Update: Please click the link here on my tweet. I want to see if it puts me on the leader board. Or try this directly link to advertorial.
I think it’s working. 
Article follows
The self-named Climate Reality Project has come up with a new idea. They’re going to “find[.] climate news from around the web and connect[.] it with the most relevant science.” and then create a game that encourages people to post spammy links to the Climate Reality project”. “Reality droppers” earn points if someone actually clicks the link on their comment. People who earn lots of points can evidently gain cred within the ‘reality dropping’, community you can discover who these people are by watching a leader board. There’s even an exciting prize: “If you get 5000 Reality Drop points, you’ll be invited to help us evaluate the content of the articles we serve up by casting a vote.”
Gosh. How could this go wrong? Right off, I envisioned all sorts of stuff involving people programming scripts either to “win” points so they could advance on the leader board. Once scripts are involved, these winners might be either the dreaded ‘d*nialists’ or ‘alarmists’ or just drunken script-kiddies who want to prove they can seize the leaderboard. Of course, for all I know, those programming “Climate Reality” have forseen all this and figured out how to prevent gaming. I also envisioned many commercial platformed figuring out which comments were human-entered auto-generated spam posted as part of the “reality drop” game. (Turns out this would be easy. If I ran a newspaper, I’d block all comments that were shorter than 200 characters and contained a link to “clmtr.lt”. Heck, I might make the rule simpler: no links to “clmtr.lt”.) I imagined flame wars erupting when readers noticed the human entered spam links surrounded by generic not quite relevant drivel.
But you know what? Turns out what can go wrong is even simpler! I wasn’t aiming low enough.
I clicked over to the community page https://realitydrop.org/#community and saw the top listed article:
Naturally, the first thing I clicked was the very prominent puke green rectangle encouraging me to “spread the truth”. This opens up a box that display an automatically generated response sparing me the difficult task of composing my own based on the contents of the article or the comments:
Evidently, I should post “Ask any climate scientist: Man-made carbon pollution is the cause of the global warming we’re seeing now. http://clmtr.lt/cb/pwX
This auto-generated comment already appears in comments in other debates. See Google search result.
I visited http://clmtr.lt/cb/pwX and ended up at reality drop where I could play a really boring video advertising the Reality Drop Game.
So evidently, in response to whatever is said in the “hot” article, the response is to drop a bland generic sounding comment and leave a link to a promotional video whose major message is promoting the reality drop game.
If I bothered to scroll down, I would see this:
Seems to me this game is going to be terrific and creating good SEO for the Climate Reality site (which may be the point) but not so hot at educating anyone about climate science.
That said: I couldn’t help wondering whether this “myth” is particularly relevant to the conversation that must be raging at the New York Times article. Or wondering how people who read the bland comments might have reacted to the link. So, I clicked “open article”, and ended up at Study of Ice Age Bolsters Carbon and Warming Link (NYTimes).
Wanting to see the raging comment wars between “denialists” and “reality comment droppers”, I scanned for comments. The article does not support comments. At. All.
Major fail.
I agree that this is a major fail. I was most troubled that the list of contributors includes the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the U.K Met Office. How are government organizations helping “make Reality Drop a successâ€. I can think of many ways to better use my tax dollars than on overt advocacy.
It’s snowing… I registered. I think I’m going to try to drop a few
They are going to say this
hahaha.
I tried to register a while back and was denied.
But I like your method of drop destroying.
Counter drop and win!
Sounds like fun! Make sure you let us know where you drop your spam, so others can assist in putting you on the leaderboard.
Mosher–
They must know who you are….
kch–
I forgot to keep track. And I’ve decided it’s sort of a PITA since I need to register. But I may do a few more. I wonder if it matters where I drop the thing. I could try dropping on twitter. Then you all can follow me on twitter and click. I’m https://twitter.com/lucialiljegren
Oh Lucia. You should never have pointed this out. I’m hooked. I’m doomed. I’m going to spend the week posting comments like ‘Hi! I’m playing the ‘Climate ReAlity Project’ game (C.R.A.P. for short), and I’ve been given this mindless quote to paste in for points! Here goes! (blahblah blahblah blah) Did I win?!?’
