instances where people should need to hide behind some anonymous moniker (to protect a career say). It would be even better if people were to give some sort of potted biography (but I know this is asking too much).

Phillip in England

PS Semi-retired physicist (PhD)

Like or Dislike: 0 0

Tom G(ologist):
February 18th, 2009 at 6:09 am

I’ll go along with that.

My moniker came about as a result of my front-line action in the e’@#*tion war blogs. We went by first name and last initial on a couple blogs and there was a creationist Tom G who began getting confused with me, so I distinguished myself by making my name’Tom (Geologist)’ which soon evolved to Tom G(ologist).

So who am I? Tom Gillespie, Geologist, in private practice (name of company withheld to prevent spamming), but also at The College of New Jersey, Geology Prof., formerly of La Salle Univ., Rutgers University and Trenton State College where I taught geology and Meteorology. Currently, member of Pennsylvania Licensing Board for Professional Geologists, and Pennsylvania representative to National Association of State Boards of Geology-Subject Matter Expert on structural geology, engineering geology and hydrogeology.

I also have a Celtic band http://www.blackwatermusic.com Life is too much fun to spend all of our time arguing with myopic sheep.

Tom G(ologist)

Phillip Bratby:
February 18th, 2009 at 6:04 pm

Tom G(ologist),

That’s great. I love the celtic music (very keen on listening to all types of folk music – unfortunately I have no musical ability).

I had pretty much believed in AGW until a couple of years ago when I saw the documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” and noticed Piers Corbyn (CO2sceptics) on it. I was on the same physics course at university (Imperial College) as him and knew he was pretty damn clever. I thought there must be more to this AGW than we are being told by the media. At about the same time I started to get interested in wind turbines, the sole purpose of which is to “tackle climate change” by producing CO2 free electricity (another whopping lie). So there I am; I now campaign against wind farms and against AGW.

Regards,
Phillip

Tom G(ologist):
February 19th, 2009 at 6:17 am

Very early on in the whole swindle (1989-1990 time frame) I thought there was some merit to it, but luckily my knowledge of Earth history prevailed and I saw the light early on and have honed my skeptic’s toolkit ever since. I remember being in a debate with a group of scientists in a bar in Madison Wisconsin in 1994 about AGW, so I have been at this longer than I care to think about, as I had already been working on my talking points for some time by then.

You know what is heartening, through my band I know a lot of jsut plain people from around my region. When they learn that I am a geologist, they invariably ask me what my opinion is about AGW. It is the one topic that has people really interested in science. When I tell them my opinion AND provide them with my rationale for it, almost without exception you can see they are relieved – it is not the relief that they are not in danger. It is the relief of someone who has just been told that they are not stupid – that their suspicions that something was not quite adding up are indeeed correct. That they are actually just as inciteful and able to think things through for themselves as they had believed. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the tools to go about the analyses which are necessary to cur through the rhetoric. And surprisingly, the tools SHOULD be in everyone’s pocket because the only single tool needed to debunk the entire load of tripe is the real data.

Enjoying the winter over there this year?

Skiing has been great here.

Tom

Phillip Bratby:
February 19th, 2009 at 7:04 pm

I think we’re getting off the thread here. Never mind. The winter over here has been “different”. No-one is prepared any more for extreme cold and snow. For example, there was a shortage of salt to put on the roads and people have lost a lot of semi-tropical plants because they were told we wouldn’t get any more cold winters.

I too bring up the facts about AGW whenever I can. I give talks on nuclear power and wind power and manage to bring AGW into it.

Tom G(ologist):
February 20th, 2009 at 12:40 am

Phil:

A very interesting British ally in this whole thing is, surprisingly, Simon Blackburn, the philosopher. I have communicated with him via e-mail variously over the years. He was the one who first tipped me off about such great (and lamentably now much diminished) web sites as ‘Still Waiting for the Greenhouse”. He is a very lucid thinker (as a philosopher I should hope so) and very accessible.

Tel:
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:18 pm

Seems that none of the rules require anyone to stay on topic, which is fortunate because this posting has nothing to do with the topic. But it’s been kinda quiet lately and I figured it would be something positive to have my own attempt at graphing the Vostok ice data. Rule-abiding comments welcome

http://lnx-bsp.net/agw/

Anne-Kit Littler:
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:06 am

Tom, you write elsewhere about a talk, or presentation (re AGW) you give to your college geology students. Would you be willing to give us access to that?

