politics

Video: As bad as any AGW video out there!

91 Comments


All that is wrong with this cannot be described in less than 1000 words.

Hat tip to those tweeting.

Update: Evidently the youtube video has been pulled from youtube.

91 thoughts on “Video: As bad as any AGW video out there!”

  2. It seems to be made by an EU funded project. That would explain the high production value merged with the truly inane script that communicates….what? Maybe “Women in science know it’s ok to wear expensive high heeled sandals so they can get acid burns on their feet if the drop a beaker as long as you wear eye protection? ” Or “Guys in science dress like metrerosexuals?”

    Get this blurb at youtube

    Science: it’s a girl thing! From cosmetics to chemistry, from fashion to biology, from rhythm to electronics, girls have what it takes to succeed in science. Put your lab glasses on and see science with different eyes!!!

    Curious about it? Just press play, watch, enjoy comment, rate and share!

    http://ec.europa.eu/science-girl-thing/

    Yes. Chemistry is involved in making cosmetics. So is engineering. Can’t say that comes across in this trailer.

  3. Sure some women have what it takes to succeed in science. But I despise generalizations of the nature that imply that members of a group in general are capable or not of something. It’s a fact that very few people have what it takes to do science. I won’t say, to avoid argument, what the statistical facts comparing men and women in this regard are, because really I believe it makes more sense to focus on the individual. So encourage people, men or women, who have potential in science, to get into it. But if they don’t have potential, don’t tell them otherwise because you need another of their race or sex to fulfill your quota.

  4. Science — at least bench science in cell & molecular biology, the piece I know best — is emotionally taxing. At least in my experience, and that of my peers. I had to know the relevant background, and keep up with new developments, and design and run experiments. And analyze and interpret them, with the context that most of them failed, or “failed”, or were ambiguous. To be a successful scientist meant to get all that stuff right, and then to be creative, in the artistic sense — to produce something new an beautiful, as do painters, sculptors, and composers.

    For a few of the people who are tops in their fields, this comes naturally. At the least, they make it seem easy.

    For the rest of us, it was difficult. A lot of drudgery, lots of failures, some exciting successes and gratifying acceptances, a few spectacular successes. Plus tremendous career anxieties, given funding realities (which have gotten worse since I bowed out a few years back).

    Coming from my background, that video’s fashion-forward STEM boosterism seems cruel, to the extent that its target audience pays it any heed.

  5. It seems to be part of a slick, contemporary, targeted ad campaign designed to get adolescent girls to think about science as a career. It may be a little condescending, but why would anyone be appalled by it? There are so many other things to get all indignant about.

  6. Don Monfort (Comment #98620)-It seems to me that it is based on the notion that there are “too many men” and “not enough women” doing science. I think the idea that any field or area should have quotas to meet, to have gender or racial “balance” is disgusting.

    I think when recruiting young people into science we should not be trying to aim for “more women” or something like that. We should be aiming for recruiting young people into science, or at least, those that would make good scientists.

  7. Appalled? Indignant? I hope I have permission to think it’s stooopid and be glad my tax dollars weren’t used to pay for this.

    I would agree that those who designed the campaign intended to get adolescent girls to think about science as a career. Those who created the 10:10 campaign intended to get people to reduce their carbon footprints. That they intended to do something and created something stoopid doesn’t salvage the thing. It’s just stoooopid.

    Mind you, I’m sure some of my tax dollars get wasted on equally stoooopid things.

    What do I mean by stoooopid. I mean that I very much doubt this video or any like it is going to get adolescent girls to think about careers in science. It sure seems to promote the notion that being a thin, beautiful, fascionista is important.

  9. “It seems to me that it is based on the notion that there are “too many men” and “not enough women” doing science.”

    Andrew_FL,

    I believe the IPCC’s Official Position is that inequity among interest groups is going to be addressed by quotas.

    I’ve heard of that kind of thing *somewhere* before.

    Andrew

  10. Andrew_KY–
    I don’t think this group is advocating quotas.

    Andrew_FL–
    Well… it is sort of sexist to seem to suggest the way to motivate women to enter science is to tantalize them by the thought of creating new and better lipsticks , nail polishes and face powder.

