According to Anthony’s Blog spawn page, he now knows who I am and is considering whether to release or not. He also adds, see about page, which links to my about page. I’m not quite sure why he’s said that. Is he thinking I might simply decide to announce it myself? I don’t know if he does know who I am. He certainly seems to have a habit of working these things out, having recently outed Sou and others in the past. Maybe he’s made a lucky guess? Maybe I’ve slipped up somewhere? If I have, I don’t yet know where. Apart from my family, I’ve told 5 other people, so maybe it’s a 6 degrees of separation thing, but I’m sure one of them would have mentioned knowing Anthony Watts. Apart from that, I know I mentioned my name in one DM on Twitter, and maybe it’s mentioned in an email or two.
Anyway, I certainly wouldn’t ask Anthony not to release it. I’d rather he didn’t, but I’ll let him decide whether he thinks it’s right to do so or not. I can’t imagine he’s terribly happy with me or my blog, but I have offered – the only time we ever communicated – to apologise and correct any personal attacks if I’ve made any. That offer still stands and, as with everyone else, he’s welcome to correct anything I’ve said that he thinks is wrong and can demonstrate to be wrong. I don’t think I have made any personal attacks, as that isn’t my intent, but I have written a lot, so can’t claim to have never said anything poorly. I appreciate that some think that the blog name, in itself, is a personal attack, but I don’t agree and Anthony’s never directly indicated that to me. He even highlights it on his blog spawn page. I should add that if I were to start making personal attacks on people (not that I want to), Anthony wouldn’t be my first choice anyway. There are numerous other people who (at least with respect to how they’ve treated me) are more deserving of it than Anthony.
Anyway, I have no real intention of outing myself just to beat Anthony to it. I’d want to give it a bit more thought before doing so, and can’t really see any particular advantage to not being anonymous. Others my disagree and already have. I had considered trying to keep this blogging going for a year (it’s been just over 8 months) and then, depending on how things are going at that stage, either out myself, or wind things down. Of course, an interesting issue is what I should do if Anthony does indeed know who I am and does decide to release it (what might be more interesting is if he decide to release it, but doesn’t actually know who I am :-)). Do I stick with it as is? Do I change the blog name and move on (in terms of posts, that’s kind of happening anyway)? Do I feel that I’ve done enough and simply wind it down? I don’t know the answer myself. Will just have to cross that bridge if and when it happens.
...and Then There's Physics 
If you are outed, prepare for personal attacks – by email or on Facebook – or to your employer or other social groups. It comes with the territory.
Wotts
Call his bluff. Or rather, ignore it. Either he’s playing games or he’s not and he has your ID. If the latter, nothing you can do about it. If the former, you win.
I’ve always thought the anonymity was a good thing. It shouldn’t matter who you are just what you say. But the thought of Anthony Watts disclosing your identity against your wishes is infuriating and I don’t think he will necessarily respect your wishes. That would require a level of integrity which I just don’t see from him and he hasn’t respected the wishes of other people who have also wanted to remain anonymous. So I think you should out yourself just to prevent him from having the last say on this. But as you say, he may have guessed incorrectly.
John, indeed. That’s my main reason for being anonymous. It does appear as though things can get very personal.
BBD, that’s my intention. If he knows, he knows. Nothing I can do about that now.
If AW *does* know who you are, you will need to find out how he breached your anonymity. Specifically, if you were hacked. Perhaps you have a colleague in the CS department who might inspect your system. This would be my next step. Interesting things can happen at this point.
Watts has a very serious pathology about wanting to out posters who use a nom-de-plume, pseudonym, alias. Years ago I posted a few times there, using my hotmail account [which holds my name]. To one critical comment [the Bush doctrine is rife there], he replied with my name in the address. The guy as said has a serious pathology, fodder for psychologist. The number of times he’s posted Tamino’s name… you’d probably need all fingers on 2 hands to get a count.
BTW, follow the money… he’s documented to be funded via Heartland [IIRC]. Not a mind of his own that’s for sure.
“Watts has a very serious pathology about wanting to out posters who use a nom-de-plume, pseudonym, alias. “
Let’s correct that. His desire to “out” posters applies only to those that disagree with him about climate science.
