4 ms·

I am just quoting the link provided, I think it was necessary to keep that part of the quote because it reveals bias by the link author.

mikeash 8y ago
Why did you choose such a biased source in the first place, then?
- southern_cross 8y ago
  Not biased, so much; more like balanced. (Dare I say "fair and balanced"?) After going through my daily news feeds and perusing so many stories (so freakin' many!) about how climate change (or whatever) is going to kill us all soon enough, I also now routinely head over to WUWT to see what their take on the matter is. Some of what shows up there I think is crap, of course, but much of it is quite thoughtful and remarkably clear-headed. And if you're the type to just automatically dismiss such a site out of hand as being too "biased" without actually reading what they have to say with an open mind, then perhaps the problem lies with you and not with them.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Um, the person who provided the link called it biased. I’m just commenting on the phrase I quoted.
  - mturmon 8y ago
    “Some of what shows up there I think is crap, of course, but much of it is quite thoughtful and remarkably clear-headed.” This is a strange thing to say. By claiming X and not-X, it means precisely nothing, but it superficially sounds judicious.
    - conistonwater 8y ago
      It's like the clearest description of confirmation bias: things that you agree with are thoughtful and remarkably clear-headed, others can just be ignored and don't reflect on the quality of the source. Avoiding confirmation bias would require one to give up on this attitude.
      - southern_cross 8y ago
        No, it's more like much of what shows up there (from either side) should rightly be questioned. And sometimes those questions are answered and the answers are reasonable, and sometimes not so much.
    - southern_cross 8y ago
      If you bothered to actually read the site, then you'd know that the articles there come from many authors and many sources - some of them even from the so-called "alarmist" side of things, though the site itself is usually tagged as "denialist". (Hence my balanced comment - they do generally cover stuff from both sides.) Comments from the site's owner and from readers about all of these articles can get quite interesting and heated, though. As an example of crap, a couple of articles were recently posted there about the current Judge Alsup proceedings - articles that were quite clearly incorrect to those of us actually following the proceedings; the reader comments called out this error. I don't know if the authors of those articles ever actually went back and corrected them, but I'm thinking not - which is bad! Also, I have on occasion seen things quoted there which weren't actual quotes, but rather paraphrases (to put it nicely) - which is also bad! For the record, these days the "legitimate" press is sometimes very bad at doing this kind of thing, too, but it seems that they are rarely called out for it.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        A site which misquotes people seems like a really bad source for a bunch of quotes.
        southern_cross 8y ago
        Well, it's actually more of "Don't put quote marks around things which aren't actually quotes, but rather paraphrases" situation - so not necessarily an inaccurate assessment of what was being said, but not an actual quote either. Which is not a good thing at all, but at least they don't just make things up out of whole cloth, as I've seen some other "news" places do. Along those lines, I once saw a place which laid out an imaginary conversation with someone in the public eye (we'll say John Doe) where they "asked questions" and John Doe "gave answers". Then they actually had the gall to lay out a headline with one of the those imaginary answers - in quotes, no less. And then that headline made it into my supposedly legitimate newsfeed. Another time they interviewed someone who was speaking about John Doe, and they said something like (and I'm just making this up because I don't remember the actual context) "Deep down inside John Doe probably thinks that all illegal immigrants should be shot on sight!" And then the headline was 'John Doe: "All illegal immigrants should be shot on sight!"' And once again that headline made it into my newsfeed. Crap like that makes me wonder if there actually any truly legitimate news organizations left around these days.
conistonwater 8y ago
If the quote is that bad, why post it at all?

mikeash 8y ago

Why did you choose such a biased source in the first place, then?

southern_cross 8y ago
Not biased, so much; more like balanced. (Dare I say "fair and balanced"?) After going through my daily news feeds and perusing so many stories (so freakin' many!) about how climate change (or whatever) is going to kill us all soon enough, I also now routinely head over to WUWT to see what their take on the matter is. Some of what shows up there I think is crap, of course, but much of it is quite thoughtful and remarkably clear-headed. And if you're the type to just automatically dismiss such a site out of hand as being too "biased" without actually reading what they have to say with an open mind, then perhaps the problem lies with you and not with them.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Um, the person who provided the link called it biased. I’m just commenting on the phrase I quoted.
- mturmon 8y ago
  “Some of what shows up there I think is crap, of course, but much of it is quite thoughtful and remarkably clear-headed.” This is a strange thing to say. By claiming X and not-X, it means precisely nothing, but it superficially sounds judicious.
  - conistonwater 8y ago
    It's like the clearest description of confirmation bias: things that you agree with are thoughtful and remarkably clear-headed, others can just be ignored and don't reflect on the quality of the source. Avoiding confirmation bias would require one to give up on this attitude.
    - southern_cross 8y ago
      No, it's more like much of what shows up there (from either side) should rightly be questioned. And sometimes those questions are answered and the answers are reasonable, and sometimes not so much.
  - southern_cross 8y ago
    If you bothered to actually read the site, then you'd know that the articles there come from many authors and many sources - some of them even from the so-called "alarmist" side of things, though the site itself is usually tagged as "denialist". (Hence my balanced comment - they do generally cover stuff from both sides.) Comments from the site's owner and from readers about all of these articles can get quite interesting and heated, though. As an example of crap, a couple of articles were recently posted there about the current Judge Alsup proceedings - articles that were quite clearly incorrect to those of us actually following the proceedings; the reader comments called out this error. I don't know if the authors of those articles ever actually went back and corrected them, but I'm thinking not - which is bad! Also, I have on occasion seen things quoted there which weren't actual quotes, but rather paraphrases (to put it nicely) - which is also bad! For the record, these days the "legitimate" press is sometimes very bad at doing this kind of thing, too, but it seems that they are rarely called out for it.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      A site which misquotes people seems like a really bad source for a bunch of quotes.
      - southern_cross 8y ago
        Well, it's actually more of "Don't put quote marks around things which aren't actually quotes, but rather paraphrases" situation - so not necessarily an inaccurate assessment of what was being said, but not an actual quote either. Which is not a good thing at all, but at least they don't just make things up out of whole cloth, as I've seen some other "news" places do. Along those lines, I once saw a place which laid out an imaginary conversation with someone in the public eye (we'll say John Doe) where they "asked questions" and John Doe "gave answers". Then they actually had the gall to lay out a headline with one of the those imaginary answers - in quotes, no less. And then that headline made it into my supposedly legitimate newsfeed. Another time they interviewed someone who was speaking about John Doe, and they said something like (and I'm just making this up because I don't remember the actual context) "Deep down inside John Doe probably thinks that all illegal immigrants should be shot on sight!" And then the headline was 'John Doe: "All illegal immigrants should be shot on sight!"' And once again that headline made it into my newsfeed. Crap like that makes me wonder if there actually any truly legitimate news organizations left around these days.

conistonwater 8y ago

If the quote is that bad, why post it at all?