    Not that some women wouldn’t like to work on that. But as much as the cosmetic industry is competitive and some science is required to develop more appealing products, it’s not really the forefront of science. To a large extent, cosmetics is dominated by marketing, packaging, sales, advertising, accounting (to meet price points) and some engineering to manufacture products.

  13. Andrew_KY–
    I get you have a gripe with the IPCC. I get you don’t like their quotas on their assessment reports. I’m generally against quotas and I think they can (and have been) over used. But I also recognize that in certain instances they can be the only way to avoid other unfair barriers imposed by entrenched biases. I know of examples where they have been necessary. (For example: My mother reports that when she was first licensed as a school teacher, everyone has to pass what was essentially an ‘accent’ test. Not a ‘standard english’ test– but an ‘accent test’. You had to pronounce certain words ‘correctly’. She passed with flying colors with one exception. She pronounced the word drawer “wrong”. Evidently, according the the person administering the test, the ‘correct’ pronunciation has 1 syllable. But you can imagine certain groups ‘mispronounced’ words more than other groups. )

    I have absolutely no idea whether past selection procedures for IPCC reports were organized in a way that was systematically biased against or for women withe credentials equal to mens and so have no idea why they might impose quotas nor whether in the case of the IPCC reports are justified, totally unjustified or somewhere in between. (And with respect to the IPCC report I’m not going to bother to worry about this issue.)

    But the general debate about quotas, or that about the IPCC quota or any other quota is pretty irrelevant here. The IPCC did not make this video. I don’t see the message of this video being to increase the numbers of women entering the science fields by imposing quotas. So I have no idea why you are trying to suggest that this video has anything to do with imposition of quotas of any sort.

  14. Lucia,
    “It sure seems to promote the notion that being a thin, beautiful, fascionista is important.”
    No promotion of that stuff is needed…. I’ve seen the focus on these things in my daughters (no instigation from me… I wanted scientists!).

  15. The biotech company I work at is large, successful, and about half the R&D scientists are female. I don’t know what percentage of graduate students in Biochemistry are female, but the last time I looked at UW it was substantial. Engineering is a different story; still male dominated but women are making inroads there, I’ve been told.

    No, what bothers me is when they try to portray science as beakers full of brightly colored liquids that have dry ice in them so they bubble. And a microscope. Can’t be a scientist without one of them!

    Show a damn Eppendorf tube and a pipetteman next time.

  16. SteveF–
    I agree no state funded promotion is required to get teens girls to want to be thin, beautiful, fascionistas! We also don’t need state funding to get boys to want to be tall, athletic professional basketball players.

    I can’t imagine that anyone trying to entice 15 year old boys into science would try to do so by showing guys who look like buff professional sports players wearing athletic clothing entering the lab and then creating new and better fabrics and materials for swimsuits, running shoes or other athletic gear.

  17. Doug–
    And of course, when they aren’t in the lab, some of those women use their money to buy attractive clothing which they can afford while some women who chose other fields can’t. But really…. in certain science fields, you just aren’t going to dress like a fashion model at work– anymore than you would dress as a fashion model if you worked as a housekeeper cleaning out toilets.

    I watched contagion last night. Each science has its own ‘sexy’ outfits:

    http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/2011/09/jennifer-ehle-loved-scientist-role.jpg

  18. An on-topic note from the excellent trade e-magazine GenomeWeb:

    Our Lipstick Always Matches Our Gram Stains

    June 22, 2012 — A new European Commission campaign that aims to ‘encourage more women to choose research as a career,’ has certainly captured the attention of the scientific community. But, as #sciencegirlthing-tagged responses on Twitter and comments posted to YouTube indicate, it has captured the community’s attention for all the wrong reasons. (At press time, the campaign’s official video has earned 47 ‘likes’ and 1,665 ‘dislikes.’)

    European Research, Innovation, and Science Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn says this new campaign “will show women and girls that science does not just mean old men in white coats.” According to a European Commission press release, “the campaign will challenge stereotypes of science and show young girls and women that science is fun and can provide great opportunities.”

    But critics say that rather than challenging them, the “Science: It’s a girl thing!” campaign engenders deeper stereotypes of women in science.

