Ooh! Real blog wars
Richard Treadgold | June 23, 2011Hah! Gareth’s upset about the Alexa rankings I’ve started publishing in the sidebar.
He gets going in a scholarly way and lengthily, but listen:
Treadgold’s Climate Conversation blog ranks at around 500,000. By way of comparison, David Farrar’s Kiwiblog.co.nz is ranked #68,226 in the world (#88 in NZ). Climate Conversation is so far down in Alexa’s long tail that the Alexa rank Treadgold is keen to trumpet is effectively meaningless.
What he fails to mention is that we’re not so far down Alexa’s long tail as he is. Where is Hot Topic ranked by Alexa? Anywhere meaningful? Today:
- Hot Topic’s world ranking is 985,744 (he forgot to mention that).
- Climate Conversation’s world ranking is 514,092 — twice as better.
- The NZ rankings are respectively 3319 (he forgot to mention that, too) and 890 — 3 times as better.
It’s easy to see why Gareth’s so upset. These figures hurt, and if they were wrong (I agree), it would hurt even more.
So I’ll think about Gareth’s challenge to produce other statistics for him. Though, frankly, I consider talking about the climate insanity more important, certainly more interesting.
In the meantime let me point out to him that Ken’s reporting system was broken the last few times I checked.
Point two percent is good
There are currently about 260,000,000 web sites on the Internet. Not pages — there are about 19 BILLION of them!
A ranking of 514,000 would put the site in the top 0.2% of all the world’s web sites. That’s definitely the elite class. I don’t know why he calls it meaningless. For Hot Topic seems to be even further down than that, in about the top 0.4%, which is twice as worse. Mind you, these figures could be dodgy. I wonder, does Limestone Hills make a decent drop?
Now, about that ocean heat content that’s not rising …
O/T but this Aussie comedy is quite funny.
Watch the members of the public hold their breath to prevent “carbon pollution”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzE3qcWhNDE
LOL Andy – “It’s a little bit uncomfortable I would say”
[...] Treadgold responds in a rather over the top manner. Trouble is, a meaningless stat is still meaningless, whoever it [...]
It’s the quality that matters.
Yes, Robin, I agree. That’s why, if these ranking numbers of ours go down, we’ll still be proud of our standing. We don’t think one thing and say another.
Is this site about climate conversations or popularity?
I would like to see a bit more civility around on both sides. The likes of Monkton’s outrageous ad hom yesterday is definitely disturbing and goes against the norm of ad homs, death wishes and arm-waving from the AGW proponents’ side.
One of the main reasons I was attracted to CCG in the first place was the degree of level headed civility together with the quality of posts. I would hate to see this high standard eroded by schoolyard pettiness and over-puffed gloating. Don’t get pulled down to their level, please. How is the NIWA situation progressing, btw?
Mike, it’s hard not to react when twerps try to tweak your nose. Let it go, mate, a little pride in one’s acheivenments now and then is no bad thing.
Alexander, I agree that a little pride now and then should not be discouraged but do we really need to have a pissing contest? The science is the science, and that is all that is required. Two posts in quick succession is a little more than a little pride, methinks.
Mike and Alexander, thank you for your comments. I’m sorry I reacted to Gareth’s provocations, but I did keep a civil tone and gave a moderate response. Your desire to maintain a civilised discussion is a timely reminder to us all.
This blog is dedicated to calm discussion of global warming science and policy, yet there’s nothing wrong with assessing our position and proclaiming our leadership either. If there’s any leadership, which of course is in doubt since Gareth explained the deficiencies in the Alexa ranking.
The furore that erupted over Lord Monckton’s loss of bearing towards Professor Garnaut shows that people admire the strength of character it takes NOT to respond in kind to insults.
I like his self-deprecating apology: “I have been a very bad Lord.”
When I began this blog over six years ago I was resolved to ignore the personal abuse that poisoned global warming discussions around the world. But I doubted whether I could keep to that. Most people resorted to insults and invective or worse and I felt quite alone. Clever insults and witty abuse is entertaining. Would people be drawn to more sober discussions without the spice?
It seems they are. I’m pleased to acknowledge the quality of this blog’s audience and to praise your presence and your contributions. I believe our aim is to investigate climate science, discover the truth, broadcast it and skilfully disclose our opponents’ mistakes. If policy decisions are required, perhaps we can make recommendations.
Let us persevere.