Tom G(ologist):
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:45 pm

Anne

Yes you can have access to it. I don’t have it up on a web page. It is a power point in which I have gleaned a lot of data and graphs from various authors and web pages. It is a large file whcih is sometimes blocked by servers so I have had variable success e-mailing it.

I do have a blog that I keep for my students – I will try to put a link to it there and then give you access to it.

I have to warn you, though, that what I have is just the graphics which accompany my discussion, so there is not a lot of text in the electronic presentation

Please remind me if you do not hear back from me in a couple days. I am extremely busy at work right now and it is mid-term time at th ecollege (a good position to be in in this economy) and it might slip my mind. I will not think you are bothering me if you send me reminders.

Anne-Kit Littler:
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:16 am

Hey Tom,

Just a gentle nudge about the power point presentation ….

Suzanne D:
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:24 pm

Hi Jo
Almost too scared to comment as a lot of rules (not unworthy though)…lol
New booklet sounds interesting, would like a copy if there is one spare somewhere!

Have to catch up soon.
Suz

blogrepa3:
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:30 pm

Thanks for the interesting and informative site. That’s definitely what I’ve been looking for.

Joanne Nova:
April 25th, 2009 at 6:59 pm

These are two thought provoking articles on policies for blog comments.

How to get banned from my blog
The biggest crime? “Waste My Time”
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=923#more-923
(Yes, my pet hate, repetition and without any acknowledgement of where the debate is up too, and no new entertaining angle).

The awkward question of censorship and why it’s a healthy part of maintaining a community.
Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism
http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/

Максим Кузьмичев:
May 25th, 2009 at 12:02 am

Можно и поспорить по этому вопросу, ведь только в споре рождается истина.

fredlightfoot:
July 4th, 2009 at 1:24 am

I think that someone does not like you! I am a new member, having tried to log in I was presented with the following PASSWORDS????? (GODk1&b#Z2m did not work ( 10 attempts) next 4@82Ush1K2uF did not work (15 attempts) next 8sP77sDEwJ7Z 3 attempts and I arrived at DASHBOARD now please explain to me what DASHBOARD represents (seems to be someones box) and tell me how the hell do you get rid of this stupid password????????????

David Hewison:
July 21st, 2009 at 9:23 pm

Actually Tom, I would very much appreciate a copy aswell if you woudlnt mind. Anything i can get my hands on to learnt the sceince and incrfesae competency discussing would be much appreicated.

David.

ahh bad spelling in my last post, i hope it makes sense!

Astra d'Oudney:
February 25th, 2010 at 7:23 am

Greetings, Joanne,

All agriculturalists, agronomists and informed citizens should by now KNOW that:

The CBEE FORMULATION in THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848204 proves that the non-polluting, efficient, cheap fuel, combustion of which incurs ZERO net increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the total world replacement for fossils and uranium, is not only already discovered but is immediately available.

The CBEE Formulation in THE REPORT has endorsements by renowned academics, environmental experts, former official government advisers (U.S. & U.K.), published doctors (of jurisprudence, economics, medicine, psychiatry, homeopathy, etc.) and judges (U.S. & U.K.).

THE REPORT has a Foreword by Economics’ Nobel laureate Professor MILTON FRIEDMAN, former Economics’ Adviser to the U.S. government; author, video and TV series writer and presenter; Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago.

There is absolutely no (good) reason whatsoever for governments’ introduction of carbon taxation when the prolific cheap non-polluting replacement for fossils is crying out to be utilised. Western governments are guilty of the utmost criminal mendacity in using the carbon emissions’ issue to introduce a completely unjustifiable totalitarian program of controls adversely affecting every aspect of our lives, whilst ignoring the providential benefits to all mankind of The CBEE Solution.

Instead of governments dutifully implementing The CBEE Formulation, today the population faces the most seriously impoverishing and destructive program of ‘eco’ and Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) taxation. This is being put in place through totalitarian statist intervention which affects every aspect of human rights, including the right to own and use your own home and/or land.

Under the Illegality of the Status Quo, all Courts, Royal Commissions, and government Enquiries must defer to the overruling desertion of morality and honesty of politicians in government. These bodies are unavoidably subject to politicians’ dissolute intentions expressed as ‘legislation’.

The CBEE requires utterly uncompromising clamourous public support because the highly financed, influential oil, coal and uranium interests are active in lobbying to suppress it in order to maintain their undeserved, dishonest monopoly on production and supply of excruciatingly costly fuel.

