by Judith Curry
So, what are your thoughts on the current state of Climate Etc., and how it might evolve?
Since Climate Etc’s inauguration in 2010, the blog has continued to evolve. I find it useful to reflect periodically and receive your comments and input.
Demographics
In the past two years, I have become increasingly active on Twitter and Facebook (mostly posting links to CE posts), with twitter followers approaching 6000 and facebook followers approaching 1000. The demographic of these two groups is fairly different from the active blog commenters, which broadens CE’s exposure. On twitter, there is a much younger demographic, and a few rock stars and actors are following me. On Facebook, I am developing some following from Africa and the Arab world. The top referrers to CE are (in order):
- WUWT
- climateaudit
- BishopHill
- Climate Depot
- Steyn Online
- pj media
- Real Clear Energy
In the early days of CE, referrals were dominated by WUWT, CA and BH. I’m not exactly sure how many of the active commenters have landed on CE from these new referrers, I would appreciate any comments in this regard.
Blog post topics
I was hoping to find some wordpress stats on categories, (i.e. how many posts, hits, and comments for each category of posts), but I can only find recent stats (last two weeks).
I would appreciate any comments on categories of posts or subjects/topics that you would like to see more or less of.
Also, guest posts are becoming an increasingly important part of the content of CE. I am becoming more selective about guest posts than I used to be. I am looking for diversity of perspectives, and also contributions from areas outside of my own expertise. CE now has quite a strong stable of guest posters, and I’m looking to grow this.
Moderation
Over the past year or so, I have become much more active in moderating the blog, which I think has raised the quality of the comments. In the early days, I was reluctant to moderate much because I did not want to appear to be censoring comments that disagreed with or criticize me. I think I have more than demonstrated my openness in this regard.
Apart from blatant violations blog rules, someone may land in moderation or have their comments deleted if:
- their frequency of comments is too large (exceeding 5% of the last 1000 comments)
- comments are consistently off topic and pushing their own hobby horse
- thread hijacking and picking of fights
Some people are in permanent moderation over repeated violations (and whining about my moderation), while others manage to stay off moderation after being given a probationary period.
Some of you complain about my moderation, saying that it is unfair on inconsistent. Please understand that I moderate the blog by myself. I check in about a half dozen times per day, check the comments in moderation and spam, and glance at the most recent 20-40 comments. I do not catch all of the food fights or inappropriate comments. If you see something egregious, pls send me an email.
Note, on guest posts, I will delete posts that insult the guest poster.
Several people are permanently banned from CE. An email with ‘f*ck you Judy’ or ‘shut up Judy’ will do it.
I would appreciate any comments on the new and stricter moderation policies.
Threading
In the early days, I allowed high levels of threading, so subthreads and arguments could develop. Unfortunately, this seemed to reduce the substantiveness of many comments, and encouraged one liners and thread hijacking.
The threading level is currently set at level 3. I have had requests to increase the threading level, which i will consider. However, if we need to subsequently reduce the threading level, then the threading on old threads will be lost.
I would appreciate your input on this.
JC’s schedule
I am pretty busy for the next month or so, so I won’t have time to prepare much in the way of original material. Guest posts will be particularly welcome during this time. I also greatly appreciate people emailing me with interesting articles and ideas for posts. In any event, I have some back up posts, so I should be able to continue at a rate of ~3-4 posts per week.Filed under: Uncategorized