He has a similarly selective reasoning that he applies to attributing “cowardice” to anonymous commenters. Those who are anonymous and disagree with him on the science are “cowards.” Those who are anonymous and agree with him on the science are not.
And with respect to that last issue – Watts reverse engineered from my email address to make accusations about me commenting on the web while on the taxpayers’ dime. When I pointed out that his accusation was inaccurate, and offered to prove it, he put me into “moderation.” Ironically, that seemed rather cowardly to me.
As for the ethics of “outing” people, Mosher took it upon himself to post my full name without asking me first whether or not I objected. In fact, I didn’t care, but I do consider it meaningful that he took no heed of the possibility that in posting my full name, he might have negatively affected my life. I have no idea how Mosher determined my full name. I wonder whether he may have gotten information from Watts about my email address and thus deduced my full name. Or, being technically skilled, he may used some other methodology. Either way, I find it pretty creepy that people who are ostensibly interested in the integrity of science would spend their time making the effort to “out” people.
Sad state of affairs, the climate wars.
Indeed, very sad state of affairs.
Creepy is an understatement. If someone has gone to the trouble of hacking emails – and they’ve done this in the past – then it’s beyond creepy. It’s illegal, dishonest and quite disturbing.
Re Joshua “Let’s correct that. His desire to “out” posters applies only to those that disagree with him about climate science.”
Felt that was a “goes without saying”. Would be even worse psychologists case if outing those agreeing with him.
Mad skillz.
It’s pretty pathetic. Or completely pathetic even. What difference does knowing your identity actually have to anyone (apart from idle curiosity)? I guess there might be an argument for it if there was a suggestion that what information you have given about yourself is false and/or you had some undeclared connection with the climate science community but I see no reason to think that.
Anyway, even if he does reveal your identity I don’t see any reason to stop blogging anonymously. Sou still does so and Tamino and Eli’s real names are well known.
Anyway I hope it doesn’t discourage you from continuing – you’ve managed to create a good blog with its own identity and good mix of followers.
Andrew, thanks. That is certainly on option. Just keep going regardless. As you say, seems to have worked perfectly well for others.
Hopefully you haven’t commented anywhere unfriendly; that leaks your IP address.
It’s a vicious double standard, because Steven Goddard, who used to post on WUWT all the time, is a pseudonym. Watts has often allowed anonymous people to post on WUWT, but he loves outing any anonymous people that he views as enemies.
Being ‘outed’ isn’t the worst thing. You’ll obviously be subjected to more personal attacks, but usually it won’t impact your personal life, unless you’re sufficiently high profile. I wasn’t subjected to any significant personal attacks until I started posting on The Guardian. Unfortunately that’s changed recently, and it has impacted my personal life a few times, but it’s not the end of the world.
In any case, Watts is so frequently wrong that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s misidentified you.
William, that’s already happened, so I think they know where I am. Not sure if that’s enough to know who I am, but maybe it is.
Dana, it is rather a double standard. Maybe this is related to the spat I had with Steven Goddard on Twitter last night 🙂 (yes, everyone, I know I said I’d stop – it’s just that people keep saying things that are wrong ;-)) I’m certainly not high profile, so hopefully that will help if I am outed. In principle, not too worried about it but don’t particularly look forward to having to deal with additional unpleasantness, were it to happen.
Time you admitted that you’ve got a problem with Twitter, Wotts. Worse than the gin, if you ask me 😉
Twitter is indeed my nemesis at the moment. Try hard to ignore people, but Andrew Adams, yesterday, challenged me to avoid it for an hour. Needless to say, I failed 🙂
It’s all downhill from here, Wotts.
Twitter is a portmanteau – tittering for twats.
To William’s point, I make it a point of never commenting from my place of work or home on an “hostile” site. By hostile, I mean one that is more interested in “winning a debate” than discussing the truth. Also, since you can detect IP addresses of visitors as well, I make it a point to not follow any pattern when perusing unfriendly sites (e.g., always showing up at the same time on a hostile site or posting elsewhere on the internet or Twitter at a time that can be matched to a visit on a hostile site). I’m not prolific on climate science as you are, but follow this rule carefully where I am prolific and where similar hostile environments exist (e.g., creationism, religious fundamentalism).