    On Twitter, Tamsin Edwards writes: “Dear @ECspokesScience — is ‪#sciencegirlthing‬ a fiendish ploy to highlight the stereotyping of women and scientists?” To which Michael Jennings (@ECspokesScience) responds: “@flimsin Commission doesn’t really do irony. Hope was to get young people onto site. That seems to be happening!”

    That’s this Tamsin Edwards.

  19. Video – ugh!
    However, the problem isn’t just with girls.
    I had scientific heroes as a boy – Feynman, Dyson, etc. Read books about scientists. Read autobiographies from scientists. Marvelled at the ideas, the humour. TV programs and films had scientists (of a sort). The science news covered moonshots.

    Now – football, fashion, celebrity (fame from doing nothing), TV “personalities”, financial “experts”, sex and music “icons”. The science news now just a endless diet of ‘end-of-the-world’ doom.

    Message to young people of both genders – to get rich, famous and contented avoid science like the plague.
    [Rant off].

  20. Yep. I follow Tamsin on twitter. That’s how I learned about this!

    On this

    Hope was to get young people onto site. That seems to be happening!”

    Well…. some of the videos on the site aren’t so bad. The interview real scientists who look normal and that can’t be a bad thing. Whether girls will want to spend the time to watch those videos I can’t say.

    But the site is definitely not ready for prime time. They have lots of dead ends (the bit on cool jobs has no jobs listed.)

  21. “Video: As bad as any AGW video out there!”

    No it isn’t!!!!!

    And it may be stoopid to a full-grown sophisticated woman, but it probably gets the attention of silly little adolescent females, who might get interested in science and grow up to be lucias, instead of becoming welfare moms, or pole dancers. After all, the same kind of stoopid advertising motivates little girls to spend billions of their parents money on all kinds of stoopid crap.

    There is nothing wrong with trying to get young girls interested in science, as a potential career. It is pretty clear that there are cultural reasons for the under-representation of females in the science profession. I don’t see anybody advocating for quotas. And I don’t see any downside to having more females pursuing science careers. Why you people tripping?

  22. I think it’s the same bad philosophy that motivates the production of this video and motivates the IPCC having PC quotas.

    The IPCC needs “scientists” to carry their water. Preferably modern ones that aren’t going to do any science.

    Andrew

  23. Lucia,
    “I can’t imagine that anyone trying to entice 15 year old boys into science would try to do so by showing guys who look like buff professional sports players wearing athletic clothing…”
    .
    It wouldn’t work anyway. My experience is that 15 year old boys (at least the vast majority who are not destined to become scientists or engineers) have already got a pretty clear picture in mind of what someone (of either sex) who wants to be a scientist or engineer looks like… a hopeless nerd. Which is not to say I think that is really true (it isn’t!). But it is a tough stereotype to get past when the people you are trying to convince have the judgement of, well, 15 year olds! 🙂 What might help steer talented kids toward the sciences and engineering would be exposure in the classroom to honest-to-goodness, living, breathing scientists and engineers; nothing like irrefutable reality to break stereotypes. But that is very difficult, since those folks are not ‘qualified’ to teach at publicly funded schools (except, oddly, at colleges and universities, where the per-student public expenditure is much greater). Besides, the pay is much too low.

  25. What is really annoying is that anyone would think this video would attract anyone to science. I agree with lucia, the cosmetic industry isn’t going to get girls all excited about science. This was a video that was conceived by someone who thinks science is boring and figured the only way to make it interesting was with short skirts and spiked heels.
    I was lucky to be raised by a father who was a Chemist who happened to go into teaching. He has a passion for science, and really showed my all of the neat things that science has to offer. I’ve met the high school science teachers in our local school district, and it is clear they were hired for one thing – the football team. At the elementary and middle school level, the schools are full of teachers who are as afraid of math and science as their students. My son’s teacher asked me what I do for a living at a parent-teacher conference. When I told her, her eyes got wide and she said “Ooh, that must be fascinating. All that sciency-type stuff.” Which explains why she thinks papier mache qualifies as a science lesson.