If ordinary folk wish to see the adoption of The CBEE Formulation (and prosperity) in place of the carbon taxation (and real poverty), then a positive outcome would be produced only if citizens first confront the mass media and the trustless politicians with the FACTS of The CBEE. In this deadly serious issue, politicians cannot be permitted to evade the CBEE Solution.

Furthermore, an overdue RESTORATION of the authentic Constitutional Legem Terræ Common Law TRIAL BY JURY (prescribed and defined by Magna Carta, 1215) would bring guilty politicians and others to account; ref. URL below.

Following such a Restoration, politicians would then have to respect the universal laws of Truth and Equal Justice. At present, however, the government’s beholden, paid judges decide (de facto, deny) who gets a “Trial by Jury” (or at least the unconstitutional counterfeit version of trial which purports to be “by Jury”). This injudicious abuse of authority effectively gives immunity to gross premeditated acts of criminal mendacity by politicans, and government and state bureaucrats.

Consequently, all responsible adults who cherish our endangered, fragile and disappearing democracy, and who respect the rule of law should be irrepressibly bold in taking on board the CBEE and tackling the illegal acts of the perfidious politicians.

THE REPORT ISBN 9781902848204 AND THE CBEE.
In the last hundred years, there has not been a single ecologically-pertinent fact, theory or postulation embodying practicable potentials as beneficial to the planet and the well-being of its peoples as those of THE CANNABIS BIOMASS ENERGY EQUATION. This Formulation resolves Mankind’s most crucial predicament in Economic Affairs and Ecology to have arisen since the incipience of The Industrial Revolution. Abolition of controls on cannabis renders uranium and the fossil pollutants:

A. commercially obsolete/economically redundant, and

B. achieves their replacement without pollution, while

C. the Economy of the entire world thereby vastly benefits from significantly reduced energy prices.

With modern technical and scientific evidence collated from the esoteric Findings of Fact and Conclusions of the official empirical studies conducted by world-respected academic and research institutions, presented in consideration of existing laws, national and international, THE REPORT constitutes the formal public indictment of Western (and other) governments. THE REPORT collates the Evidence, Circumstances and Res Gestæ which arraign money-motivated political prohibitionists who have framed and maintain legislation which is demonstrated to be unfounded, calumnious, crime-producing, venal, inequitable, and inherently illegal.

The CBEE Solution proves the clean-combusting CH3OH pyrolytic cannabis-methanol product (Modern Uses of Cannabis Sativa) is the uniquely cheap, non-polluting, biomass-renewable fuel-energy resource capable of the TOTAL world replacement of fossils and uranium, combustion of which yields ZERO net increase of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

The CBEE Formulation demonstrates the means by which world fuel-energy needs are met without ANY increase in atmospheric CO2. Self-evidently, this phenomenon far exceeds the aspirations and provisions of Kyoto or Copenhagen, for these latter envisage continued utilisation of polluting fossils (and uranium).

Bear in mind the macro-economic ‘Godsend’ to the world population AND the ecosphere embodied in THE CBEE FORMULATION; that is: ZERO EMISSIONS net of greenhouse gases from the world’s total fuel-energy consumption…

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Professor Milton Friedman employed the expression “the silent treatment” for the mass media’s disgraceful lack of reportage.

Joanne, the media’s and politicians’ acts of tacit perjury (criminal subreption) about The CBEE Formulation support the corporate cartels’ pernicious monopoly on fuel-energy — while profoundly and feloniously damaging the real interests, prosperity, rights, freedoms, way of life and livelihood, of the whole population. Cyber-bullying and social manipulation (brain-washing) is taking place through corrupt concealment of the CBEE SOLUTION.

Amongst other revelations and evidence disclosed by THE REPORT, The CBEE Formulation also contains the method by which effective ’sink’ reductions can be induced in the quantity of atmospheric CO2, if this becomes advisable or imperative; see Part (chapter) Two.

THE REPORT generally is available for everyone to read for free from their local or any academic library.

Implementation of The CBEE proffers to Australia’s farming community and the whole population, the vast prosperity of self-sufficiency in cheap fuel-energy and of becoming a net fuel-energy exporter.

Info / photo / diagrams / CBEE fuel-energy system, etc., freely available on: http://www.democracydefined.org/1report.htm

The authentic CONSTITUTIONAL TRIAL BY JURY is defined at: http://www.democracydefined.org/democracydefinedcampaign.htm#democracy

All the best,
Yours sincerely,
Astra d’Oudney.
CEO. DEMOCRACY DEFINED.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like or Dislike: 2 0