Richard, I have to admit that my sense of humour sometimes tends to be a bit on the acidic side, and people who take Hot Gossip and it’s maunderings as the dinkum stuff tend to bring out the worst in me. There is so much absolute nonsense passed off by charlatans as science that that sort of person tends to make me forget to pull my punches, so to speak. The fact that the bloke who runs Hot Gossip (I have not bothered to attempt to remember his name) tried to play one-upmanship and failed speaks volumes about his character, so good on yer mate, and don’t let whatsisname annoy you into intemperance – that’s our job!
I suspect that Hot Gossip’s numbers went down when registration for comments was introduced.
The “trolls” seem to have been kept at bay, and now there are just a small group of regulars agreeing with each other what a horrible bunch we are (all apparently of low IQ too, according to the latest thread)
That’s right, I’d forgotten about the registration thing that happened over there.
No need for it here so far, thank God.
It’s a surprise to me to learn that you have a low IQ!
Alexander,
Hilarious. You’re right — you guys worry me more than Renowden does. Cheers.
Well said Richard. Persevere! Non illigitimi carborundum. Sorry if I came across a bit grumpy. Anyhow, you run a very good blog and should be proud that your hard work is appreciated by many readers who return daily to at least ‘listen’ to the conversation. Thank you – I really appreciate it.
Thanks, Mike!
You, grumpy? The thought never entered me head!
Hi Richard,
Here’s a bit of science then, I stumbled across this a few days ago. Lindzen and Choi have updated their outgoing radiation / sea surface correlation work. It confirms their earlier feedback measurement work and fixes a few things that some complained about.
I did a short post at my site (Kiwi Thinker). The paper is available over at MasterResource.
http://www.kiwithinker.com/2011/06/a-paper-on-observed-climate-sensitivity-by-lindzen-and-choi-may-2011/
Here’s a link to a pdf of the paper.
http://www.masterresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Lindzen_Choi_APJAS_final.pdf
Cheers
Robin
That’s interesting, thanks. I wonder what defects the team will discover in it?
Nice site, by the way, and great to have you in the neighbourhood! Thanks for the blogroll link. I’ve added yours here. There aren’t many of us taking the sceptic view in NZ! Cheers.
Richard, the Kiwi voices on internationally-recognised blogs such as WUWT, Bishop Hill and Ms Curry’s Climate Etc can be heard quite regularly. I, for one, don’t get too involved in much homegrown stuff as I tend to be more of a lurker on Kiwi sites than poster as many of them, such as Hot Thingummy are not worth arguing on.
So I’m extra glad we caught your eye here! Perhaps Kiwi Thinker might earn the occasional glance, too.
Now Gareth has resorted to blocking posts. Pretty rich to reply to my critical post with hypocritical crap and then block my reply.
I am trying to post the following:
“So you incorrectly quote an article yet point this out as nitpicking. I wonder if that would be acceptable if I was doing it? Or Richard Treadgold?
You reply to me with a quote that points out that the climate was unusual. As I note in the footnote to my post, I am not saying the climate wasn’t unusual, it was.
However the most revealing thing from your post is that you don’t deny you misquoted and embellished with the 1816 figure instead of just stating, “Whether it’s 1816 or not doesn’t matter”!
So why title an article “Catch a fire (worst year since 1816)” if it isn’t true and doesn’t in fact matter? That you have such a liberal approach to scientific method (ie establishing fact) and misquoting another story is very revealing. To point this out to your readers is not nitpicking.”
It’s much worse than quoting unreliable web traffic stats.
Correction: turns out my comment was caught in a spam filter.
That’s not so bad, then. Good to know, thanks.
I see that Bryan Walker is weeping about shale gas now,.
Can someone tell him that this is a low(er) carbon technology that could be used to transition away from coal?
Also, the move “Gasland” contained many factual errors that Irish film maker Phelim McAleer has exposed – covered in Delingpole’s latest post here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100094147/frogs-scorpions-greens-lies/
If they keep banging on about windfarms, show them this gem from the Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-2008055/Energy-giants-want-billions-windfarms.html
Richard – a clarification:
My monthly rankings are going strong and usually posted on the first of the month. You are referring to the automatic 7 day average spreadsheet which doesn’t currently operate because of changes made by statcounter. There is a note to that effect on the spreadsheet which you really should have mentioned.
However, I notice that you now have installed statcounter but unfortunately not enabled public access.
Pity – as that would enable some reliable comparison of statistics and I would love to
Include your blog in my monthly ranking. This compares monthly visits which are far more objective than the Alexa ranking. It also includes the other two blogs you appear to wish to rank yourself against.
As has been explained to you at such a low level of visits your blog could not produce a reliable Alexa ranking. Another factor is that it doesnt even list on Alexa.
Let me know if you make your statcounter accessible and I will put you on the database. You know how to contact me.