If you don't want to join in the game, don't pick up the cards.

Dung:

Richard has an opinion about peseudonyms and anyone on BH who does not know this has truly not been paying attention

Amusingly I have been convinced you haven't been paying attention. Could you, for the sake of clarity, summarise your current version of my opinion?

This thread was begun by Paul Matthews at a time not of my choosing (though I did say to Paul that the timing was fine when he emailed me about the idea). I never expected it to effect a deep change to BH culture and moderation in a few months. I was looking for feedback on my specific proposals and I've been grateful for those who have pointed to their possible shortcomings - for instance, here and here. That's a little hint that I'm very open to intelligent criticism and I look forward to more.

In taking part here I never vowed to be silent on all other threads because that would be to censor my views where they are most applicable - for instance, when a nym has just engaged in bad behaviour. I don't always 'interrupt' in such situations but I reserve the right to do so and I defend the right of others to do the same. Earlier today, for example, johanna interrupted a current thread with a very similar complaint:

First a malicious slash from Russell at Anthony Watts - now at Phillip Bratby, another person who has made his mark on the world, largely (perhaps wholly) at his own expense.

Russell, if you want to know about Dr Bratby, here is a good start:

http://www.windconf.co.uk/BratbyP.html

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/195/195we07.htm

I think it's time the Bish enforced the ad-hom policy around here.

Was johanna equally deserving of your wrath as myself? Or was this fine because she didn't mention that Russell is a nym? A rose by any other name is not half as disgusting?

From my perspective you are taking offence and accusing me of all sorts of dreadful things on the basis solely of your dark imaginings. I'd like to think you're not seriously unhinged and I look forward to your providing evidence to back up this hypothesis as we bring this episode to a peaceful and illuminating conclusion.

Dung:

I accuse you of ignoring the overwhelming majority of people on BH who have expressed an opinion on anonymity. They do not agree with you.

Many certainly disagree with what has been reported as my opinion, such as your next sentence:

I accuse you of ridiculing, belittling and insulting people not for their education, their intelligence or even their views but simply because they use a pseudonym.

But did you stop to ask if that was what I believed I was doing and believed was right to do? How about what I quoted a few posts back, from 11th April:

Note that I want pseudonymity. Because, as Barry has said, some people have to be pseudonymous in the climate area. Those people are heroes to me. But because some heroes are pseudonymous the converse most certainly doesn't follow. Some of the worst offenders in the climate blogosphere use the 'freedom' of pseudonymity.

How do you square this view of my opinion and your own? Which do you think it's fairest for people to consider as they assess whether or not they agree?

The BBC self-flagellation has noticeably brought a new wave of BH posters, Maybe lurkers, probably new visitors arriving from The Register and such.

Many (most) seem to have chipped in with nym (I hate spelling that word) of their own.

Do people think that is because of a refection of the blog culture i.e. I use one because everyone seems to, or a genuine wish to remain nameless?

The blog developed its current identity out of CG. Things were different 3 years ago. It has now matured.

Is the blog actually driving the nym usage itself? A sort of freemason's rite?

The Grand Order of Angry Old Gits, bear your breast and vow... agree your nym!

A very good question Jiminy. I have often wondered the same thing.

Martin A intimated on the previous page that he has very good reasons to wish to remain anonymous here. I believe him - because of the many insightful posts he's contributed for quite a while here. But as you rightly point out (or perhaps I'm extending your point) some newbies see someone like Martin and others like him and say to themselves "I want to contribute like that fellow and be respected like him." And they may have much less reason to use a pseudonym than him. But it becomes an important badge of the club to have - and to defend one's use of it, even one's very bad use of it, as just as heroic as the very best of breed.

As I say, I may have extended your meaning but I'm grateful for your input, not for the first time on this thread, and look forward to being put right on any nuances that you think are out of place.

Widening our range of view for a moment here are for me two interesting stories on the BBC website today:

1. Women bishops: Welby urges synod to vote in favour

2. Solzhenitsyn's One Day: The book that shook the USSR

In both cases the headline mentions the surname of one individual, one dealing with a pressing issue today for our state church and the other reflections from fifty years ago Saturday. I'd not spotted that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was released on 17th November 1962, the same day as the Climategate emails (and my fifth birthday, for whatever that's worth).

In both cases there was a need for anonymity early in the story - during the selection of the next Archbishop of Canterbury and in the initial circulation of One Life with Solzhenitsyn's name not attached.

But history tends to be made with works that may begin this way but then become attached to a real name. I'm not sure about the health of a situation where the pseudonymous increases over time, pushing out the use of real names, as Jiminy was suggesting might be happening on Bishop Hill. Though not, thankfully, to the person Andrew Montford. Interesting cross-currents.

Dung, you seem to be confusing my gentle humour against inadequate arguments advanced by those using pseudonyms (or real names, come to that) and an evil desire to mock every nym for using a nym. (And if that was my only criterion, why did I just welcome Jiminy C's recent contribution and many of Martin A's over the months and years - and those of many, many others?)

