It’s not that I don’t have the time. I just don’t have the inclination.

On my blog, the comment “edit” page looks the same as the one on the Zone, but there’s a whole series of sidebars to the right like “Format,” “Categories,” and “Tags.”

I don’t know why they don’t show up on this venue. It might have to be set up by the administrator to make them visible. Or it might be theme-related.

Here, the whole sidebar only comes up on an “original” post, not on the comments.

Nextt, I hit the little pencil so I can add additional text to my comment.

When I go into the edit page, there is nothing about tags there either, except for a button under the edit switches (b, i, link b-quote…etc that says “close tags”. I’m afraid to touch it.

You have to remember. If I were a programmer, I’d teach myself a lot more than I needed to know. But I’m a user. I learn as little as I can to do what I want.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Second block from the bottom (unless you’ve customized the editor) is “Tags”. In the small text box, enter tags, separated by commas. Each tag can be multiple words separated by spaces, i.e. phrases are allowed. It’s important to use tags consistently, so I’d like to standardize on “climate change” for the serious topic, and “climate change denialism” for the conspiracy theories and cherry-picked data and other bullshit.

Banishing the entire subject of climate change to its own ghetto would be surrender to those who want to suppress serious discussion of the topic. Our opponents have no interest in a free and open discussion of a subject that’s so threatening to the economic interests of their principals. They’re not pursuing the truth, they’re pursuing victory.

But I have a hard time figuring out how to deal with people who are using the rules of science to attack science. Because as long as climate change is discussed on Space/Science, we’re saying the subject is still open, and thus the denialists have a claim to be heard, no matter how cynical their motivations.

When a venue like Space/Science is about open inquiry and a pursuit of truth, it uniquely exposes its throat to the enemies of truth and openness. Much like how the same people love to sneer at us for being intolerant of intolerance, they exploit our devotion to openness to scheme against us; exploit our respect for the truth by lying to us. And we are vulnerable.

We all agree that have to confront attacks on science. But let’s at least acknowledge it ain’t easy, at least not if we’re to remain true to our principles.

Are you saying we NOT place climate posts on SS? Or is that the plan for the new site when it is deployed? Or does that only refer to rebuttals to posts on climate?

It seems to me that preventing new posts on AGW from appearing on SS is tantamount to declaring them controversial, which they are not. Still, I concur that climate posts must be open to criticism, no matter where they appear. Even if you agree with the basic assumptions of AGW, it is still possible to challenge specific points and claims made by its adherents.

I should know. I just recently got thrown off a climate crisis site because I wasn’t sufficiently alarmist for their taste. Damn. I hate fanatics and propagandists, even when I happen to agree with them.

And how do you “tag” a post?

On the subject of style, you do know you’re getting your ass kicked, right? Specifically, Tom is complying with my request to keep politics out of Space/Science so ostentatiously it almost makes my teeth hurt. He trolled you into being the transgressor. Point Tom.

My strategy is, first, to acknowledge the overwhelming consensus regarding anthropocentric climate change to be a fact of the highest quality we can achieve using the proven methods of science; and thus to challenge it is to assert a counterfactual. The burden of proof is on the counterfactualist, and such assertions don’t belong on our Space/Science board, any more than alien faces on Mars are a fit topic for a science board.

It never works to try to muzzle even the most obviously false points of view, though. Second part of my strategy is the location, location, location chestnut. The arguments must happen, obviously, because there’s too much unresolved tension and animus. They can’t happen on Space/Science. Period. CurrentEvents would seem like the logical choice, yet for some reason people seem reluctant to bring up climate change there.

How about the first virtual board on the new site is devoted to climate change? That is, you tag posts on the subject “climate change”, and regardless of the “physical” board on which you post, a search for posts with that tag would produce a virtual board based on the search results. We can store the searches and make them available to everybody through a simple link/URL.

Posts will always need a home board, though, and CE still seems like the logical choice, to me. But wherever the rest of you choose to post about climate change, please tag the posts “climate change”. Just, avoid SS, because as logical as that board, that’s the place where climate change posts are toxic. Any place except Space/Science, OK?

BTW, I want to be clear that there will be perfect continuity from this incarnation of the Zone to the next. All your posts, and their tags, will be in the new site when it comes online. You can start tagging now.