Last August I was contacted by a person who wanted to create a commercial site. I agreed to do this and this person set up real-science dot com and I started posting there. The site was plagued by down time (within the first three days and on more than 30 subsequent occasions) slowness, broken functionality, broken links, broken images, plugin generated garbled html, a spam e-mail sent to commenters, frequent difficulty posting – and was generating little ad revenue (a few hundred dollars total) and sporadically.
After seven months of frustration and on a morning where I was having difficulty getting the “new post” window to come up, I reached my limit of patience and made a post stating that there were server issues, and that I would be posting at http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com until they were fixed. An hour or so later my post had been taken down, I was locked out of the site, and a post was up announcing my death. People attempting to post comments with the correct information were censored.
Marc Morano and Anthony Watts quickly made posts with the correct information – thank you Marc and Anthony. This person then sent out several E-mails claiming to be a “Sarah Goddard” and that I really was dead.
The next day I convinced this person that their behaviour was looney, and got control of the site back. This person promised to “remain quiet on the climate scene.” I warned this person that they needed to quit doing stupid things and that I could only protect them if they quit doing stupid things. A few days later I even offered to possibly give this person a second chance, as I am a strong believer in redemption.
Sadly, minutes later it came to my attention that a series of bogus comments had been made on this site – using real commenters IDs and e-mail addresses and made with fake IP addresses (like those from hide-my-IP) and soliciting the relative virtues of real science dot com. Those bogus comments could only have come from someone with admin privileges at real science dot com, because that was the only way they could have that information. This person denied any responsibility for those comments and offered to investigate.
At that point my trust was irreversibly broken.
Then came the fake Richard Garwin post – which I later convinced them to remove libelous references, and now an anonymous post about 50 billion people and claims of ownership of the content on the site.
The value of what I do is in staying current with the latest BS coming from the climate alarmism world. There is no money to be made being a climate skeptic. All the money is on the alarmist side. I have no interest in extending this controversy or in taking any further action at this time. My fight is with bad science.
If I were you I would stay silent about the site abuser only if he were a brother or son.
I have never met this person.
You don’t owe me any explanation, but this “protect” business of yours is inexplicable. Is the abuser perhaps mentally ill?
That is my concern and why I have been protecting their identity. I think the person needs help.
Thanks Steve this is very important. I have only made one post over there and I was very polite (not the ornerey critter I tend to be most of the time). I will not mock this person nor egg this person on. I will not post a second time. I will steer clear and let you try to help without interference. I hope others will consider doing the same. Good luck and I wish you success in helping this person.
Well, wonder no more, he/she is completely bonkers. 50 Billion people? On various planets? We’d better get a spacecraft launched with some very horny people onboard if we’re going to make that number.
Here’s a volunteer!!! 😎
thanks Steven…..
Your postings are your intellectual property and you own that information.
I would request that all your postings and your logo be deleted.
A letter from a solicitor could help. Not very expensive.
Let him “own” the “real-science.com” website and be done with it.
You cannot reason with irrational people.
Cut the cord.
I visit this site every day, all day.
I always read all your postings and think they are excellent.
I agree. Cut the cord.
This was the first site I added to WP follow mode… It’s like another Access to Energy, only with real science abt meteorology instead of power generation.
This person sounds like someone who I would call warmegedisnest and they are the scum of the earth who lie through their back teeth, most belong to organisations like Greenpeace and the WLF. Never trust people like them.
Steve,
Will you be able to transfer the thousands of posts and immeasurable amount of information at the other site over to this one? I know you said you had it covered, but how?
I plan to do that.
Steve, I appreciate the explanation out of curiosity and concern for you.
The info you provide (esp. historical records) is unique to your site, and complements the stuff found on Icecap, WUWT, Heartland Institute newsletters (the net effect of Gleickgate for me was to discover Heartland exists), and Curry’s blog.
Keep up the good work!
Keep the fight where it belongs. Your community really appreciates the work you do.
That hacker(s) got me so upset with their phony death report (and possible murder) that they basically ruined my Saturday. They owe us something, but life is never completely fair. Just happy to have you “back from the grave” and still providing your valuable service.
Money is made with popularity. It comes one way or the other, as a rule, most of the time anyway. Not that you should be concerned about mundane things like $, but of course you deserve reward for your selfless efforts.
Interesting story. The disadvantage of cheap – is as you see. Good luck with the reconstruction.
Why is anyone surprised by this behavior when there are enough hackers out there (Anonymous) that are basically as mentally unbalanced? They just have a more effective means of hiding their trail.
Are comments going directly to moderation?
Submitted post evaporated with no message. WordPress spam filter? I swear that all blog software is becoming crap nowadays.
The real-science dot com site is now offline
It’s up again I believe. It’s still working at this moment.
That answers a lot of questions in the back of people’s minds. Thanks for the info Steve. Unfortunate situation but such is life.
Thanks Steven, it clears up a lot, and keep doing what your doing.
The story behind the story is just amazing. We were all saddened, then annoyed, then angered at the false reports of your death. Mental illness sounds like a convincing explanation for the usurper. .The info you have provided especially the. historical and newspaper records are unique and I hope that you can retrieve them from the old site. We visit your site every day.
Good to hear the story Steve. Keep doing your thing.
Steve, thanks for all your efforts regarding CAGW, your actions, in this unfortunate incident, speak well of you.
Well, all the archives have been wiped from RealScience.
My bad, they are still there.