I’m too tired to write in verse today.
But start again in prose? I can’t be arsed
To do that either. Have I lost a day
Or gained one, when at crack of dawn I passed
Through customs? Both, it seems – and neither can
Make any sense at all of this malaise.
Disruptions melatoninous: no tan
was gained, however, on these frigid days.
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I, Editor by Henry Gee
This is the Nature Network and therefore Terribly Extremely Very Serious foothold for Nature Senior Editor Henry Gee. If you want fun and games, visit http://cromercrox.blogspot.com/
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Come Out From Under There: We Won't Bite
- Date:
- Monday, 19 Jan uary 2009 - 13:14 UTC
And so I’m back from ScienceOnline09.
What lessons have I learned, what action points
Can yet be gleaned from that convivial time?
Hard to say. Yet fellowship anoints
Some friendships old, some new ones yet cemented
Eva took some compromising snaps.
I’ll mention more, else I go quite demented.
Deepak, Bill and Karen – turn on the taps
Of Carolina Ale, and so extend the roll!
We didn’t feel a lack of PZ Myers;
Is Abel Pharmboy really D&%$£ K*$£l?
Chris, and Greg – GrrlScientist one admires.
And many more these margins cannot mention.
So flip the spigot! Upend the amphora!
To go again next year is my intention.
There’s someone I’ve forgot – of course, it’s Bora!
But when the jollity has all subsided
And I’ve recalled whichever way is up
I must assume a manner sobersided
And put away the golden drinking cup.
My concern is this: we Nature Network bloggers
A cosy bunch, we are, you must agree.
(Apart from Grant, that is). Not fierce floggers
But as nice a group of people as you’ll see.
(Oh damn, this poem’s getting greetings-cardy
It’s hearts and cutesy teddy pictures next.
I must revert to something rough and hardy
‘fore Corie comes along and wrings my neck).
The problem that we face is simply stated.
Our team of active bloggers’ rather few
And if it’s by ourselves our blogs are rated,
With you lot sitting silent in the pew,
My worry is that it’ll all get rather cliquey
So I’ll urge you strongly, please, come join the throng.
Write something, anything, if dour or cheeky.
It looks forbidding – but there’s no such thing as ‘wrong’.Envoi
Well, bugger that, I’ve had it for the day.
It could be that I’ve done with writing verse.
I’ll go jump in the silv’ry River Tay.
Whatever next? Extreme Macrame? Nurse!!!Last updated: Monday, 19 Jan 2009 - 13:14 UTC
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Comments
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Well said. I still have to digest all my impressions and conversations from the meeting.
Yeah, I’m still trying to figure it all out too, but I’m also still in the US. The difference between Nature Network and Scienceblogs really came out in the final session.
My post conference resolution is to write more on my blog here. It’s just tricky finding time and a writing voice that I am satisfied with.
The cliquey thing is something that worried me too. I know some people find registration a barrier.
Perhaps we need to discuss this on a relevant forum. we could organize an un-lurking session, get people to say ‘hello’ and start commenting. But getting more bloggers is a bigger problem. Perhaps we should be more proactive about inviting established bloggers to join.
I have read this word “cliquey” several times from returnees from Science Online, eg Henry and Bob. Who has decided NN is cliquey? Can you clarify? What exactly is “cliquey”? Being friendly rather than having screeds of ranty comments? Too many in-jokes? (But lots of blog communities have in-jokes). I don’t get it – I don’t perceive it as cliquey although there are clearly a group of users/bloggers who are friendly with each other, but that isn’t the same as “cliquey”. NN is open to all…..so far as I know, anyone can request a blog and if the sample blog post is up to a certain standard of literacy and science content, you are in. What’s cliquey about that?
There is a reasonably clear group (a clique, if you will) of NN bloggers who comment on each others’ posts, chatting in a friendly way that, while it does not directly preclude interaction from “outsiders”, perhaps makes it hard for new people to feel they can contribute to a thread. My own intro to NN was through Bob, which gave me a starting point from which to
commence abusecontribute and build from.This sort of thing happens in the real world as well, when new people are introduced to a group of friends, but may find it difficult to raise their voice.
BigmouthsSelf confident people tend to “rise to the top” in these situations, and it can become something of a self-propagating feedback, with thesebigmouthsself confident types commanding more of the available talk time. I think this could be happening in NN, and is being referred to as “cliquey” behaviour. I personally don’t think it’s a terrible thing to have this sort of situation, but welcoming new people is also an important thing to do.With a little bit of searching, plenty of other people can be found. The way you access NN blogs has a big effect on how visible different people are on the network. I typically follow the recent comments and blog postings, having a short attention span, but others follow conversations and users much more specifically.
