I’ve widened the page to 800 points, which looks better to me. If this breaks anybody’s browser could they advise me and I’ll put it back. Better still if someone could tell me how to get a layout that would be smart in these respects, they would get the priceless award of a free post on a topic of their own choosing[1]

fn1. I was thinking of a guest post, but actually, if someone could show me how to do this, I’d be willing to write a post on any topic they nominated (the more outlandish the topic, the more off-topic the likely result, of course). Also, how can I get my footnotes in smaller type? Is there a problem with WordPress and Textile?

I’ve still been getting reports that people have been having trouble reading the new WordPress blog. Fellow blogger “Yobbo” has kindly supplied me with his template, and I’ve followed his suggestion that I should differentiate by adding a beard. I’d very much appreciate reports on the change. At this stage, I want to focus mainly on blog-critical problems like unreadability due to overlaps between posts and sidebars, but I’ll also happily accept suggestions for colour schemes and so on. I’d like to hear from

* Readers who had problems with the old layout that have now been resolved

* Readers who have problems with the new layout that weren’t present in the old

* Readers who have continuing problems

Instant update The page looks too narrow for my liking, and I’ve already had one request to widen it. If it’s already filling your screen, and a wider format would cause problems, please advise me ASAP. If you agree that it’s too narrow, also please advise.

I’m still struggling a bit with WordPress, but I’ve at least managed to eliminate the “no links to first post” problem. If anyone has any suggestions for good templates to copy, or for easily implemented layout changes, I’m all eyes.

Thanks to everyone who’s suggested possible changes to the WordPress layout. I’m working on them, in between other things. So there won’t be much in the way of substantive posts for a few days.

In any case, the awful news of the tsunami leaves me without a lot to say for the moment. It just keeps getting worse. Please do whatever you can to help.

Update 30/12 I’m going very slowly on this stuff, but I’ve managed to implement a live preview function, which has been the most requested feature so far.

Layout improvements are proving problematic. If there are any WP fans out there who can suggest layouts I can simply copy, I’ll be glad to take a look at them

OK, this is kind of silly, but bear with me. A couple of people have mentioned that they haven’t been able to reach the blog since the comment spam crisis (thanks again to Textdrive for resolving this!). I’d like to hear from anyone in this position, but obviously this isn’t a great way to reach them. I thought about skywriting, popular here in Brisbane, but it doesn’t seem practical. So if you can read this from one location, but not from others, please email me with info on your setup, browser and so on.

This seems like a good reason to move to WordPress

Thanks to the marvellous efforts of Jason Hoffman and Textdrive, comments are open again. I’ll have a bit more to say tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you’ve been meaning to say anything, here’s your chance! Remember, civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.

In previous posts on Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus exercise, both before and after the event, I expressed the suspicion that the whole thing was a setup, designed to push Lomborg’s favorite line that money spent on implementing the Kyoto protocol would be better allocated to foreign aid projects of various kinds. (I’ve pointed out some contradictions in Lomborg’s general argument, here).

However, I thought some good could come of the exercise, if the conclusions were taken seriously. In my last post, I observed

As attentive readers will recall, the conference concluded that fighting AIDS should be the top global priority in helping developing countries and also that climate change mitigation was a waste of money. I agree with the first of these conclusions, and more generally with the need for more spending on health poor countries, and I hope that Lomborg will put some effort into supporting it. I’ll try to keep readers posted on this.

Now Lomborg has revealed his priorities. Chris Bertram points to an article by Lomborg in the Telegraph. The supposed top priority item, initiatives to combat AIDS, gets two passing mentions. The entire article, except for a couple of paras, is devoted to the pressing need to do nothing about global warming.

It’s obvious from reading this piece that the entire lavishly funded Copenhagen exercise was a put-up job, designed to secure impressive-sounding endorsements for Lomborg’s anti-Kyoto agenda, and that the supposed concern for making good use of aid funding was a hypocritical scam. A lot of work went into relative rankings for different health policies, but I don’t expect to hear anything from Lomborg on this score. Similarly, I doubt we will ever see him campaigning for more funding for AIDS programs, as opposed to using them as a cheap anti-Kyoto debating point.