After I get bored of this maybe it’ll be time to write some bots to play for me!
And I thought World of Warcraft was the opiate of the masses. 🙂
Lucia (#110955) –
I have to laugh at your comment. And I clicked on the link, so I hope you got your points. Can you trade them in for quatloos?
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But seriously, does Gore (or anyone else at that site) think that this is going to raise the level of intelligent discussion? SkS has a similar concept of a pool of standard “myth busters” so that the respondent doesn’t actually have to engage, or think — just dismiss the poster. At this point, if I encounter a comment with a link to SkS, the one who linked loses points in my mind.
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The Reality Drop statements are no more accurate than SkS’s. Here’s a quickie from the one about “renewable energy costs too much”:
Hmmm…a study funded by a renewable power lobby group found that renewable power is good. How surprising. I don’t suppose that stopped them from lobbying to continue the subsidy, though.
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Or this one: “A recent study found that mountain glaciers and polar ice sheets lost more than 530 gigatons of ice per year from 2003 to 2010, making a significant contribution to global sea level rise.” [I didn’t check the citation, it’s above what I recall from Velicogna’s GRACE analysis, which I think has been superseded with lower values. RD no doubt located the highest available estimate…] Where’s my handy-dandy conversion spreadsheet, ah there it is: 530 Gt/year, if maintained over a century, would cause almost 6 inches of global sea level rise. Significant? This is just trying to snow people.
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On the other hand, RD may well increase conformity. Myself, I don’t find that a desireable goal. Others may.
Mark–
I’m very tempted to redirect all the bots I block to the climate reality link to see if that scores me any point. I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out if there could be anything illegal in sending bots I ban to another address? I’ll have to read their TOS I guess. . .
Ok… I here are some things on the TOS
I think redirecting my bots would fall under “automation software, bots,” “interfering with the game experience”. I’ve gotten the number of bots down to a level where it probably wouldn’t “Disrupt, overburden, or aid or assist in the disruption or overburdening of (1) any computer or server used to offer or support the Service”, but I can’t really be certain some bot swarm couldn’t come in.
I knew diverting my bots would be “not nice”, but it also looks against the TOS. So… not to be done.
I don’t think posting their links along with my commentary and a request someone click the link is against the TOS. It might become so if they eventually decreed you can’t do that. But the TOS say it’s for enjoyment, and that seems pretty enjoyable to me!
I’ve achieved “Tub thumper”!
Hmm. I clicked on your comment link Lucia, did you get credit? I don’t think I understand the scoring; it looks like I might have gotten points too for clicking your comment.
I hope it’s OK that I’m playing under an alias, looks like the leaders are as well.
I clicked, and got global warming did not stop in 1998. They need to update their talking points. They say 2005 and 2010 were hotter, then say that the ten hottest years on record were in the last 14 years. Which means 1998 is not in the top 10.
I’m ‘detective’ now. I don’t know which clicks get counted. They may look at referrers– that’s why I posted to twitter. I think I should post to WUWT and see how that does. (First I’ll look to see if they have an article listed as showing a myth there. Otherwise, I’ll find a Delingpole article. Or who is that guy in Australia? Andrew Bolt?)
I’m sure I can get lots of clicks if I get them to let me comment and I ask for clicks.
I posted one here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development-professionals-network/2013/mar/05/climate-change-food-security-ecology-ecosystem?commentpage=1
MikeN–
You could drop the link in the comment as they suggeste they suggest, but start with something like “reality drop” has identified your post and comments as denialists (wrong thinking… whatever) and suggests I post this. Then add your comment that they really need to update their bot’s talking points.
Then critique their bots talking point. This might be especially effective on posts with zero comments. Especially when reality drop identified something loonie (which they seem to do pretty often.)
I think their bot does things like hunts for a mention of “methane” and then puts whatever quites they think make sense for “methane” and so on.
If you want, you can add rel=”nofollow” to any links, but most blog comments do that automatically.
They want me to drop
The wind and the sun are free, and they also don’t ruin the climate. http://clmtr.lt/cb/pCV0OD
in an article promoting nuclear energy. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/mar/04/risk-energy-shortages-blackouts-reactors) There is no place to drop that link.