  27. lucia (Comment #98627)
    “To a large extent, cosmetics is dominated by marketing, packaging, sales, advertising, accounting (to meet price points) and some engineering to manufacture products.”

    In fact, once you know enough science to know about the ingredients you realize it’s all about the marketing. Like the brands that have on their labels “Our finished products are never tested on fuzzy bunnies.” The raw materials were smeared all over and or force-fed to the fuzzy bunnies, but we won’t tell the consumer that.

  28. My guess is that some marketing type might have thought this necessary because of the stereotypical image portrayed by TBBT’s Amy Farrah Fowler. That is, they wanted to show that science is for girly-girls too. Looks silly to me as well, but as I’m not in their target demographic, I won’t comment on it’s effectiveness.

  29. What! This video is the Bomb! Doncha know Madame Curie was Hot! She made lad coats dereguire in Paris. Of course the fashonistas have covered that all up because it made them look stooopid when they couldn’t recite the periodic table at raves. 😉

  30. “I can’t imagine that anyone trying to entice 15 year old boys into science would try to do so by showing guys who look like buff professional sports players wearing athletic clothing…”

    Maybe this offending girlie video would work better? 🙂

  31. Yup, that’s our tax money at work there. Deeply patronising and condescending, with no discernable target market, demographic or anything else.
    And guaranteed to intensely annoy and alienate most people viewing it.

  33. The trouble is that there’s plenty of the opposite stereotyping going on out there:
    Larry Summers,
    “(1) The intensity of academic life suits men better (most important);
    (2) Very intelligent people (for science and engineering) are mostly men.
    (3) Residual sexism (least important).”

    Jim Watson in the “Double Helix” who put down Rosalind Franklin (the Dark Lady), whose data he used without her knowledge, who had the temerity to point out the gross error in his and Francis Crick’s model (she was right).

  34. Jim Watson in the “Double Helix” who put down Rosalind Franklin (the Dark Lady), whose data he used without her knowledge, who had the temerity to point out the gross error in his and Francis Crick’s model (she was right).

    Yep.

    (2) Very intelligent people (for science and engineering) are mostly men.

    Well… after all. Hewish won the noble prize. Proof positive he must have been more intelligent than Bell. 😉

  35. Not sure whether to be happy or sad that it was marked as private before I viewed.

  36. lucia (Comment #98635) -“I can’t imagine that anyone trying to entice 15 year old boys into science would try to do so by showing guys who look like buff professional sports players wearing athletic clothing entering the lab and then creating new and better fabrics and materials for swimsuits, running shoes or other athletic gear.”

    Evidently it isn’t necessary to entice boys to go into science at all. They only want to increase the representation of women. They have decided, as far as I can tell, that they have enough men.

  38. “Hewish won the noble prize.”
    Through selfless and tireless effort over many years, Norman Borlaug saves hundreds of millions from starvation, ergo, decades later a Nobel Prize. 🙂 Al Gore helps make a really bad science fiction movie, talks like he thinks we are retarded people for whom English is our second language, and jets about the world to maximize his carbon footprint, while simultaneously scolding everyone else to minimize theirs, ergo, a couple of years later a Nobel Prize. 🙁 Proof positive that the Nobel Prize often means little in terms of intelligence… or even a meaningful contribution.

  39. Who is going to tell them that their biological clock is going to run out before they get a full time position?
    Science or motherhood; chose.

  40. DocMartyn (Comment #98666)
    I will guess that either you’re drinking or that was intended to be a joke.

  41. Lucia, this calls for a poll.

    Q: How were you first attracted to science as a career?
    A1: My natural curiosity
    A2: A teacher/mentor
    A3: A parent was a scientist
    A4: TV, movies, books about science
    A5: ???

  43. Doc–
    I knew several women who had children while earning their ph.ds in engineering.

    Gary–
    My degree is in engineering.
    My answer is:
    Somewhere between:
    No idea

    to

    I thought I wanted to study math but my parents weren’t going to pay much for college. They had already refused to pay for my sister to go to University of Chicago and also would not co-sign loans if she that might have been available after she was admitted. She was two years over and the bickering and fighting affected my thought process.

