A new plug for AIC :)

William Connolley, Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford and Wikipedia administrator former Wikipedia administrator on climate science articles, has decided to plug AIC on his blog (h/t to Magnus Westerstrand):

"An exciting new blog aicomment.blogspot.com. However, I'm insulted that An Open Mind has got on their bad-boys list and I'm not. I thought I was notorious for rejecting inconvenient comments? Anyway, *I* suggest that you all try to make a comment on this post here, I'll reject them all, and you can get me added to their list of blogs. Of course, if they reject your coments then we can start a blog for that."

He seems eager to join the list of "Climate Blogs Covered So Far by AIC" (which could be understandable in a less petty light if this forum received more than the tiny amount of traffic it does at the moment) and has thus been deleting comments from the post.  Any authors whose comments have been deleted are welcome to post them under here. ;)

In the meantime, while Dr. Connolley has been deleting comments from others and leaving a visible record, he's decided thus far not to acknowledge the comment AIC left under his post (which would have been ~#3, if published):

Hi Mr. Connolley,

Thanks for the plug!

While I regret the political nature of the blog's title, created on an afternoon of Sunday football and frustration over the moderation policies of a certain range of the climate blogosphere's political spectrum, it's there now, in response to the reality of things.

But I want to make it clear, if you, or any of your readers have any experiences with posts being rejected, snipped, or moderated away in contradiction to stated comment policies, or in a way you think is unethical, on ANY climate blog, you're free to email AIC, and if the rejected/snipped post fits with the forum's stated policies, I'll create a post for it, and the blog in question will be listed along with CP, OM, and RC...

I intend for the forum to be as close to a fair and neutral space as possible. Though, as the admin of RC Rejects notes, this may be a difficult task:

"Your aspiration to maintain a neutral stance for your blog is certainly a worthy objective. However, I think that you will find it difficult to appear to be neutral even if you assiduously maintain a neutral stance in fact.

The reason that I say this is that I am sure that you will get many more rejected comments from sites such as Real Climate and Open Mind than you will from sites such as Climate Audit, Watts Up With That, The Air Vent, Roger Pielke Jr, Lucia and similar sites.

Why will you get many more rejected comments from Real Climate and Open Mind? The answer lies in the way that they exercise their moderation policy. Both sites simply elect not to put up posts that do not conform with the 'house view' of the site."
Ref

In my experience as a person in the middle of the road on the climate policy discussion, posting comments disagreeable to most "sides", RC Reject's estimation of things is accurate.

If I wanted to be snarky, I could encourage you to add yourself to the blog through your actions, as you suggest above, but the goal of AIC is to better meaningful discussion on climate science and policy, so please don't.

AIC's objection to moderation policies of certain blogs isn't to rejection of "deniers" idiotic comments, which I'm sure are plentiful; it's to the rejection of meaningful comments by informed persons.

Roger Pielke, Jr., who has one of the most open comment moderation policies I've come across, has recently put up a "Rejected Comments" thread. Apparently, his moderation policies haven't provided much need for it. If other blogs who have recognized issues with rejected comments created similar threads, there wouldn't be an acknowledged need for AIC...

Cheers,
AIC

As I've already attempted to comment at Dr. Connolley's site without success, I'll address the three comments let through moderation on his post so far here, briefly:

#3 by J

Okay, I scanned through the latest ten posts over there. Past performance may be no guarantee etc. but I'd say that site isn't going to the top of anyone's must-read list.
#10 has no inconvenient comments.
#9 has no inconvenient comments.
#8 has no inconvenient comments.
#7 has no inconvenient comments.
#6 has no inconvenient comments.
#5 has no inconvenient comments.
#4 has one inconvenient comment. Apparently someone submitted three rather silly comments to Tamino's site and he declined to let them through moderation.
#3 has no inconvenient comments.
#2 has one inconvenient comment. In a RealClimate post, Eric Steig joked about both Hansen and Christie complaining about the peer review process ("If both feel the peer review process is biased against them, it must be working rather well.") Somebody was apparently offended by this, and wrote a rather huffy two-line comment that doesn't show up on RC.
#1 has no inconvenient comments.
Sic transit gloria mundi. 

This is a new site and I've done very little in the way of promoting it so far.  At the moment, it takes very little time administrating, and I've been happy to see if people become aware of it on their own.  I do believe there's a need for something like this forum.  RC Rejects, a blog I was made aware of shortly after the creation of this site, has a much more proactive approach to things, and I believe the comments found and posted there support the argument there's a use for a forum like AIC.  While I might personally agree with much of the editorial stance of RCR, AIC is meant as a neutral mirror, so it leaves it to people to come to here by themselves.

#5 by Guthrie

You'll delete this anyway, but the best way to get in their bad books would be to get people to post denialist type questions to that place.
Its another example of the noise machine going up a gear. Mocking it is one way to go.

I don't know how much I need to comment on this; I think it speaks for itself.  AIC's open nature leaves it open to abuse and manipulation...I'd like to think its clearly stated mission statement would dissuade most from attempting to do so...

#6 by Deech56

After three comments on a thread at American Thinker I was banned and the comments deleted. I could try again and save the comments this time.

PLEASE DO save your comments and please do email a link to the story for posting on AIC...honest paraphrasing for what you've already written is fine, too...

This an AIC thread, and not strictly a mirroring thread for Dr. Connolley's post, so any general comments here are fine.  We might as well use this post for deleted comments from the post in question on Dr. Connelley's blog, too.

Update: Perhaps this comment is from "Guthrie"?