Dear Forum members,

This is just a reminder to all of you that anyone is welcome to start their own topic in order to generate discussion.

Alan Berryman has been very active in writing and trying to promote discussion on this Forum, but I want to remind and ensure all members that you can participate as actively as you like in this Forum. If you feel it’s important to promote different perspectives, please do! The best way to promote discussion is by writing a concise introduction to your topic and stating your position as clearly and simply as possible.

Hopefully by having these discussions under the same roof, we can see more easily where different approaches share common themes, or understand why differences arise and persist.

The only restrictions are that any topics you post should relate clearly to population dynamics research, and that you follow the house rules in terms of what you say and how you say it.

Participation in the Forum continues to grow (58 members have signed up so far, even more readers are following these discussions), and this Forum will work best with as much input to discussions as possible!

One conern that has been raised here is the issue of anonymity. While most people involved with these discussions are happy to be identified and associated with the ideas they put forward, some feel that the discussions are best done anonymously to avoid strong personality influences.

While I don’t want to enforce any rules on anonymity as a Moderator, I personally feel it is easier to have a discussion (heated or otherwise, but always polite) with a “face”, even in an online Forum. My experience on Nature Network suggests that most other users feel the same, and healthy, active discussion seems to work best this way, as it would in the real world (including the pub).

If you feel differently, I only ask that you consitently identify yourself with a pseudonym (as some users have done here), to make responding to comments easier for other members. We may have to re-assess this in the future if the majority of members feel strongly about contributions from anonymous users. If you have any input on this topic one way or the other, please feel free to comment below. It’s helpful to guage opinion on this.

Another minor comment is that Nature Network seem to have changed their formatting system a little. I put up a post about formatting maths here, some of which doesn’t work so well now. Play around and preview your comments to see how your text looks before posting.

Thanks to all members who have contributed so far,
Mike