Curry down

Readers are noting that Judith Curry's blog has been taken down, ostensibly for a terms of service violation.

Strange.

Comments

[michel]

Always have an up to date backup on local storage.

Always have another service, such as squarespace or blogger ready to go at once.

Always buy your domain name independently and forward it manually to your blog, so you can change at a moment's notice.

If really paranoid, always have a site with your own hosted version ready to be brought up with your backup content. Much harder to take down a web site you own.

wordpress.com is great, but it is a single point of failure.

[Mailman]

I wonder which service she violated? Maybe it was the right of Mann Made Global Warming (tm) scientists to never have the p1ss taken out of them?

Mailman

[Russell]

Perhaps she feels stricken by her role in Romney's downfall.

[omnologos]

Last post on site started with quote by Mark Thompson of Savile BBC NYT fame. Surely just a coincidence.

[Dolphinhead]

Just had a gander at the Wordpress T's and C's - nice to see a bit of irony in there. Unusual for our American cousins who tend to take themselves very seriously.

[Pharos]

Hopefully she will give us a clue what's going on.

[Barry Woods]

Judith doesn't know what is going on yet

[Bruce Hoult]

I emailed Judith about it seven hours ago (0456 UTC) and got a reply at 1102 UTC: "it will be a few hours before my tech is available to investigate"

[Speed]

Takedown for terms of service violation(s) are frequently triggered by posting of copyrighted material. This is a plausible explanation for Climate Etc. since Judith often posts large chunks of work published elsewhere. This type of takedown is often done automatically in response to a takedown notice generated automatically -- no human involvement -- even in cases where the posting is done "with permission."

Notice and take down is a process operated by online hosts in response to court orders or allegations that content is illegal. Content is removed by the host following notice. Notice and take down is widely operated in relation to copyright infringement, as well as for libel and other illegal content. In US and European Union law, notice and takedown is mandated as part of limited liability, or safe harbour, provisions for online hosts (see the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 and the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000). As a condition for limited liability online hosts must expeditiously remove or disable access to content they host when they are notified of the alleged illegality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takedown_notice

[shub]

So it is due to all the copy-pasting that keeps going on there?

What can you do if you brain can grasp far bigger chunks of text at one go than most mortals? :)

[pat]

omnologos -

responded to your comment on the WUWT-tv thread, as i thought i saw your mention of mark thompson there.

have posted the cached versions of the homepage with Thompson quote thread at top, plus the full cached version of that particular thread, which appears to be the last one Curry put up.

[redc]

I'm thinking that having her blog taken down by somebody complaining to WordPress will end up as a badge of honour for Judith.

[redc]

Oh and let me get in before Mosher does, it was obviously Peter Gleick!

;)

[Coldish]

Intro to Judith's most recent post:

New post on Climate Etc.


Policy, rhetoric and public bewilderment
by curryja

by Judith Curry Science is the most formidable intellectual force of our age, perhaps any age. The irony is that, without the insights of the humanities, it may still find itself without words. - Mark Thompson

Read more of this post
curryja | November 14, 2012 at 10:06 pm | Categories: Communication, Policy | URL: http://wp.me/p12Elz-2IU

Comment See all comments

[Paul Matthews]

Could be genuinely a service violation, or could be an attack as recently happened to Jo Nova.

[Latimer Alder]

I'm really missing my alarmist playmates over there...WebHubTelescope the Peak Oil monomaniac, BBD (ex of this parish), Joshua the Witchfinder General, Lolwot the Blinkered and Tempterrain the Terrified. Along with Martha and Louise and all other ecoloons who hang out there.

One can only hope that they are using their enforced spare time productively and educating themselves from WUWT-TV :-)

[timg56]

Lat,

I concur, with the exception of WEB. He's turned into such a classless dick I don't care if I ever say a comment of his.

You also left out a couple of my favorites - Max OK, whose expert commentary on a wide range of topics is almost always anything but, and fan - he of the emoticons and non-relevant links.

[Skiphil]

Judith Curry's site just came back a couple of minutes ago.

Her first comment says she still has no idea why it was down.

[Dreadnought]

Did anyone else hear Anthony Watts' remark on WUWTV live?

'I'm sorry Professor Lindzen, I didn't catch your last remark. I was helping Professor Curry with a technical problem on her blog.'

What nice helpful people sceptics are.

[Tom Anderson]

It is not back for me. How do you get to it now?

[omnologos]

Last night the site was visible only as long as I clicked on the comments not that headlines. Looks like somebody released some very incorrect code...

[Peter Lang]

Readers are noting that Judith Curry's blog has been taken down, ostensibly for a terms of service violation.

Strange.

Strange indeed. I may have been the cause of it. I'd really like to know.

Did the Climate Orthodoxy's 'thought police' take Climate Etc' off line?

Soon after I posted a comment, ‘Climate Etc.’ was taken off air by WordPress. When the site came back, my comment had been deleted, but apparently no other changes.

There’s more about the sequence of events here http://judithcurry.com/2012/11/14/policy-rhetoric-and-public-bewilderment/#comment-267886

The now deleted comment said:

The thirteen part Clearing up the climate debate written by Australia’s top climate scientists, demonstrates they are up to their necks in activism.