Detective Lucia –
I didn’t realize that RD suggested links. What do you do, type in the URL at the RD site, and its software scans the article and makes suggestions?
HaroldW–
This is what I think happens:
1) It reads the content online news articles. It might read the comments–but I doubt that.
2) It scans the content for text it thinks indicate the content has something to do with climate change.
3)It posts links to those articles on it’s own web site, and if you click “drop reality” or “destroy denial” or some such, it will pop up a window which will suggest actions on your part.
4) One of the actions it recommens is for you to visit the post and drop a little ‘tidbit’ of information and a link to more information. That tidbit and link is in a little text box in the popup window. You’re supposed to copy that, click open article, and paste it into comments.
5) To create that ‘tid bit’ the reality drop system must have a script that tries to identify the most appropriate auto-generated responses and articles in it’s own ‘reality drop’ data base given the text in the news article. The script sucks. But whatever. . .
6) If you drop that link and someone clicks it, you get points. You also get points just for dropping. And so on. I don’t know how their system screens to ensure the clicks are human. The TOS forbids the user from writing bots– but there are tons of bots out there! For all I know most the clicks to the links I dropped were bots. That’s totally beyond my control.
7) The thing is set up as a game. If you *register* and then drop the link, the system will grant you your points. I seem to be doing pretty well right now.
Mm. I’ve just spammed the Pakistani Socialist Workers Daily, or summin’. Checked to see if comment had appeared – “You must be Registered and Logged In to Comment”. Bah!
I posted here:
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/maritanoon/2013/03/04/can-global-warmist-get-their-story-straight-n1524743/page/2#
But the link isn’t live. So, I won’t get points. GRRR!!! (I don’t know what happens if you cut and paste the link. I suspect each is unique. Otherwise, how would they know which reality dropping human spammer earned points?
Most these places let you log in using facebook or twitter. Be careful not to cross post facebook or you’ll spam your own facebook. You also need to learn which venues are going to have comments.
That said, I think I can propell myself to the top by spamming my facebook. But my sisters will give me heck!
Lucia –
I just clicked the RD link you gave in #110976 and was informed that you had crushed the myth! Presumably this means that you got the points, too, even though you posted the link here, not at the Guardian. Is it possible that you don’t even have to bother going to the articles they suggest, but only need to put the link here or on twitter to get points for linkage. Or as you say, at WUWT?
Lucia, you are welcome to drop some uh, stuff, at WUWT to test out how well it works.
Maybe if you go into turbo drop mode, you’ll get to Grand Master Wizard – level 7.
May the farce be with you.
Lucia –
Thanks. I went back to RD and saw that they highlight this letter to the editor in a Palm Beach newspaper. [Can we still call it a newspaper if it’s online?] The comments were spammed by RD drops. But there was one comment, not provided by RD, which made me laugh out loud. I repeat it here in its entirety:
Another go at another site. Now get: “Sorry. To prevent spam, URLs and Email Ids are not allowed in comments”. Bah squared!
I don’t think they’ve quite thought this through. Quite a few sites are marked at RD as having several drops, but the sites have policies and there are no Gore-ish comments.
So users are getting points under false pretences!
lucia (Comment #110964)
March 5th, 2013 at 11:07 am
I think we all knew that here, but it’s good to see you getting wider recognition … very well played, indeed.
w.
The messages for Reality Drop are created by Skeptical Science.!
And the Met Office had no official involvement with it.
I asked Met Office’s Chirf Press officer about it, (Dave Neutron)he rang me back and said he had not heard of it, they are not officially involved in it, and he will be enquiring why they get a special thanks for their supposed ‘contribution’
Argh Android auto corrected Dave Britton, into Dave Neutron!
I must tell him, should raise a smile
MikeN (#110968)
“They need to update their talking points. They say … that the ten hottest years on record were in the last 14 years.”
Not any more! That page now says “the ten hottest years on record have occurred in the last 15 years.”
No hat-tip to you, though. 🙁
@ lucia (Comment #110978)
I wonder if this was programmed by John Cook of Skeptical Science, who has already written a similar bot for Twitter?
It fits his m.o.
Barry–
My theory about the special thanks is that reality drop wants to make it appear the are endorsed by the met office.
