3 Responses to “Climate Debate Needs More Nuance”

1. Menth says:

   September 24, 2011 at 10:00 pm

   Unfortunately, great conversations start up on the Yale site but seem to tail off after 12 hours. I guess that will change the longer you do it. Regardless, really enjoying your posts over there, keep up the good work Keith.

2. Keith Kloor says:

   September 25, 2011 at 11:39 am

   Thanks, Menth.

   As for the conversations, all the comments have to pass through moderation, so that might account, in part, for the tail-off. To be honest, if moderation helps reduce the “noise” factor, I’m ok with that.

   My posts will start appearing on a Tues/Friday rotation, but I’ll also continue to link to them from here. 

3. Nullius in Verba says:

   September 25, 2011 at 3:26 pm

   There’s a bit of a feedback loop involved – you need a big enough audience checking in regularly to generate conversation, and people will only check in regularly if there’s an interesting conversation going on. You might find you have to interact a bit more yourself, to start off with, to keep things moving.
   As you say, moderation doesn’t help – besides the delay, it makes people who would otherwise argue with you (and thereby keep things interesting) a bit cautious. “If I say this, will he let it through?” Presumably, your intention is that sufficient quality will be enough to let through even comments you don’t agree with, but that sort of quality takes effort and thought. If they’re not sure of their welcome, they might not go to all the effort. Sometimes, a bit of background noise is useful for a livelier ambience. There’s nothing worse than giving a laboriously prepared speech only to find the auditorium is empty and you’re talking to yourself.