    I learned of engineering programs that had ability based (as opposed to need based) scholarships and so applied for engineering degrees. I got a full ride engineering scholarship with tuition room and board, so I took it.

    Otherwise, I would probably have picked math. Notwithstanding Don’s suggestion the video might sway girl’s from choosing careers as welfare mom, or pole dancer, I was never attracted to those particular careers.

    Obviously, availability of scholarships can influence what one chooses. But likely not enough to persuade someone who wants to be a pole dancer enough to give that aspiration up for engineering.

  44. These girls are ready for Climate Science. They can get their Phd by plugging anything in the equation, as long as the result supports lithe consensual conclusion. Lipstick and high heels lower CO2 since all the guys hold their breath.

  45. lucia (Comment #98656)
    June 22nd, 2012 at 2:26 pm
    Jim Watson in the “Double Helix” who put down Rosalind Franklin (the Dark Lady), whose data he used without her knowledge, who had the temerity to point out the gross error in his and Francis Crick’s model (she was right).
    Yep.
    (2) Very intelligent people (for science and engineering) are mostly men.
    Well… after all. Hewish won the noble prize. Proof positive he must have been more intelligent than Bell.

    Interestingly the first Nobel Laureate I met was Dot Hodgkin a couple of years after she won it. Like Franklin a crystallographer, although her comments to Rosalind may have led her to not arriving at the double helix structure before Watson & Crick (really Crick because Watson didn’t have a clue about crystallography, once Francis saw RF’s photo 51 he knew what he was looking at). A year later (I was an undergraduate) my university was shocked by the first two female engineering students (Civil) admitted (out of ~3,000). This caused great upheaval, not least women’s restrooms had to be added on each floor of the Engineering School!

  46. “SteveF
    DocMartyn
    I will guess that either you’re drinking or that was intended to be a joke”

    I don’t drink and am not joking.
    Slightly more than half of the women in my field have left.
    The constant 3-year contracts, constant moves, the fact that child care is almost exactly the same as take home pay. It is horrid, but very much harder on women than on men.
    There is still a lot of sexism in science, some fields are worse than others, chemistry tends to the an old-boy-network, but biochemistry/immunology are pretty O.K.

  47. Maybe the target market is 15 year old boys? Just think of them spraying on their Axe deodorant and dreaming of all the babes they’ll meet in Physics 101.

    I know it was Gracie Hopper who got me into Computer Science… oh crap, did I just give away my age? Anyway, imagine my disappointment my first day at Fortran 101.

    🙂

  48. Communicating science is hard.

    Let’s go shopping!

    /barbie_voice

    It’s probably not fair of me to be critical when I can’t view the video. So I offer my feeble barb up to anyone to use as they see fit. 🙂

  50. AJ (Comment #98696)
    June 22nd, 2012 at 7:11 pm

    “Maybe the target market is 15 year old boys? Just think of them spraying on their Axe deodorant and dreaming of all the babes they’ll meet in Physics 101.”

    AJ, you stole my lines.

    The target was obviously the people behind the video and it was produced to make them feel good. It was not a good marketing advertisement and would appear to be aimed at an audience that looked at these things in rather simplistic terms. I am not at all sure I could conjure up a group audience that would be either susceptible or interested in this pabulum.

  51. Sorry about the Ken.

    BTW… Do you live in NC and drive a Volkswagen TDI? If so, then we met a few years back.

  52. I think I am about as far from the intended audience as possible whilst still being alive and human, so perhaps I shouldn’t get it.

    But I sort of do, or perhaps I do.

    My big worry is that it might be dated, e.g. last month’s style, or more likely last decade’s.

    Were I 14-18 and female I might see what they were upto but I might think it naff and outmoded.

    It comes across as “post-ironic” but if they have moved on to “post-“post-“post-ironic””” then it would be naff.

    It feels like a spoof of something worse. I am sure it is pastiche, not of a true original but of another set of stereotypes. All very “postmodern”; Baudrillard and all that.

    I think it is well made. I find it almost unwatchable due to the fast rythmic jump cutting that is close to but not quite in time with the music but I liked that sort of thing once.

    Were I young bright and sophisticated I might find it hysterically funny, wrong on so many levels, yet get it.

