Are you ready to kick up the discussion a notch?

Question

The website listed below discusses a new forum where people could post about the latest scientific results on climate change and debate how to cut carbon emissions. Where politicians can get a sense of public opinion. The Climate Collaboratorium will be "something like the Wikipedia version of the authoritative reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Unlike Wikipedia though, the collaboratorium, now at the prototype stage, will have features to keep the debate more structured and organized."

http://network.nature.com/boston/news/articles/2008/04/10/bringing-order-to-online-discussions-about-climate-change

I'm looking forward to it. Are you?

Answer 1

Is it about a comprehensive debate as to the existence of and all things global warming, organized and archived; or is it about going beyond the debate and moving forward with solutions?

'Schmidt anticipates some kind of moderation will be necessary for the collaboratorium to work, but even with moderation, it will be hard to strike the right balance. “To be totally inclusive allows the contrarians to dominate the agenda, [while] being restrictive gives fodder for conspiracy theories,” he says.'

I don't see how this could work without moderation.  If anyone can edit, it will be a free-for-all considering the heated emotions on both sides.  

Someone would have to be an arbiter to determine what constitutes a rational argument, from either side.  

For the irrational posts, the post could be replaced by a marker that points to the "archive of the debunked" so one could see all the similar "crazy" arguments grouped together along with a "final" authoritative presentation of the best of both sides of the argument and the conclusion.  

If it works, great.  I would post where policymakers can review.

Answer 2

Sounds like a good start. Maybe people will actually read and try to understand instead of using their guts to respond. you know, the ones that shout Al Gore said it so its c**p all the time. You know, they think al gore actually came up with the idea and not the thousands of scientists that have been studying global climate change for decades. Oopps I See the morons are already here......Forget, they will never listen. They like their big trucks and jet ski's too much.

$4/gallon...thanks morons for wasting it all

Answer 3

I was curious about this comment:

"the collaboratorium, now at the prototype stage, will have features to keep the debate more structured and organized."

What "debate" are they referring to?

Answer 4

Nice, that sounds like a really interesting forum.  I'll definitely check it out once they get it online.

Answer 5

I would welcome and participate in the collaboratorium.  I think that participants in the collaboratorium should do so with their real name and credentials and that there should be a provision for a credential audit.  A policymaker could then understand the  science by reading comments from those with actual scientific credentials as well as gage which solutions are politically feasible by reading opinions of the public at large.

Answer 6

Anything in contact with the ipcc is just like anything that gore has had part of.  

Trash.

Answer 7

If it's anything like Wikipedia or the IPCC then it won't be much for accuracy.

Too bad though.  Seems like we need more debate on an issue so full of biases.  The global warming nonsense has been taken over by the politicians, so it's hard to tell the truth from the myths sometimes.

Answer 8

i recently did my first couple of wikipedia edits and found it very scary! i couldnt resist, noone had entered the (to me) groundbreaking news of the first commercial tidal stream turbine going in, so i went for it, but i was very worried about getting it right.

this looks more approachable, but i hope it doesnt turn into a spamfest like this site ;-)

Answer 9

I do understand that hot air will fill a void, and conform to the shape of it's container.

Answer 10

Sounds interesting.

d/dx,

I don't necessarily agree with a requirement to show credentials. For the most part, credentials are just a formality--a PhD doesn't mean you are smarter than someone with a B.Sc., it just means you went to school longer. That doesn't necessarily equate to a better understanding of a topic than that B.Sc. or M.Sc..

A requirement to show credentials means favoritism. Not the best idea for a real scientific debate.

...Although, it would help to keep out some of the rubbish you see in some blogs and message boards. There is that balance thing again.