An Inconvenient Comment

Something like "An Inconvenient Comment" blog was long overdue. Its mission statement looks pretty good:

This forum was created to provide a clearing house for all the reasonable and respectful commentary out there that's been drafted and submitted to online climate blogs such as Real Climate and Climate Progress, only to be removed or pulled from moderation in contradiction to the blogs' stated comments guidelines, or due to what AIC and the commenter believe are unreasonable and one-sided restrictions for an open forum.

AIC respects any blogger's right to moderate the discussions on their forum however they see fit, but is troubled by the descrepancy between some climate blogs' claims of openness and even-handedness, and the reality of their moderation practices.

While this forum is open as a place for people discuss questionable moderation practices and perhaps vent (in a constructive and respectful manner) a little, it was created with two primary goals:

1) To provide a more open and diverse extension of ongoing discussions at climate blogs where people have had difficulties in having their comments published. While this forum requests that initial comments on a mirrored post are copies of comments that were rejected at the source, responses to and discussions arising from those rejected comments are encouraged. This forum is not intended as an echo chamber; people of all viewpoints on any issues are very welcome to join the discussions in a respectful manner.

2) To encourage those who may have given up on contributing (or attempting to contribute) to discussions at blogs that rarely or never publish their comments to begin again, in hopes that what comments do go through contribute to a better discussion on those forums.

It can be a real sting when one spends time drafting polite and relevant commentary only to have disappear into a black hole because it doesn't support a specific scientific or policy perspective.

By providing a fallback outlet for such speech, this forum hopes to provide a directly related space for those unheard voices, and to encourage more meaningful discussion between differing viewpoints.