Last night I again took a look at Twitter conversations our host had been involved in the first 24 hours or so of 2013 and again was well impressed. Here for background is what I wrote on the subject on 7th April last year:

... if anyone is interested, take a look where the real names dominated debate is now happening: Twitter. For example, Paul Matthews sharing something from the Climategate 2 emails with Andrew, Josh, Barry Woods, Richard Betts and Tamsin Edwards two days ago. I've been watching how Andrew has increasingly engaged in important debate with the 'other side' not within discussion threads on Bishop Hill but 'over there' in the tweet-o-sphere where pseudonymity is in practice far reduced. This is what is already happening.

What I found last night involved Brian Cox to a degree that surprised and delighted me. Roughly in reverse chronological order, try the following streams:

-- One begun by Philip Cosson with very positive contributions from Bishop Hill, Brian Cox, Richard Betts and (this morning) Barry Woods. Wow
-- A second with the Bish making a key point on bottom-up processes, not top-down
-- The Bish on David Whitehouse's response getting encouraging feedback from Cox and from Paul Hudson
-- Cox and the Bish pretty much agreeing on the line between politics and science
-- Cox answers the Bish's Is this a step back from your RTS lecture position?
-- Bish: It's difficult to maintain sci focus when dissenters told views are illegitimate because (allegedly) politically motivated with Ben Pile following up with someone unknown to me
-- Maurizio Morabito fed up but encouraged by the Bish - and as the rest of the day showed, our host was dead right to counsel patience.

Utterly outstanding in every way. Congratulations Andrew and respect Brian Cox, Richard Betts and Tamsin Edwards. I hope Cox's forthcoming trip to the Met Office continues to break down barriers in the way key scientists think about climate dissenters.

So what are the implications of such important stuff now being discussed - sometimes for the first time - on Twitter? As far as I'm concerned any aspect, positive or negative, can be touched on here. And, if people want to consider it, my point from April seems to stand: ten protagonists and only one using a nym where I didn't at once know the name of the tweeter. (I know Climate Resistance is Ben Pile. Your mileage on that may vary.) How many threads on Bishop Hill have 90% real people in that sense? Is that part of what is making the difference here?

Rhoda: I confess that I didn't catch your name or it didn't stick. I make a rotten real names bigot for that and many other reasons :) But on the serious side you're suggesting a loss to Bishop Hill here and I agree with you. Twitter isn't going away, nor is our host's brilliant use of it (and I've said the same to his face, via email). This is a space to mull over the implications.

Geoff: interesting additional data point - or two data points, assuming we can assume roughly the same values in each dimension for Jeremy Poynton. I haven't been a great tweeter or listener to tweet streams myself since the aftermath of the Iranian election in June 2009 - when it was truly gripping. I didn't invest anything in the New Statesman article, unlike you. I wouldn't have dreamed even of reading it, I mean. I well understand your annoyance given what you put in. But something about Twitter - or the social ethos that has grown up around Twitter in the areas the Bish is interested in, perhaps - seems to me to be working in bringing people together in a way that blogs (including a NS thread) don't.

I don't know the answers here but I'm trying to be empirical. I accept this set of threads isn't enough to support a full theory. We'll have to wait and see what if any changes can be detected from Brian Cox as a result of this process, including his visit to Tamsin and Richard.

No inside info, Paul, just my innate sense when I read this stuff from the first day of the year that it was an important development. Good to hear that WUWT is getting with the program :)

Agree with Barry, that looks very useful Shub. And something that could not possibly be communicated in tweet form except afterwards, to point people to it. I also think you're right that Mann's attempts to go social have backfired - and this to me is another strength of these media. (Though, like Stephen Fry, I much prefer Twitter to Facebook personally.)

We should though distinguish between the main post of a blog like QTCV, Pointman's, WUWT or Bishop Hill (four that came to mind of different levels of interaction but sizeable, weighty posts) and the interaction that may follow. Paul surely hits on something in saying that only having 140 characters can be a real advantage in ruling out wind-baggery. This isn't just theory - one can see people interacting on Twitter who never have on blogs. There have to be reasons.