I have a feeling that there’s also a long tail of NN users who write good blogs but get much less feedback, being outside the hard-core of frequent
abusers.It’d be really interesting (for me at least) to see a breakdown of NN user stats in this sort of way – how different users generate the hits, comments, number of blogs written, etc – can anyone out there do that? Has it already been done?
Blogs are a human endeavor. Just as I can’t be close friends with everyone I know in real life, I also can’t read and comment on more than a few blogs, simply because there are not enough minutes in the day. I don’t see this as clique-ish (a term which has a slightly pejorative feel); it is simple realism.
So yes, a new blog would have to work hard to get my attention in all this noise (and unlike some, I think there are far more NN blogs than I could ever possibly read, and if it continues to expand it will just get harder and harder to follow). But if the early founding bloggers took a risk starting their blogs in a new environment instead of somewhere more established, why shouldn’t they enjoy the community that has quite happily resulted? I don’t see any evidence that new commenters aren’t welcomed or responded to in threads dominated by people who have been contributing longer. By and large this is a very congenial place, not just amongst the old-timers, but towards everyone – and everyone, as Maxine says, is welcome to earn their followings too.
@ Katherine: The difference between Nature Network and Scienceblogs really came out in the final session.
I’m not sure that the differences are as great as people think. I noted how some on ScienceBlogs, being only human, seemed to be peeved that they tends to get tarred with the same brush that gets used to daub PZ Myers.
@ Maxine: Mike puts the definition of a clique very well:
There is a reasonably clear group (a clique, if you will) of NN bloggers who comment on each others’ posts, chatting in a friendly way that, while it does not directly preclude interaction from “outsiders”, perhaps makes it hard for new people to feel they can contribute to a thread.
@ Jenny: I don’t see the small group of NN bloggers as a clique, in the perjorative sense, but i worry that others might, and this puts them off. And whereas I sympathize with your predicament (and share it), NN does not exist solely for our individual convenience. I worry that NN might not be seen as sustainable in the long term if it is found to be a waterhole for a small number of people, rather than scientists more generally.
Oh, absolutely, Henry. I have no personal problem with thousands of bloggers here — they just shouldn’t be surprised if not everyone comments on them.
As someone relatively new to NN, I can see how it would be perceived as “cliquey”. I, personally, tend to be
loud and annoyingvery outgoing, so I have no problem commenting on blogs that have a close group of followers and commenters or writing without a lot of responses, but I also can see how some might find that more difficult.However, I think the “close” nature of NN is what makes it special – it’s not just an anonymous group of people. The question is, how do you maintain a close-knit, friendly atmosphere without pushing “outsiders” away? I think the idea of actively pursuing new bloggers may be a good one. After all, people will feel more included and respected if they’re actively recruited – this is especially true of new bloggers who haven’t yet much of a “fanbase”. I also think encouraging people to talk and comment on new/newly discovered blogs is a good thing. While obviously everyone can’t comment on every blog, never underestimate how encouraging it is to a new blogger to know that someone paid attention.
Perhaps NN could implement a sort of section on its front pages like a “check out our newest blogger” or the like, to draw attention to newer members of the community. Even simply a “featured blog” or something that changes every week and gives each blog a chance to be spotlighted. Nothing too big or fancy – I’m thinking along the lines of the current “most commented blog posts” or “recently active members” squares – just a small note that isn’t the “most popular” or “most commented on” blog, so that the lesser-known bloggers have a chance to be noticed as well as those with a larger fan pool.
NN does feature various blogs on the homepage, and has the welcome forum, etc. I hope new bloggers do feel welcome – I’ve seen lots of such greetings on their initial posts.
There are also, of course, the forums as well as the blogs. These are topic or geography related, or other, and anyone can start one instantly. These tend to be much more “article” or “question” based, eg Ask the Nature Editor, citation in science, etc. Perhaps these were not mentioned in the ScienceOnline09 conference, but there are a lot of those, it seems to me.
The fora were certainly mentioned, Maxine, and duly celebrated as a part of NN that is distinct and useful.
Most of the blogs I read/follow/comment on over here were those that I found through other people commenting on them. I always use the snapshot page to navigate. But out of many, many contacts, it’s always the same 10 people actually commenting on posts or forum topics, so I do tend to follow those people around the site more. I clicked through to here from Christie’s comment, who is, as she says, relatively new, but she’s also very active, and I think that is the key thing – not cliqueyness.
I also find that whatever in-jokes there are, they’re very easy to pick up on. Nothing a few clicks of the mouse won’t explain.