Bobby, I don’t comment much on “hostile” sites, largely for the reason you say. However, it seems as though something is known of me, which is probably from one of my rare comments on one of those sites.
Wotts
Like as not he’s got your .ac.uk which only means he can narrow it down to institution and department. Unless there’s only you – which I imagine is unlikely – he shouldn’t have enough to go on to identify you personally.
BBD, that was my impression. I don’t think a process of elimination would work, but maybe he’s incredibly determined.
It’s my view that if he says he knows, he really does know.
Creepy is an understatement. If someone has gone to the trouble of hacking emails – and they’ve done this in the past – then it’s beyond creepy. It’s illegal, dishonest and quite disturbing.
And also not exactly what I would see as conservative, Christian family values.
It would be nice if conservatives and Christians would value their values and would shun such people.
Take this as an opportunity to move on, if it comes. Watts is worthless and your blog deserves to be far more than a nomenclatural shadow of his.
Rachel, maybe. However, if he really does know and it’s not an educated guess, then that would imply access to information that was not public. At least, I’m unaware of any way he could actually “know” without this being true.
To gain web anonymity, if you value to be much less traceable: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/12/tor-browser-bundle-ubuntu-ppa.html .
OPatrick, thanks. I have considered that and may indeed be the best way to go.
What BBD said. If some mendacious lying scumbag wants to prove how pointlessly childish he can be, who cares? We don’t, and I’m sure you agree that our good opinion is worth far more than a lying mendacious scumbag who hates science.
I found out who you are quickly and easily by using Google. I won’t say how except that I relied solely on your blog and Twitter output. (E-mail me if you want the details. I don’t check my Yahoo e-mail account very often so don’t hold your breath. Also don’t hold your breath expecting anything astonishing. It was really very simple, I’m afraid.) I searched because I like puzzles, that’s all. I wouldn’t out you.
There are good arguments for and against anonymity/pseudonymity online. The most powerful against-argument is probably that anonymity is ill-mannered. Annoyed by people who wear sunglasses indoors? Me too. It gives them an advantage because they can see your eyes and you can’t see theirs. You are not communicating as equals. One of you is being himself; the other is being Bono, not a conversationalist but a solipsist transmitting precious bulletins from behind a protective screen.
But there are good for-arguments, too. Mine are looking a bit threadbare these days but yours might be better, so don’t let yourself be bullied into outing yourself. If being thought a Bono isn’t too high a price to pay, stick with it.
Dr Burgoo
(That’ll be two hundred guineas, please.)
The NSA knows your identity. Then it is just a matter of someone’s willingness to pay. Or is there someone expecting that all their employees are incorruptible?
Wotts,
Is it bed time? http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png
guthrie – “lying mendacious scumbag” – blimey – keeping it civil ? I’d hate to hear you being rude!
Vinny, seriously you actually know my name? Surely you mean that you think you’ve guessed who I am, or are you suggesting that you actually have found something that is definitive?
VTG, yes the “lying, mendacious, scumbag” did worry me a little but I’ll let in go in that it was implicit, rather than explicit (i.e., it is of course true that I value your opinions than those of a lying mendacious scumbag).
I’ve been trying to find a cartoon (which may have been in private eye) that is of a couple, both of whom are working on laptops. The husband turns to the wife and says something like “I’ve just come across some moronic idiot making stupid statements on the web”, to which the wife responds “me too”.
Wotts, strong circumstantial evidence, not definitive proof.
Vinny, that’s possible then. I’ll take you word for it 🙂
Let me elaborate – I think it clear that a number of people are basically beyond the pale, and trying to be nice about absolutely everyone including such people, no matter how nasty and wrong they are, is, unless you are a special kind of person, very wearing and generally a waste of time. I reached my limit a few years ago, I now call idiots idiots and feel much better for it. Of course i also prove that they are idiots, but the point is that just being nice to everyone all the time is a limited strategy that I don’t think gains you anything in the long run. I also distinguish being nasty to people in person and about them, although that’s maybe a bit odd of me. I probably wouldn’t call Antony such names to his face, unless I felt he deserved it for his recent behaviour.
