In general people seem to pursue various aims by joining Web 2.0 platforms.

One reason is to have a community. Another is to have exchange of opinions. Another is to be able to test certain views in “public”. This last aspect – obviously there are a lot more – leads to a feature that is often present in Web 2.0 platforms: anonymity, i.e. using a nickname and hiding the real life identity behind that.

Teamwork generally is THE form of scientific work these days, although there must be differences of choice in style that distinguish different individuals. Scientists have mostly the opportunity to work in a team that really meets. Real meeting groups hardly need Web 2.0. They can additionally communicate via the internet, but they do not have to do that in public via Web 2.0

That leads to a more general distinction between public ways and closed ways to communicate via the internet. I should say: Web 2.0 is public. The newsgroup that exists around the Journal of Consciousness Studies may demonstrate this: it has existed as Psyche-D list for years and has been moved into a yahoo newsgroup a while ago for reasons of moderation I think. Still this newsgroups is not public, but only accessible and visible after login.

A good reason for a Web 2.0 form of communication would be the international aspect of science and conferences. People go to conferences from many parts of the world these days, meet and would like to stay in touch.

That could become a major future point for scientific Web 2.0 communities. People communicate before and after conferences and this could lead to an ongoing process mostly with annual conferences.

A community has many possibilities and obviously one is, that is has a more relaxed aspect than a workgroup or thinktank-like internet activity.

The scientific quality of any attempt of a community is probably one of the important unresolved issues. As long as people can join anonymously (in the tradition of former internet activities), the quality is mostly likely to suffer and a quality standard is mostly like not to be achieved or will lead to unreasonable moderation efforts.

Lack of quality will most certainly prevent quality people to join any such community. Vicious circles of this kind must be avoided if a Web 2.0 project attempts to really establish itself in the scientific community.