    I think you could show it to an audience of 15 year olds and have no difficulty getting a conversation going.

    That said, it may just be naff. An advert made by a bunch of twenty somethings being rather too clever and about ten years out of date.

    Alex

  53. It’s not directed at girls of the advanced age of 15. No wonder you geezers don’t get it 🙂

  54. Hey AJ your post leads me to this trivia question: Who was the first ‘computer sciences man of the year’?

  56. Phil… donno… never heard of this distinction before. Is it a trick question or joke? I’ll guess Babbage.

  58. AJ (Comment #98735)
    June 23rd, 2012 at 11:49 am

    “Sorry about the Ken.

    BTW… Do you live in NC and drive a Volkswagen TDI? If so, then we met a few years back.”

    I live in IL and drive a Buick Lucerne and admit to being a geezer.

  59. Kenneth Fritsch:

    I live in IL and drive a Buick Lucerne and admit to being a geezer.

    I’m starting to wonder how many of lucia’s regular readers live in Illinois. It may just be my memory playing tricks on me, but it seems there’s a lot of us.

  60. Brandon,
    Lucia has the IP addresses, she can tell us if she wants.
    .
    I don’t live anywhere near Illinois. Neither does Carrick, Paul_K, or Oliver, to name a few. Oh, and Nick.

  61. I never considered science to be a boy or girl thing. Sure, in all books I’ve read as a child, the scientists and astronauts and savvy engineers were men, but this somehow didn’t make me think I couldn’t be one of them 😉
    Anyway, I decided to be a microbiologist after reading Pasteur’ s biography (surely extremely girly thing) and became one after 10 years since this decision.
    Oh and regarding that repulsive page http://science-girl-thing.eu/# – why so much of pink? Always hated pink, always will…

  62. “I don’t live anywhere near Illinois. Neither does Carrick, Paul_K, or Oliver, to name a few. Oh, and Nick.”

    SteveF, I thought I might have detected a bit of disdain in that comment. It almost sounded like if you even lived near IL you might catch a disease – like the irresponsible public spending fever.

    And by the way that would be a long list of people not living in IL – or wanting to live there.

  63. Kenneth Fritsch,
    “I thought I might have detected a bit of disdain in that comment. It almost sounded like if you even lived near IL you might catch a disease – like the irresponsible public spending fever.”
    Nope. I was only noting that there are lots of people from outside of IL that comment here.
    .
    The disease of which you speak (loss of liberty at the alter of “equal outcomes”) is sadly already a worldwide pandemic. IL is by no means a center of infection (OK, it produced Mr.Obama, but I can forgive that, if only as a balance to Abraham Lincoln… sublime to ridiculous.) As many have noted: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is an armed lamb contesting the vote!”

  68. lucia, I was looking through an old post on this site, and I noticed you had said this:

    I’m now pondering whether or not someone might not write a special “threading” plugin that lets the admin always shuffle their comment immediately below the one they respond too without threading anyone elses comment…. That might be something those admins who adore inline comments could think about writing.

    Not long ago, I nearly missed a response Steve McIntyre made at ClimateAudit because it immediately followed mine despite there being several comments before his, chronologically. Apparently moderators on his site can post to whatever spot in a fork they want.

    I don’t know if it’s relevant to you anymore, but I thought I’d share.

  70. jeez, I imagine that is true, but I don’t believe that is relevant to what happened in this case. First, there would have been no benefit to Steve McIntyre for doing this, so I can’t imagine he’d waste the effort (especially while keeping silent about it). Second, the displayed time for his comment was accurate (and later than subsequent comments in the fork). It is possible the displayed time is disjoint from the time used to order comments, but again, I don’t see any reason to believe such.

    What I suspect is the moderators at ClimateAudit have different code used when posting than the regular users. It appears there are two (relevant) differences. One, they can post in response to any comment, even one which is nested deep enough that a normal user cannot respond to it. Two, when they respond to a post, if a new layer of nesting cannot be generated, their posted is simply inserted into the next available spot on the same level.

    I could be wrong, but that’s what seems to be the case. If so, it’s a pretty good approach, save that if a moderator inserts a comment above several others, it’s possible people following the exchange won’t notice.