On the other hand this is your blog so I’ll try avoiding saying too many nasty things.
Vinny, the Bench would laugh at that.
It is unfortunate that anyone should feel the need to be anonymous, but it is understandable for people who want to limit the infiltration of climate-war noise into their professional and family lives. I do think that signing a real name to an opinion adds some credibility, though. Rachel says that we should be able to evaluate an opinion without knowing where it is coming from, which is true in an idealistic sense, but I always have an urge to want to know who I am talking to and what their background is.
If Watts does out you, it is probably still worth maintaining a pseudonym. At least it won’t show up in Google searches, when people look up your real name.
Richard Tol, I have noticed, sometimes refers to you by a first name. I have no idea whether he knows your real name and is just being a tease, or whether he has made a wild guess and is fishing for a response.
I would, anyway, encourage you to change your blog name and Twitter ID. This is a fine blog with a dreadful name.
guthrie
Yup. Me too. Life’s too short, and besides, people take advantage.
Guthrie, thanks. I’m slowly getting there myself to be honest. What stops me (mostly) is the sense that I don’t want to drop to their level. The other thing is that you then open yourself up to the “apologise or else” type discussion, which I really can’t deal with.
He’s fishing. He even switched between he and she for a while. I quite liked the thought that maybe I was writing in a gender neutral way, but I suspect he was also just fishing there too.
More reasonable people are suggesting this, so I may well go ahead and do that anyway. Will certainly give it some more thought.
> The most powerful against-argument is probably that anonymity is ill-mannered.
First, we must distinguish anonymity from pseudonymity:
https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity
Second, the usage of a pseudonym is not a “manner”, and therefore might not considered “ill-mannered”. A persona, even beyond masked balls, only carries for voices and acts.
AW will probably claim a victory if you change the blog name, but that would be self-serving tripe. All things considered, perhaps a name-change would be a good idea. As you and others have pointed out, your blog has outgrown its name.
BBD, it’s certainly tempting.
I think I’m starting to agree that perhaps a new blog name is in order, especially if it means we don’t have to call you Wotts anymore.
So long as you don’t call it “Civil Climate” because when your Twitter habit eventually and inevitably engulfs you and you cease to moderate here and it turns into Deltoid 2, people will snigger.
“AW will probably claim a victory..”
No. AW will always claim victory.
‘Tis but a scratch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4
My brief visit to WUWT was creepily similar. Within a few posts, people were posting my real name and where I work. Dbstealey even repeatedly accused me of wasting taxpayer money, and asked if my “NASA email address” represented NASA. David M. Hoffer and ATheoK decided that I don’t deserve a human pronoun- apparently climate scientists only deserve to be called “it”. When I objected to being called a corrupt lying Godless Anti-American murderer, Anthony Watts banned me.
So far, being outed by Watts hasn’t affected my personal or professional life at all. Getting banned from WUWT was like a weight off my shoulders.
If you look up “petty” in an illustrated dictionary, you find a picture of Watts.
Anthony never published the My Blog Spawn page on the main blog, just added a page and just left it there for the ‘various ‘Wotts’ blogs to stumble across.
As their were multiple sites parodying him (some that were rather vitriolic – one other in particular) I think more than a fair response in kind?
Anthony had initially thought to call the page – My Blog Children – he tweeted it once
and I got quite confused, as I thought he meant blogs like mine –
ie readers that had been motivated to start their own ‘sceptical’ or ‘lukewarm blogs’ blogs
So it was my fault that he changed it to something a bit more satirical….!
have you changed your twitter handle?
Good Luck
SekeRob..
the WUWT blog is NOT funded by Heartland.. this is false.
Anthony was going to set up another website, for a special project (close to his surface station project hear), to make USA public weather data, more easily available to anybody who wished to access it. he approached people to find a donor to fund it and Heartland helped find a private donor to fund it.