Anthony and other…
I’m going to do it. STAT!
I’m going to post several… On my way.
cui bono
Reality Drop (RD) lists some sites as hosting drops but those sites don’t even have comments. Maybe RD ads to the tally if you click “open article”? That’s my guess anyway.
the second comment in The Guardian Says:
swanandprasad
05 March 2013 7:35pm
Recommend
0
@lucialiljegren –
Haven’t a clue what you are on about.
Lucia – Maybe RD ads to the tally if you click “open articleâ€?
Probably, but that’s like winning quatloos by cheating, since you also seem to get points. 🙂
Anthony–
Skeptical Science has the @AI_AGW twitter bot. It scanned twitter for words and the auto-posted replies. It won the Eureka prize
http://eureka.australianmuseum.net.au/EEF99C60-76BC-11E0-A87E005056B06558?DISPLAYENTRY=true
IF you search https://twitter.com/search?q=%40AI_AGW&src=typd, top post at Twitter says
https://twitter.com/LutzFinger/status/306909982090211328
FYI Lucia you are up to 10th place for the current week and 4th for the past 24 hours keep up the good work. Way to “CRUSH” those myths like tar sand oil is just oil and Extreme weather isn’t evidence of climate change.
This is priceless humor.
Correction you no longer appear in the rankings you seem to have been removed from the game.
Lucia –
Sorry to hear the news. Do you still get to keep your “detective” badge?
So I feel I should apologize for pointing out your ranking as its likely a sks team member is present since less then 5 minutes after I noted your meteoric rise you were removed from the game. Why can’t we have some fun while driving traffic to the crummy website they should actually thank you.
well in the TOS, they did list “exploits” among the no nos. rankexploits?
j ferguson-
Only the employees and followers of Al Gore can truly know why I was banned. Perhaps it was my meteoric rise. Perhaps it was my explaining their bot suggested the text and the link. Perhaps it was Anthony’s blog post that alerted the of the danger that I migth be about to enter the reality dropper hall of fame.
Ben–
Thanks for letting me know how high I had risen before I fell. I didn’t even realize they had 7 day or 30 day rankings.
So when are the SkS special police going to change their trend calculator in response to Lucia and Anthony’s posts?
Lucia, you’ve created mayhem at the Guardian link – two other people have joined in! Unprecedented.
Fortunately, Lucia, you still have your badges. [Of course, you don’t have to show me no stinking badges.] Interestingly, although you have 0 points, you’re still in “612th place, 73.8% percentile.” One can only imagine the buzz of activity at that site.
How did I drop to 612th place? I can see being removed entirely… but dropped to 612th place? That’s totally not fair!
JohnBUK– Which guardian link? I think I tried to drop 2 there. I had to register first though.
Sounds like their solution to pollution is spam.
Lucia (#111009) –
Might be this one. Three RD links visible. (Search for “clmtr”.) At least two are not serious.
Lucia, do we now call you Lucifer as you rose quickly with haughty arrogance and then fell far faster?
Hard to believe, but SkS has dilberted themselves yet again! Lucia, can you keep this roll going? You got my vote. Heck, I plan on reading you instead of the the Sunday comic strips. Better humor.
@lucia – confirmed, the SkS kidz are behind this. I wonder how much Big Al paid them and if any Al Jazeera oil money was involved?
The Money Quote:
Developed through a collaboration with the website Skeptical Science, Reality Drop curates hundreds of online news articles daily for articles that demand a response—whether it’s a misleading quote from a climate denier or a heated debate raging in the comments section.
http://climaterealityproject.org/press/ (see Feb 28th release)
Perhaps as much as Big Oil pays you Anthony?
Anthony Watts–
Next time they come up with a social-media-powered-spam tool they should:
1) Be more accurate at identifying climate stories. Their current rate is abysmal.
2) Come up with a larger variety spam phrases. There seem to be..oh… five.
3) Figure out spam phrases that better match the content of the articles targeted for their spam.
4) Give better prizes to the best spammers. I think if I got enough points I would be qualify to be assigned task that benefit the reality drop project which I could do for free!! I’m sure they could generate a larger number of eager spammers by offering a free smart phone with 1 years data plan. (And you could use it to continue spamming. Double whammy there!)