I am wondering whether one couldn’t call ScienceBlogs ‘cliquey’ as well? I’ve certainly seen a lot of instances of different SB bloggers commenting on each others posts, similar to what we do here. I think cliquey is the wrong word though – it’s a welcoming group.
I just posted a long comment on this topic here. Would love to get feedback.
I agree with Christie (and the more generally expressed impulse) that we should encourage new bloggers and readers/commenters.
Maybe it’s too easy to forget what it was like before you jumped in. I had been mulling over starting a blog for about a year before I actually got started. I even did a hidden dry run on Blogger to see what it would feel like. However, starting for real on Blogger didn’t seem feasible – I couldn’t see how the blog would ever get noticed. Only when I discovered NN, first as a reader, then a commenter did an opportunity begin to emerge: it had a ready-made audience with strong scientific interests. But only by attending the conference in London last August (which itself took a little gumption) did I realise that pitching in might not be too horrendous. And now, looking back, I think “What was I worried about?” But I imagine there are plenty of others out there who have similar concerns that they haven’t yet worked through. Hopefully they will see the friendliness of NN as genuine and dip a toe in the water. It’s not that cold. Really.
Great positive stuff, Stephen. I’ve commented further and probably at too great length at the link provided by Corie in the comment immediately above yours.
As an added thought I haven’t seen mentioned, perhaps some of the insularity of the NN bloggers, the lack of more outside comments coming in is platform related in another sense.
I notice that NN’s blogs do not have the usual blogroll. I would suggest that because of this, there is less “migratory traffic”. I often have my eye caught by the name of a blog listed in a blogroll, and that’s how I’ve bumped into the majority of the blogs I read regularly.
I’ve read Bob O’H’s blog for a while for instance, but had no hope of bumping into Henry’s blog unless he happened to comment on a post by Bob on which I happened to read all the comments. It seems hyper-compartmentalized to me.
Relatedly, commenters’ names here link to a profile here. (I blog elsewhere at the moment, for the record.) That being the case, NN has insulated itself by not making it easy to follow a nonNN commenter who intrigues me. I might wonder, “What else does this commenter have to say,” but by sealing itself off this way, NN sort of prevents me from finding out unless the commenter is a NN blogger.
The blogosphere runs on reciprocity of ideas, and conversations almost never are restricted to one blog post on one blog. By circumventing that mechanism, NN does itself and its bloggers a monumental disservice.
Two post-scripts:
The comment formatting here is just bizarre.
I really enjoyed your additions to the conference, Henry.
Thanks, Louis.
Don’t worry about the NN formatting. We’ve been promised that we’ll move to something less alien in the near future. In the meantime we’re happy to do remedial hand-holding, so if in doubt, just ask.
Hi Louis, just to add…blogrolls will also be part of the new platform that the NN bloggers will be migrated to later this year.
Just to clarify, anyone who comments on NN blogs gets a profile and becomes part of the NN community—you don’t have to be a blogger here to participate and to have a profile. You can find out lots about a commenter from their profile..if s/he choses to put info about him/herself on their profile (eg her/his own nonNN blog), that is. Through the profile, I can also see what that person has been up to on NN, so that would allow me to learn more about (as you say) “what else does this person have to say?”. For example, I can see your other NN comments here
I also forgot to mention above, in the part of the discussion about exposure for new bloggers, that there is a great feature on the main nature.com homepage (which gets absolutely tons and tons of traffic) which highlights a couple of NN blogs each day. Anyone reading this comment who has a blog here has probably been featured more than once, as the featured blogs change each day. This is fantastic exposure for any new (or established) science blogger – and the more frequently you post the more likely you are to be featured, I suppose, though I don’t know the inner workings of the algorithm.
Jenny – I agree that there are a heck of a lot of NN blogs – I subscribe to them all in RSS so that I can potentially include any posts about authorship and peer-review issues in my weekly Nautilus round-up. It does get difficult to “gel” each one in my mind now that there are so many. I think the new, dynamic nature.com blogs page, when it is properly established and running, will be extremely helpful in enabling readers who want to “get a sense of what’s about” quickly, without having a detailed knowledge of each blog here, to see the most popular posts, search by tags, see who is commenting on what, etc.
PS to Louis, if you check out the nature.com blogs index, which I link to in my previous comment, your points are addressed – this index tracks all science blogs in its database, not just those on nature.com (which are in two categories, Nature staff blogs and Nature Network blogs).
Well, I got someone else to come out from under there – here’s Sam’s current blog, and I’ve portrayed him here. Welcome Sam!!
Thank you all, for the tips and insights. I am looking forward to the revamp for sure, and now have a better idea of how to get around around here.