Watts provided an update on this project here:
“Today, I’m going to offer my first update on it, so that everyone can see for themselves just how terrible and evil it is in the scheme of all things climate.” – Anthony Watts
now everyone can choose to believe what they will about WUWT, I cannot stop them, but believing people are evil, greedy, crazy, etc or in the pockets of fossil fuel donors, and are not sincere in their motivations, is one of the reasons that those that attack sceptics, show those the sceptics that they do not understand them at all. and hence get their own judgement questioned.
ie I KNOW, I’m not funded by anybody, not told what to do by anybody
(though I did get some expenses off the Met Office once, does that mean I’m secretly in the pay of ‘Big Climate’ itself….) and all the sceptical bloggers I know, haven’t much of a pot to do the proverbial in.
this ‘funded by’ accusation/smear was part of the fall out of the Peter Gleick /Heartland incident, and whilst I’m no fan of Peter Gleick (for personal reasons), I’m definitely no enemy ether.
I believe he is totally sincere, just wrong (and a little misguided) on some things
ref:
“John, indeed. That’s my main reason for being anonymous. It does appear as though things can get very personal.”
I imagine you are aware now, that using Anthony Watts’s own name to parody him, that many people perceived that you did in fact yourself, make it personal, at least as far as Watts was concerned (and more than a few sceptics, who just ‘percieved’ it as a personal attack from a cloak of anonymity )
Good luck with the blog – the ‘misleading’ article was interesting, educational and probably quite hard work?
Barry
the WUWT blog is NOT funded by Heartland.. this is false.
Nobody said that the blog is. Seke said that Watts is funded by Heartland, and indeed one of his projects is. Did you never notice on WUWT or similar sites that commenters complain about billions of government-funded dollars being used for scare propaganda?
And I sincerely believe AW took $44,000 from Heartland to set up his network visualization project, which is mysteriously absent from anywhere except a few self-referential blog posts. Apparently $44k buys a lot of website these days. And he takes speaker’s fees from Heartland. But that’s only a “smear”. And Peter Gleick is just wrong. Sincerely, it’s taking more effort than I can muster to maintain my suspension of disbelief around the reason for this coincidence.
Just to add that so far, despite Anthony’s pathologically obsessive digging over almost a year to find out who I am, I’ve not been targeted by the cranks as a result. Apart from Anthony, Richard Tol is the only person who took a few shots on Twitter.
The details Anthony posted about me have probably enhanced rather than diminished my reputation in cyberspace. In real life, no-one I’ve asked has ever heard of Anthony Watts and WUWT. Not only that, almost everyone I know and work with is like the rest of the world and accepts climate science. If I mention to anyone I run a climate blog the reaction ranges from very supportive to mildly interested (depending on the person). It hasn’t done my reputation any harm at all. Rather the opposite, when it comes to doing more than just blog about climate, giving me a bit more cred in the climate action world.
Barry Woods points out that Watts is in two minds about all this, but he’s wrong on one score. Anthony has on more than one occasion highlighted me in his blog articles and on other blogs too – but with the effect of raising my reputation not diminishing it. (He once raised me to the status of Michael Mann, which was as silly as it was flattering!)
On the one hand Anthony’s bullying by intimidation instincts feed his obsession about people who dismantle the fictions on his blog, and on the other his cowardice rules because he doesn’t want to send too many of his readers to read how easy it is to tear apart his fictions. I’d guess that you, too, Wotts are much more successful in real life than Anthony is and are of much better standing in your community and work. That is, you are a much more credible person than Anthony Watts.
It must be eating Anthony up that he’s in this dilemma. Which side of him will win out, the primitive bully or the slinking coward? (In other words, he’s got himself into a bind. It’s a no win situation for him.)
Most of his readers don’t venture out. They only gather at WUWT to write dumb comments and let off steam, because in real life I’ll bet most of them are surrounded by people who accept climate science. Anthony boasts a readership in the thousands but, as if this needs saying, few WUWT-ers follow links. You don’t go to WUWT to learn anything or to read the “two sides”. You go there so you can feel that, as a rejector of science, you’re not alone in the world.
