To be honest Fractelle, I don't have the time to go revisiting articles on the site going back over a longer length of time. I picked the last month as an arbitary "pluck a reasonable time span out of the air". I was just illustrating that your perception of bias may be somewhat erroneous. I have no drum to beat, no political bias and work with the material I can obtain. I accept articles from people from all walks of life and from all points of view. I try to put together a journal that I think will broaden the depth of discussion and enhance our understanding of topics that are of interest to all Australians and many others besides. I am sure there are many online sites that can furnish you with opinions with which you agree. Susan Prior - editor

ChristinaMac,

I agree with the concept that all who respect liberty also respect the right to freedom of speech. Journo’s and the media in the ‘free world’ would have it no other way and would be the first to defend and remonstrate if it were not so.

Of course, let them publish away (btw, I think SusanP is providing a balanced range of articles).

However, my ‘bone of contention’ is;

This morning I was told that OLO’s chief editor and founder was “getting a bit sick and tired of ‘my’ provocative comments.” He deleted my comment and threatened me with suspension if I continued to be ‘provocative’.

Now, I agree that ‘freedom of speech’ does not mean the right to say anything that incites violence, defames, slanders, libels, but the act of being ‘provocative’ IMHO is not a caveat and therefore not a reason why my comment should have been deleted or myself threatened with suspension.

Socrates said, “The irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and provocative have a right to be heard.” I agree and we only have to look at some OLO posts to see this.

It is evident some posters on OLO don’t like what I say and go on to besmirch my integrity or honesty, but I see no reason to silence them. However, they want to gag and silence me.

This is extremely hypocritical and in direct contrast to what they expect for themselves – freedom of speech.

Sorry to have to tell you Q&A

My post of last night was also deleted, censored and I too was threatened with suspension.

Methinks Dickie's days on OLO could be numbered.......!

Hi Susan, thanks for taking the time to respond. It's good to know OLO is responsive to their readers concerns, and is explicitly commitmented to achieving a balance of viewpoints over time.

I would just say, though, that my point was not so much about the lack of countervailing views in any 3 month period, but that the IPA was allowed to saturate their exposure so much over a single week by simply having a diffused media strategy. I don't object to, nor do have a right to object to, the publishing of IPA anti-AGW articles. The point I am trying to make is that after Jennifer's piece, we had one from the "Australian Environment Foundation", as if this was a non-partisan scientific body of long standing, rather than a pure extension of the IPA's forays into media advocacy, and then Bob Carter's piece, which failed to disclose his position as an IPA research committee member. So, what I'm saying is we should call a spade a spade here - this is a diffused media strategy which has enabled the IPA to skirt the normal rules of the editorial balance that everyone else operates under.

My points is that if these articles were all properly labelled as being under the IPA affiliate banner, it would have not only been far more transparent and less misleading to the readers of this site, but that it is doubtful that they would have been published over a single week at all - given that single organisations, no matter how well esteemed, are never given that kind of licence in other media fora.

Now I don't know whether OLO simply didn't know that the aforementioned voices were IPA affiliates or not. But I do think it should be your business to know, and maintain transparent bio lines in response so everything is transparent and everybody is playing by the same rules.

I am in complete agreement with TRTL.

It is important for the climate change debate and for science to challenge conventional wisdom otherwise there would be no scrutiny. OLO does provide a wide cross section of opinions even if on occasion there may be a proliferation of one view or another. OLO allows for dissent of the view offered via the Forum.

There is no danger that the AEF (IPA) will convert the true believers and it is important that there are challenges albeit in this case transparent ones. I would rather an article from a GW non-believer who is not pretending to be an "evidence based green" (inferring all other environmentalists are anti-science) but sometimes you take the good with the bad.

The title of this thread is

“Climate Change Denial Monotony”

Suitable if considered as a contrast to

“Climate Change Dogma Monopoly”

Most of the complaining by the Climate Change zealots.

I have been banned (reasonably in hindsight) from this site in the past and have corresponded with GY on some posts which he declined recently.

Whilst I may disagree with the operators of the site in curtailing some particular unfettered statements, I still respect their ultimate right to decide on site content. If I did not I would not post at all.

I think the site would be a lesser place without input from climate change zealots, however, they should grow up and realize, their view is not omnipotent and the voice of dissent to their views has an equal right to be heard

or we will all end up in a worse place.