‘Part One’ provides links to the thirteen Parts (scroll to the end of the article). And a list of the signatories that endorsed this compendium. It’s a list of who’s who of Australia’s top climate scientists.
https://theconversation.edu.au/climate-change-is-real-an-open-letter-from-the-scientific-community-1808

It is clear from the contributions written by these top climate scientists they are activists and extremists.

I went first to ‘Part Four’ (written by Mike Sandiford) to try to find out what they say about the consequences of AGW. Why are the scientists saying it is catastrophic?
https://theconversation.edu.au/our-effect-on-the-earth-is-real-how-were-geo-engineering-the-planet-1544
It’s about the evilness of humans, the damage plastic bags are doing and the like.

Nowhere in the thirteen Parts, written by Australia’s top climate scientists, could I find any persuasive case for dangerous or catastrophic climate change.

Don’t miss ‘Part 13’ the wrap up by a well known climate activist!
https://theconversation.edu.au/the-false-the-confused-and-the-mendacious-how-the-media-gets-it-wrong-on-climate-change-1558

Did my now deleted comment cause Climate Etc to be taken down?

Did the editor of ‘The Conversation’ lodge a complaint with WordPress about my comment?

Did Professor Stephen Lewandowski or his legal team lodge a complaint with WordPress about my comment?

What really caused Climate Etc. to be taken down soon after I posted my comment, and why has my comment been deleted?

Will we ever know?

How powerful are the climate orthodoxy’s thought police?

[Chris M]

I doubt very much that your post has anything to do with it Peter. I gave up on Judith's blog upon reading the execrable thread in which you crossed swords (quite rightly) with that insufferable know-all from Knox (the school for those wondering). Judy has allowed her playground to become polluted by a swarm of alarmists, to the extent that for me it became unreadable. Pity! Come to think of it quite a few of the major climate blog regulars, both skeptic and alarmist, are imho insufferable and would benefit from a good boot up the arse.

[The Leopard In The Basement]

Nov 16, 2012 at 8:31 AM | Peter Lang

"Will we ever know?"

I think we will since Judith Curry said she was told it was a fault by her site providers - when the site came back up yesterday - but I notice it has gone down again.

I've no reason to doubt her and the providers myself, I would want to know more information about how reliable a service WordPress is in general before considering any exciting alternatives ;)

[Peter Lang]

Chris M,

Thank you for the comment. Much appreciated.

I agree with much of what you say, including about the "insufferable know-all from Knox".

You may well be right about the cause of 'Climate Etc.' getting taken down. But the circumstances, with site going down soon after I posted my comment; my comment making it clear the leading Aussie climate scientists are up to their neck in ideological activism; together with 'The Conversation' being a strong promoter of Lewanowski's work; and Lewanowski having a team of lawyers trying to defend the indefensible (a bit like Michael Mann); taken together gives cause to speculate about the possible role of the 'Thought Police'. Anyway, I reckon we'll know what the cause was any time now.

[Chris M]

I don't recall that the precise cause of Jo Nova's site going down was ever established, although it seems that she was the victim of a concerted cyberattack at the time. Given that Climate Etc. is as much a forum for alarmists as it is for skeptics, i would think that scenario much less likely in this case.

[Peter Lang]

Chris M,

I wasn't suggesting Judith Curry's site down was due to hacking. The WordPress page said it was due to a breach of posting policy. So my thoughts developed like this:

At first I thought it was probably because Judith had posted a long extract and perhaps didn't have permission to do so and someone had complained.

But then I found that others were posting on the thread but I wasn't able to access it.

Then I got access back (after asking WordPress for the second time what if anything I'd done wrong that caused me to be denied access).

Then I found that the comment I'd posted an hour or so before the site went down had been deleted. But, as far as I could see, no other comments had been deleted.

Given my comment was a damaging critique of the state of alarmist activism among the lead climate scientists in Australia, and given Lewandowski's partnered with the editor of The Conversation in arranging the thirteen articles, and given he is in trouble for .... , I reckon it is still a live possibility that he or The Conversation complained to WordPress that my comment breached their posting policy.

Once the complaint was lodged, WordPress automatically shut down the site and deleted my comment.

Of course I don't know if this is correct or not. But it's a basis for some interesting questions, eh?

[omnologos]

Reminds me of the story of the little boy who threw a switch on July 13 1977 exactly as New York City plunged into darkness...

[Hilary Ostrov]

Since the site came back up again, I have had no problem reaching it via Firefox, MSIE or my iPad; but I cannot get there using Chrome.

My past experience suggests that WordPress may have been making some changes that have not yet been incorporated into all the templates for all browsers.

[Tomcat]

Peter Lang
Now that the site is back up, test your theory by reposting the comment in question, and see if Climate Etc goes down again.

[Peter Lang]

Tomcat,

Do you want me to risk bringing my conspiracy theory to an end prematurely?

Actually, I already did that. No problem. But the reason is ....

omnologos,

You're probably right. But don't spoil a good story.

And where's my comment that got deleted? Judith wouldn't have deleted it. Hmmmm :)