I've been amazed that not one person using a pseudonym on Bishop Hill, for example, even the sternest critic of the BBC, has admitted the role anonymity had to play in the corporation's sly defaming of Alistair McAlpine. Or, coming closer to home, that it was only I who explicitly commended the host for deleting two posts from 'Anon' that came close to libel here, on the BBC tipping point thread, when all others seemed to be doing was berating the host for not listening to them enough:

Even in this thread someone calling themselves 'Anon' has made two contributions that have quickly been deleted, I presume because they were judged close to libelous. I applaud that decision - but that of course doesn't mean I tar every nym with the same brush. Some people need to get that simple fact in their heads.

You may think I am unbalanced in my views but you do little to convince me of yours if you cannot bring yourself to agree with me on these basic details and get the simple fact mentioned in your otherwise sensible head.

You haven't once admitted that you've traduced me. Be a man and admit that, then by all means argue against my real opinions, once you've correctly identified them. 'Winning' by persuading others that I hold hateful opinions that I do not hold is the tactic of the teenage yob or schoolyard bully. Be a man, indeed, and learn what it means. This could be a valuable opportunity for you.

Martin, I referred to you by what I thought was your name because I recalled seeing it in another tread sometime back. Similar to people often addressing omnologos as Maurizio, it did not occur to me that such an appellation might cause offense. If you don't want that, or if I was mistaken in my recollection of your name, on both counts I sincerely apologize. Aside from that, I still think that the point I was making at the time was valid.

I have been around on the internet long enough not to be mortally offended by Richard's nauseating ad hom by association of some posts back, so I shall leave that for others to ponder. To have had Steve McIntyre's imprimatur of a short comment I made in one of the Lewandowsky posts is counterbalance enough.

One of the reasons I don't read Steve's blog much is because of Richard's very frequent and often nearly content-free commenting there; it is not clear how much he actually understands or cares about the actual science and statistical analysis behind the debates. I am guessing that his somewhat unfocused posts may be tolerated because he has been around in the climate blogosphere longer than most and/or they may have become personally acquainted during one of Steve's visits to London. Whatever the case, my admiration for Steve's efforts remains undiminished.

As for this RD comment quoted by Dung above:

Call that elitist if you like but please ask yourself as you do whether you want elites who fly our airplanes and design our bridges ...

The fallacy of that statement is obvious. Professional pilots and professional engineers are not elites, much less elitist, but highly skilled people who apply their knowledge for the benefit and sometimes salvation of their fellow human beings. The heroism and humility of the pilot who landed his plane on the Hudson River in New York is a case in point.

Anyway, I must get ready for work now. After work I certainly don't want to revisit this thread to find myself the target of another ad hom, but we shall see.

Dung, when I talked about use of the tactics of the teenage yob or the schoolyard bully be clear that I wasn't talking of anyone else, earlier in the thread, but you now. It is you that has traduced me, repeatedly, on this thread in the last week and in the BBC Tipping Point one before that. I repeat that critique but I'm not now going to go through all your posts again to try to prove it. I'm given you enough examples by now.

What I wonder about is your verdict on this part of the thread, since last week. If I depart now, as is likely, given other commitments, will you take it that you have 'won' and that I have 'lost'? Such seems to be tendency of the anonymous yobmeisters. Shout as many lies as you can about your opponents, then when they give up trying to correct you, declare victory and that everything they have said on the subject in question has been declared null and void, that their opinion on anything related must never be mentioned again, or even alluded to with a tiny bit of humour, on any other BH thread.

In that your view? Do you think you've won? Do you think I must stop saying what I think, even if just to correct the lies you've told? Do enlighten me, O mighty censor of the pseudonymob. What mayest I say now, your mightyest, now that you've won in your great wisdom, by lying about what I was saying, because you couldn't be bothered to deal with the detail, lest it show the situation to be just a little more complex than this satisfying public demonisation would allow.

I expect I will leave the subject for now, because it's become slightly less fun than before, but I'd like to respond to something Shub said on the original thread about Nic Lewis on the IPPC's alterations to Forster & Gregory, in a new, more narrow Discussion called Anonymous Allegations. Get your thoughts ready for that one. I want to focus, if we can, on that narrow subject. But I'm not declaring a time for the start of that right now.

I've given one reason above that I'm not prepared to give that commitment. I'll let you search for that. It's not a matter of it being hard, in an intellectual sense. But I do think we benefit from specialist threads hanging off this one, like Channelling dogginess a month ago. Note how that came out of a discussion a month previously about the various nyms that seem to have been coopted by the artist originally called mydog. Were Jonathan Jones and the others wrong to discuss this immediately after AlecM made his contribution, which had the strong possibility of taking Antarctic ice way off course? I don't think one can make hard and fast rules about such things. But the more intelligent discussion of the issues there is in Discussions (and I would rate Channelling dogginess much higher on that score than this thread this week, to be frank) then the less the need there may be for main threads to be disrupted. On that point perhaps we can part company with a soupcon of common ground.

Dung - “and anyone on BH who does not know this has truly not been paying attention.”

Ah, that would be me. My favourite places to hang out are believer blogs, where I try to determine why they can’t see that AGW evidence is unconvincing. I’ve not yet worked it out. But I’m not well right now and I can’t take too much tobacco, polar bear, Sandy, denier, denier stuff.

Paul Matthews - you uncorked the bottle.

Not so easy to get the monstrous genie back in.