  71. Brandon–CA already uses threaded comments. Which I abhor but others love.

    There maybe some feature in threaded comments that lets them insert their comment anywhere in the thread. When I’m there I seem to see a reply to button after some comments but not others.

    When threaded exists, there must be some meta-data saved with comments that permits this.

    What I would sort of like is something that only lets the admin insert — so as to mimic inline comment responses but permitting the response to appear right after a comment. This is useful when a moderator wants to keep the explanation of a rule violation near the comment where the rule violation occurred. I don’t think it’s particularly useful for conversation. Or at least, I don’t see any reason why the admin should get to put their response near an argument they are rebutting while everyone else has to put there ‘wherever’.

    But I would never go to the ‘abhorred by me’ threaded comments direction to solve any slight problem with anything.

  72. Pete H wrote a plug-in CA Assistant which unthreads and places comments in chron order. Many readers use this. I recommend it – I dislike the WordPress threading.

  73. “But I would never go to the ‘abhorred by me’ threaded comments direction to solve any slight problem with anything.”
    .
    Thank you, because I probably abhor them more than you do. It is impossible to follow comments efficiently due to the loss of chronolgy… there is just no way to find recent comments, or even comments relevant to an earlier comment, especially when the maximum allowed nesting level is reached. It becomes a confusing hodgepodge that only wastes people’s time.
    .
    A killer app would be the option to view blog comments on the same thread either way; nested for the ‘brooding hen’ types, and chronologically for everyone else.

  74. Steve McIntyre,

    You posted while I was writing #98879… so the killer app already exists for CA nested comments. How does one get it?

  76. lucia:

    What I would sort of like is something that only lets the admin insert — so as to mimic inline comment responses but permitting the response to appear right after a comment. This is useful when a moderator wants to keep the explanation of a rule violation near the comment where the rule violation occurred. I don’t think it’s particularly useful for conversation. Or at least, I don’t see any reason why the admin should get to put their response near an argument they are rebutting while everyone else has to put there ‘wherever’.

    I could see it being useful in conversation, but I don’t think it should be used as an tool for argument. Instead, I’d hope to see it used as a tool for clarification. For example, if someone asked a question about how you implemented some step, it could be useful to have your answer appear right below it. I don’t think there’d be anything wrong with that.

    But I would never go to the ‘abhorred by me’ threaded comments direction to solve any slight problem with anything.

    I would certainly hope not. However, it does show what you had in mind has (apparently) already been coded. It might even be the case that one could use threaded comments, but set the nesting level to zero so no threads could ever appear. If so, CA’s code would seem to have a possible solution for you which doesn’t require you change anything about how commenting on your site works in general.

  77. SteveF

    Thank you, because I probably abhor them more than you do…

    It’s hard to imagine someone abhors them more than I do….

  78. so the killer app already exists for CA nested comments. How does one get it?

    The difficulty is that people who like threaded using threading tend to not include direct quotes, sometimes don’t name the person to whom they are responding and so on. They count on threading to help you figure out the context of their comment. It can be difficult to decipher the context after unthreading.

    So…. I hate threading!

  79. The killer app for me would be something that showed the current comments formatted and work like Lucia’s Recent Comments, but a “forward and backwards” button. Then, whether it was threaded wouldn’t matter anymore.

  80. lucia:

    The difficulty is that people who like threaded using threading tend to not include direct quotes, sometimes don’t name the person to whom they are responding and so on.

    I’m surprised that plugin doesn’t automatically add a link to the comment you’re responding to.

  81. Carrick:

    The killer app for me would be something that showed the current comments formatted and work like Lucia’s Recent Comments, but a “forward and backwards” button. Then, whether it was threaded wouldn’t matter anymore.

    I’ve been looking for an RSS reader to use that automatically separates comments by the page they’re posted on. If I had one that could do that, plus do what I mentioned in my comment just above, I’d practically never look at blog posts* unless I was going to post.

    *I would, of course, have a separate feed for the blog posts themselves, so I would still be able to read them.