If I was one of the eminent economists who participated in the ranking exercise, or who submitted papers supporting various initiatives, I would be feeling really angry with Bjorn Lomborg right now.

I’m back on air, but still without comments unfortunately. Thanks very much to my host, Textdrive, and especially to Jason Hoffman, who salvaged the backup version of the blog after I managed to delete the current one in my attempts to get things working again. As a result a couple of posts and comments got lost. I may be able to restore them

Meanwhile, I’m pleased to say JMaximus has deleted the post taken from my blog without permission. Thanks to all who commented on the error of his ways.

Comments have been turned off indefinitely by my hosting service due to a torrent of obscene comment spam over the past week or so. In addition, I’ve received a number of abusive and obscene emails from a disgruntled individual commenter (not a regular, I’m pleased to say). I assume these are separate incidents, but they obviously create severe problems for me in operating the blog. I’m looking into my options both for technical solutions and (to the limited extent that sources of this kind of stuff can be identified) civil and criminal action, but it may be some time before comments are restored. Crooked Timber has had similar attacks, but not on such a scale, so I’ll try to crosspost there for items that seem worthy of comment.

Update I hope to have comments restored shortly. Unfortunately, to protect my host, I have had to require registration for comments. I apologise for the inconvenience, but hope this will provide some protection against the commercial spammers and abusive commenters who have necessitated this. I particularly apologise to a number of legitimate commenters (most recently ‘Nabakov’) whose comments have accidentally been deleted in my attempts to protect myself, my host and the readers of this blog.

This seems like a suitable occasion to clarify my policy on coarse language and abuse, which clearly needs tightening in the light of recent events

1. Incidental coarse language will be edited, and the edit noted

2. Deliberately abusive and/or obscene posts will be deleted and the author given a single warning

3. Further abuse will result in deregistration and immediate notification of abuse@yourISP

4. Attempts to evade this policy (e.g. by spoofing, spamming etc) will be pursued and, where possible, those responsible will be reported to police or subject to civil action. The same will apply to anyone sending abusive/obscene emails to me personally.

Further update Just to make matters worse, I’ve discovered this low-life stealing my posts, apparently in a lame attempt to get revenue from Google Ads. I’ve seen this before – does it have a name? As you can check on the Creative Commons License, anyone is free to use material on this blog with no restriction other than a requirement for attribution, but this guy can’t be bothered. At the suggestion of Andrew Leigh, I plan to replace links to abusers sites with screen shots as soon as I get my act together, but for the moment, if you follow the link, don’t click on his ads, please.

I’m getting really bad-tempered about this whole constellation of abuse, which is not good news for those involved, at least those I’m able to identify.

Yet further update And here’s another bizarre piece of cybersquatting/identity theft (thanks to Nick Gruen for an alert on this, which I previously disregarded). I have no idea what this scumsucker’s game is, but I’ll get in touch with Blogger to see if I can get the site taken down, and take any feasible steps against those responsible. While I’m at it, let me advise anyone involved in any of the activities listed above not to rely on the notion that the blogosphere is some sort of free-fire zone, in which they can operate without fear of the law, protected by “anything goes” social norms. Spamming, cybersquatting, cyberstalking and email abuse are both crimes and civil torts, and I intend to treat them as such.

Martin Pike at Northcote Knob:

I just got back a masters essay in which I used a reference to a post on John Quiggin’s blog. I got a distinction, and despite there being a rather large swathe of pedantic comments scrawled on the pages the blogref got through unscathed.

For nerds; I was using Harvard system (eg Pike, 2004) but added a footnote disclosing that it was a blog, and who Quiggin is (or claims to be!).

Anyone heard of this being done, or am I breaking ground here?