Climate Audit is a blog founded in 2005 by Steve McIntyre. In November 2009 journalist Andrew Revkin described it in The New York Times as "a popular skeptics’ blog" run by McIntyre, a retired Canadian mining consultant. In 2010, a Nature article described the site as part of the "climate change skeptic community" alongside the Air Vent and Black¬board. Founding In 2004 Stephen McIntyre blogged on his website climate2003.com about his efforts with Ross McKitrick to get an extended analysis of the hockey stick graph into the journal Nature. On 25 October 2004 McIntyre posted comments on climate2003.com about a piece by William Connolley circulated on various blogs, and on 26 October wrote, "Maybe I’ll start blogging some odds and ends that I’m working on. I’m going to post up some more observations on some of the blog criticisms." On 1 December Michael E. Mann and nine other scientists launched the RealClimate website as "a resource where the public can go to see what actual scientists working in the field have to say about the latest issues." On climate2003.com McIntyre noted this development in a blog post on 10 December, where he wrote "Mann and some of his colleagues have set up a blog at the above address. A couple of Mann's first postings have been arguments against our papers. I'll post up a two quick comments below." On 2 February 2005 McIntyre set up his Climate Audit blog, having found difficulties with posting comments on the climate2003.com layout. Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology has said "McIntyre started the blog climateaudit.org so that he could defend himself against claims being made at the blog Realclimate with regards to his critique of the “hockey stick” since he was unable to post his comments there". She has also referred to this site as one of several "Climate Auditor" websites. Climatic Research Unit information requests and email controversy After the UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) came into effect in 2005, Climate Audit readers were asked to make FOI requests to the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) for the raw data from weather stations used in developing instrumental temperature record datasets, for copies of agreements under which the raw data was obtained from meteorology institutions, and also for email correspondence relating to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. On 12 August