  82. Re: Brandon Shollenberger (Jun 27 10:26),

    See the link to your comment. That’s something else CA Assistant does if the blog is in a recognized format. It adds a ‘Reply w/ Link’ to every comment. Unfortunately, not all blogs have the right format, Science of Doom for one. If I knew enough about HTML, it would be easy to modify the script for any blog that doesn’t work. There’s also a Greasemonkey script called killfile that allows you to hide comments from anyone you choose. Unfortunately, that only works for me at The Air Vent. Again it would be easy for someone who knows what they are doing to modify the script.

  83. DeWitt Payne, that’s cool to hear. I’ve seen links like that before, but I never realized what was making them.

    By the way, if it really would be easy to do, I could probably make those modifications. I know HTML quite well.

  84. It’s very difficult to accommodate all preferences in a comment system, but I tend to prefer Lucias suggestion of un-threaded comments, with an Admin/Moderator ‘god’ function that allows them to reply directly to a comment.
    In ‘WordPress-Speak’, threaded comments are enabled but only for the Admin.
    It’s usually reasonably easy to implement, but it does require edits to the theme files, or preferably a child theme definition, and therein potentially lies madness.
    The admin user obviously needs to be logged in to WP for it to work, and the trick is to then use the WP function ‘current_user_can’ to identify the admin user capability.
    This would typically be used to display the ‘Reply’ button, and to post any comment added, and would necessitate mods to the site theme files, which in turn strongly suggests first setting up a child theme.
    The actual edits involved are something like this (VERY theme dependent) –
    in your theme header.php look for –
    wp_head();
    just above it should be something like this
    if(is_singular() && get_option(‘thread_comments’)) wp_enqueue_script( ‘comment-reply’ );

    change to
    if ( is_singular() && get_option( ‘thread_comments’ ) ) {
    if(current_user_can(‘administrator’)) {
    wp_enqueue_script( ‘comment-reply’ );
    }
    }

    (note we’re using current_user_can (‘administrator’) to do this ONLY for the admin user)

    The next bit is tricky and will probably need some fiddling to make work. In your theme functions.php find a line with a –
    like this

    __( ‘Reply ↓’, ‘your_theme_name’ ), ‘depth’ => $depth, ‘max_depth’ => $args[‘max_depth’] ) ) ); ?>

    and wrap it in a conditional –
    something like this

    __( ‘Reply ↓’, ‘your_theme_name’ ), ‘depth’ => $depth, ‘max_depth’ => $args[‘max_depth’] ) ) ); ?>

    This and the whole function it’s in will probably have to be moved into the child theme functions.php

    Enable nested comments, one or two levels, and cross fingers.

    Hope that helps someone 🙂

  85. The above comment is semi gibberish as the edits are not updating, and the php and css statements are disappearing 🙂
    If anyone needs coherent code, drop me an email and I’ll try and provide at least semi-coherent copies

  87. Why not use the html <code> ?


    if ( is_singular() && get_option( ‘thread_comments’ ) ) {
    if(current_user_can(‘administrator’)) {
    wp_enqueue_script( ‘comment-reply’ );
    }
    }

    Or <pre> ?

    if ( is_singular() && get_option( ‘thread_comments’ ) ) {
    if(current_user_can(‘administrator’)) {
    wp_enqueue_script( ‘comment-reply’ );
    }
    }

  88. Carrick, DeWitt,
    I think I recall that html code is not allowed in comments, only if you logged on as an author. When I was logged on here as an author of my guest posts, I could use html, but not when I only made a comment (even on the same thread).

  89. Re: SteveF (Jul 2 11:24),

    Obviously some html is allowed or your wouldn’t be able to insert links, use bold, italic, strikethrough, underline or special characters like ® using Unicode instead of looking them up in the Microsoft character map.

    Carrick,

    I tired sourcecode because that’s what’s in CA Assistant. But then again CA Assistant uses under for underline, which also doesn’t work, but u does. I take it back u doesn’t work either.

  90. Carrick, that’s a very good suggestion, let’s try it
    (haven’t used that tag in a while)

    Alas no, the code is still being interpreted, I’m going to delete the rest of the comment, as it’s basically a repeat of the first one above.

    The problem is the switching in and out of php mode.

Comments are closed.