I'm going to let you in on a little secret because sometimes even very intelligent folks like you struggle to see the obvious...you want to know a really good way to avoid being misquoted with respect to your expectations for a given season?? I know this may sound nuts, so bare with me here....issue a forecast that explicitly states your expectations along with a detailed rationale. I tried this about 11 years ago and have never looked back. Your failure to do so is what I chalk up to any confusion about what you "forecasted" in a random post on page 232 of the ENSO thread last October. Frankly, I couldn't give rat's scrotum how bad you think I look, Chris....I say that with all of the love and respect in the world, believe me. I have a wife, house, two jobs and four kids under the age of 6, but I'll try to do a better job of deducing what your theoretical winter forecast would look like based on your comments pertaining to a random seasonal model from a random post in an long scrolled thread 9 months ago.
You don't want to put out a specific forecast, cool....but do me favor and get a really large mirror when it comes time to assess culpability for any confusion related to your stance after the fact. The onus if responsibility is with the forecaster, not the audience, dude.
PS: "In the old days".....AKA "when we had a -WPO". Flip the WPO and its a slightly warmer version of the old days-