Barry,
It may be perceived as personal, but I think that would be wrong. Firstly, parody implies some kind of mocking. I think I took this quite seriously. Secondly, if this had been a genuine tribute site, noone would have complained at all. It’s only because it was a “tribute” site that was critical that you’re claiming that it was personal. It wasn’t and isn’t.
Sou, that’s good to know thanks. It’s good that you haven’t had to suffer any particular unpleasantness after Anthony outed you. Maybe I’ve been too concerned about the possibility of things getting personal. In fairness, I’ve only had a couple of snippy emails to my “wotts” email account, so maybe being known wouldn’t have had any impact.
Wotts,
not quite what you were looking for, but this seemed apposite
OK, so embedded images don’t work, but this cartoon seems apposite.
VTG, hope you don’t mind, but I embedded the cartoon. My family would certainly think it was apt 🙂
Hi ATTP ! we had the chat before, ie how you are perceived vs your intent – can be too very different things… other peoples wrong perceptions, well sometimes they need help to get past that.
Hi Sou
ref: In real life, no-one I’ve asked has ever heard of Anthony Watts and WUWT. Not only that, almost everyone I know and work with is like the rest of the world and accepts climate science
I agreed with the first sentence and expand it, nobody I know (since before I became interested in this) has heard of WUWT, or Bishop Hill, or Realclimate, you, me or ANY of the climate bloggers or climate scientists, politicians in the climate context, regardless of side.
as for the rest of the world,, outside of my ‘climate circle’ or ‘climate bubble’ the public I know don’t care about climate, no actually that’s wrong, they are oblivious to it and the debate.
when 4 years ago the Copenhagen conference started, and it drew all the media attention, I thought what on earth has the Independent Police Complaints Commision got to do with global warming, and thought Michael Mann was the film director of ‘Heat’ and Miami Vice. When it was the 3rd IPCC assessment report (that was a bad career time for me, the and the 4th assessment report, we were having our third child (3 kids 4 and under)
the public are just oblivious of it all, I welcome knowing who Sou is, because she becomes a real person, who you can imagine meeting, chatting with, can identify that she is sincere, etc. not some perceived blog opposition to score points from. Talking to people (not about) is vital. Mark Lynas for example started with others the whole exxon fossil fuel denier thing over a decade ago with George Marshall.. I’ve commented on his blog, chatted etc. and we’ve now met a few times and had lunch, with a certain Oxford Professor that Phil Jones did not like very much, and hopefully perceptions have changed.
Additionally. I’ve also had no real problems with anybody either (I had expected to get some) when I started blogging under my real name / tweeting etc. still get rude comments sometimes (generally anonymous ones, and generally what might be described as ‘my own side’ . though I think sides are limiting, and I’ve forcibly told people I will talk to whoever I want to, thank you very much.
the way forward is to discuss what we all agree on first… then go from there.
Steve Goddard – pseudonym. Bob Tisdale – pseudonym. Smokey/dbs/D.Boehm/dbstealy are all the same person, posting frequently as a sock-puppet (quite abusively, I’ll note) while moderating under another name. I suspect there are more.
But not the ‘warmists’, oh no. Those get their pseudonyms insulted, and if they are effective communicators, their anonymity is violated.
Pretty sad….
I didn’t realize “Steve Goddard” was a pseudonym for years, and didn’t know “Bob Tisdale” was a pseudonym at all. Sometimes I wonder why “Steve Goddard” doesn’t just call himself “NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies”. That pseudonym would probably be even more effective at hijacking the credibility of science in order to smear it.
For what it’s worth, I’ve posted under my real name as long as I can remember. I started feeling people were overly worried about anonymity online, and to highlight this, I added my full name and phone number to an online gaming profile (for Diablo 2, which was one of the most popular games at the time). I got over a hundred comments from people who saw this and thought it was a bad idea, but that’s it. I’ve used my full name as much as I could ever since.
That said, I have had a few people on climate blogs insult me based on information that was available online. I’d probably get more if I used social media much. At the very least, I might get insulted by Vinny Burgoo who says:
Something I’ve never mentioned online before is I’m photosensitive. I wear sunglasses pretty much all the time. Maybe my lack of anonymity is a form of compensation 😛