The Premium chat is a Signal group for Premium members and the researchers.
The Founders administer the chat, and the researchers join by invitation.
Every Premium member whose membership is in good standing, which includes the days while a failed payment is being retried.
- Zacharias Lorance (@zachariaspro)
- Ben Davidson (@SunWeatherMan)
The two Founders administer and moderate the chat.
The Association's researchers are invited once their appointments are executed. Joining is each researcher's own choice.
A researcher joins once their Signal profile shows their publishing name. This page names a researcher as a member of the chat only after that researcher has agreed to it.
Every researcher appears in the chat under their publishing name.
Premium members join from the member portal.
- 01
The join link appears only inside the member portal, on Your Membership and in the Premium chat room, and only to Premium members. It is never sent by email or printed on a public page, this one included. A link found anywhere else did not come from the Association, so please don't pass yours on.
- 02
Before you ask to join, set your Signal profile name to the display name on your membership, which you can see and change under Your details on Your Membership. Signal shows your profile name and photo to everyone in the group.
- 03
Following the link sends a request. An administrator checks the name against the list of Premium members and approves it by hand, so approval can take a day. A request whose name matches no Premium membership is declined. Set the name and ask again, or write to members@catastrophism.org.
- 04
Signal hides your phone number from anyone who doesn't already have it saved, as long as Who can see my number is set to Nobody. That is Signal's default, and you can check it in Signal under Settings, then Privacy, then Phone Number.
- 05
Signal gives a new member no history. You see the messages sent after you join.
The researchers take part as their own work allows.
The researchers keep no set hours in the chat, and none of them is obliged to answer a given question. When a researcher posts, they speak for themselves. A researcher's post is not an Association position, and the Association does not characterize any researcher's views to the chat.
A researcher may post their own work and releases, with links, whenever they choose. The researchers do not moderate the chat; the Founders do.
Papers, datasets, models and analytical notes from members go to the Association through its submission route, where they are reviewed under the Methodology Standards. A researcher who comments on a member's idea in the chat is taking part in a conversation, and the comment is not a review.
A claim made in the chat is still a claim.
These rules bind every Premium member in the chat, and the Founders. They add no duty to a researcher's appointment.
Say how well supported a statement is, and label speculation as speculation. Where it helps, use the Association's labels: established finding (EF), working hypothesis (WH) and open question (OQ).
Nothing posted in the chat is an Association finding, position or forecast. The Association publishes its claims under the Methodology Standards, each claim labeled and sourced, and each working hypothesis with its falsification conditions.
When the Association weighs material from the chat, it treats a post as S4, uncorroborated material under the Methodology Standards, unless the post cites something better. S4 material can prompt an open question and can never carry an established finding. This is how the Association grades what it reads, and it asks nothing of a post's author.
A forecast made in the chat says whose it is and what it rests on. The Association registers its own forecasts before it publishes them, and it makes none in the chat.
A claim from the chat enters the Association's registers only when its author submits it, like any other claim: a researcher through the archive, a member through the submission route.
Doom theatrics have no place here. Neither does financial advice, ever, including on markets that move on hazard news.
Six house rules bind every Premium member in the chat, and the Founders.
- 01
Stay on the work. Criticism of claims, methods and data is what the room is for, and hostility to a person is removed. Party politics and culture-war argument are off topic.
- 02
No advertising, selling, fundraising or recruiting without the Managing Partner's consent. A link to published work that bears on the discussion is welcome, a member's own work included.
- 03
What is said in the chat stays in the chat. No member takes anyone's name, membership, phone number, posts or screenshots out of it without that person's consent. Signal can't recall a message once it has been delivered, so this rule is the protection members give one another.
- 04
Don't add anyone to the group, and don't share the join link. Every member comes in through the portal.
- 05
A post belongs to the person who wrote it. The Association republishes nothing from the chat without its author's consent.
- 06
Speculation about the legal identity behind a publishing name is removed. The Association will not confirm or deny any such speculation.
The house rules bind every Premium member in the chat, and the Founders. They add no duty to a researcher's appointment, and holding a comped Premium account doesn't bring a researcher under them. A researcher's own work and channels stay unrestricted, so a researcher may quote or discuss what is posted in the chat elsewhere, on their own show or channels included.
The Founders moderate the chat in three steps.
- 01
A private note to the member.
- 02
The post is removed, and the cause is stated.
- 03
For persistent or severe conduct, removal from the chat. The membership itself carries on, and a member removed from the chat can move to Standard at any time from Your Membership. Harassment is the exception: under the terms, it is grounds for suspending the membership.
A severe case, such as a threat, harassment or publishing someone else's personal details, can go straight to the third step.
These steps apply to members. A Founder raises a concern about a researcher's conduct with that researcher privately, and anything further is handled under the researcher's appointment, never by these rules.
Every moderation decision is logged with its date, the rule, the step taken and who decided it. A member who thinks a decision was wrong can write to members@catastrophism.org, and the decision is looked at again.
The Association keeps no copy of the chat. Signal offers no export, and the messages belong to their authors.
The chat ends when Premium ends.
You stay in the chat while your Premium membership is in good standing, including the days while a failed payment is being retried. Premium ends when a cancellation reaches the end of the paid month, when you move to Standard, or when a failed payment is not recovered. The portal stops showing the join link at that moment, and an administrator removes you from the chat at the next check, which runs at least once a week.
Removal when Premium ends is not a moderation decision, and it carries no judgment and no entry in the moderation log. If you return to Premium, you can ask to join again from the portal, through the same approval. After any removal the administrators reset the group's link, so a link kept from before no longer works.
A researcher is in the chat by their own choice while their appointment runs. A researcher leaves the chat when their appointment ends, and can leave sooner without any effect on the appointment.
These rules change only by a new version.
Each new version carries its reason and the Managing Partner's sign-off, and members hear of each change in the chat on the day it takes effect. Questions go to members@catastrophism.org.