5) Give more points for pointing out that the article doesn’t match the supposed myth. Right now, you can get lots of points for spamming, but not so many for giving feed back.
6) Oh. Detect whether the article even has comments.
7) Clarify which sorts of clicks will get you points.
8) Identify science sites with “good” stores other than those at the “reality drop” site.
9) Actually write decent article explaining science. Those SKS ones didn’t get traffic on their own because they are lame. Getting traffic by spamvertizing them isn’t going to make them more convincing.
I’m sure lots of people can think of other things they need to do to improve their ability to “get their message out” by creating a “social media spanning engine”. But the thing they came up with was really lame!
Of course, if they gave better prizes, people would program ‘bots that weren’t so obvious. But…well..that’s what happens if you try to get people to spamvertize your message for you.
Is “Jane” a bot?
John M–
Not unless my anti bot software has failed.
I know Lucia, but, given the circumstances, it’s a great question to ask drive by commenters, isn’t it?
As far as the CR site, from a PR standpoint, bragging about bot spamming isn’t exactly a move you’d expect from a 100 W bulb (or equivalent) in the lighting aisle.
ha troublemaker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-zRAQmKUkI
Barry Woods
Is Dave Neutron related to Seth Roentgen?
There is something about thus that is both frightening and very sad.
Frightening I’m what it portends for public discussion of important issues. Sad that a group would wall themselves in.
Tom–
All I can think is the echo chamber surrounding Gore very small, tight and full of very loud voices. They seem to have really believed the “solution” to their communication problems is to create a human powered spamming machine.
The only problem with the Terms of Service is that it could be considered that Reality Drop is CHEATING AND HACKING – It
uses cheats, exploits, automation software, bots, hacks, mods or any unauthorized third party software designed to modify or interfere with other sites.
Lucia, Tom,
“Sad that a group would wall themselves in.”
“..the echo chamber surrounding Gore very small, tight and full of very loud voices.”
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I suspect the loudest voice in that particular echo chamber is Al himself.
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The adoption of absolute certainty that one is right, which may be better characterized as religious rather than rational thinking, is all too common among the politically motivated. Absolute certainty about the correctness of ones thinking/POV leads inevitably to the creation of echo chambers where dissent is neither welcome nor even allowed, and where any proposed compromise is considered morally indefensible. It also sets up an environment where most any behavior which advances the ‘absolutely correct’ POV is morally justified. It is a belief by the politically influential of being absolutely correct which is most dangerous to the public good, and which has led to most of history’s great horrors, not to mention lesser evils like the political gridlock we see today in Washington DC, and the mindless (and unlimited!) demands for ‘political correctness’ on most university campuses.
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Al Gore’s selected title of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ (Truth?!?) is a clear indication of his thinking. The support for such technically shoddy rubbish by those involved in climate science is far worse than the rubbish itself. The politics of absolute correctness seems to have infected climate science, which I find most disturbing.
I think your suggestion that it might simply be SEO is very plausible. The plan doesn’t seem to amount to anything more than getting links back to the Climate Reality website posted in as many places as possible.
At risk of getting a good ticking-off, Barry Woods’ auto correction of Dave Britton to Dave Neutron put me in mind of Way of the World, a diary which ran in the Daily Telegraph for decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Peter_Simple%27s_characters
Some of the characters fit perfectly into clisci:
Mrs Dutt-Pauker — immensely rich and privileged Hampstead socialist,….
J. Bonington Jagworth — leader of the militant Motorists’ Liberation Front and defender of “the basic right of every motorist to drive as fast as he pleases, how he pleases and over what or whom he pleases”
Old Seth Roentgen — scientific farmer who grows money and share-certificates directly from the soil and regularly disturbs or even kills his neighbours with agricultural experiments.
Dr Heinz Kiosk — psychoanalyst who believes “We are all guilty!”
Dr Spacely-Trellis — progressive Bishop of Bevindon in the Stretchford Conurbation
etc.
John Cook continues the insanity by saying this quote from Anthony Watts is the:
What about hiring people to do a legal job in an open manner is a conspiracy?
I think this link should take you to the “tweet.”