Of course, everyone has noticed the latest edition of the mothership Nature has just hit the shelves. I mean, come on people, it’s been in my inbox 10 minutes already!
And of course, you noticed that your favourite loud mouth Englishman (shut up Grant) has another Correspondence published.
I might not get my scientific output published amongst those hallowed pages, but I can get my defense of bloggers (twits), blogging (tweeting) and the blogosphere (tweetosphere) in there!
Unfortunately it looks like it’s been edited since I saw the proofs, and all my best gags are on the cutting room floor, but I hope the point is still there.
Do you feel the same? Can you defend scientific blogging & microblogging?
Congrats, Mr N man. (Editing notwithstanding.)
Wright on man! (inside joke, Ed.)
Thanks Maxine. I’m not fussed about the editing :) The sub left it in, but they were some weak-ass gags, so I wondered if they’d survive through to print :)
I was on hols, guv. Honest. (Back tomorrow – had an extra day holiday for jetlag and because my younger daughter’s birthday today. Was ignored, though, as present from fond parents was a MacBook. My sneak preview of a two-week inbox means tomorrow morning will not be pretty. Will sign off now and “go prepare” – have visited Kennedy Space Center so am on top of jargon for now.)
Congrats again, very glad the letter was selected from the thousands of submissions ;-)
Congrats.
They sub-edited a joke out of one of my correspondences too. I had cited the CIA as a source of some data, and parenthetically noted “and after all, they should know”.
Ha ha! I cited the CIA on Lablit once, and Jenny left it in.
Yes. That was a shameless plug. Thanks for the feedline.
Many years ago when the world was young I heard a Famous Author being interviewed on the radio. I had read one or two of this author’s books and found them very thoughtful and serious. You’d never have known this to hear the man speak. He was practically frothing with wisecracks and was a laugh a minute. The interviewer (bless him) asked why his books were much more serious than one would expect, having met him. The Famous Author’s riposte was instant – ‘the editor cuts out all my jokes’.
What’s radio grandpa?
Tolkein?
“And lo the Ring bearer and his companion hid in the dark passes of Gol Miggurath while orcs searched hi and lo. The elven cloaks of Galataradabalatarafolorollobiliio kept them well hidden amongst the dark and mossy rocks, as if hewn from the very living stone by the Nimborians of old.
“I hate f*****g orcs,” quoth steadfast Gamgee.
“F*****g orcs? I always figured you for a dwarf-buggerer!” Replied Frodo.
ahBoom-Booom!
As it’s the morning after the night before, I’m in short supply of even crap jokes today, so I’ll ask a serious question about your Correspondence.
Is there actually any evidence for the nefarious scoopery that is suspected? By
hookeither new-fangled or old fashioned methods? Isn’t the radio some kind of wireless transistor that you can install in your horseless carriage?Oh yes, I’ve just thought of a joke. Scottish football.
{Rushes off to the bathroom, sobbing}
Congrats, Ian – I thought the letter was well-edited!
Regarding the content of your correspondence…I would like to point out that there is a small difference between snapping a photo or ringing up your lab when you see something at a conference — and posting it in discoverable form on the internet where millions of people could find it via search engines. Perhaps the risk isn’t great, but it’s disingenuous to equate those three actions.
I for one see nothing wrong with having a subset of conferences with Charter House Rule and then making it clear from the outset. You will get more data being presented if people feel confident that it won’t be disseminated quite as widely. If you don’t like closed conferences, you don’t have to attend them. Just my opinion – as someone who works in a field where a gene name disclosed can short-cut three years of hard work.
It is a really nice letter!… Congratulations Ian!
You could post the letter + jokes for us, uh?
I heard of a meeting recently when someone blogged the conference and included a totally unnecessary and inappropriate personal attack on one of the speakers.
So, whilst I totally agree with your comments in the letter there does need to be blogging rules and etiquette – although that already exists…so maybe we just need punishments for transgressions!!
To echo Jennifer’s comments on the possibility that someone will short-cut years of work, conferences are an opportunity to talk about work you’re not certain about and are not necessarily ready to share with everyone. The benefit being that you get some feedback on your work so far. If someone’s blogging your work and you don’t know about it, you probably won’t get the benefit, or an opportunity to defend your comments…
If people don’t feel secure presenting data they won’t present anything they haven’t published already and that makes for dull conferences.
Sorry this turned into a bit of an essay.
I read a great review of one of the Lord Of The Rings films in which the reviewer said words to the effect that the characters often arrive in a new place, look very serious, and one of them says something like ‘This is the Valley of Gorgonzola …. I sense evil here’.
But seriously, while I agree with Jenny, Ian has a point, and it’s this – don’t confuse the medium with the message. It’s easily done: when I wrote a cheerful blog in which I extolled the wonders of technology such that I could rejected a manuscript from my iPhone, it felt like the sky fell on my head. I’m not telling you if I still engage in this dubious practice, but if I did, who’d be any the wiser? Which kinda proves Ian’s point.
I wonder, can we tweet rejects?
140 and counting…
“Thanks for submitting your manuscript entitled X. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer publication because it is a massive steaming pile of”
Makes your job easier at any rate!
I read a great review of one of the Lord Of The Rings films in which the reviewer said words to the effect that the characters often arrive in a new place, look very serious, and one of them says something like ‘This is the Valley of Gorgonzola …. I sense evil here’.
That would be Legolas, in one of his more lucid moments, when he’s not busy skateboarding down some stairs or turning completely unnecessary backflips as he jumps on or off an Oliphaunt, or a ship, or something.
It’s the LOTR equivalent of the old Star Trek standby. When something catastrophically dire is happening somewhere in the ship, do you contact the captain and say “Captain! The main EPS conduit has bypassed the warp coil shunt, Counselor Troi is regressing into some kind of weird amphibian form, and the ghost of Sulu is running about grinning and waving a samurai sword!”?
No. What you say, for dramatic effect, is, “Captain, I think you’d better come and see this.”
@Mike: Ouch. Sorry mate. There was almost a sense of almost despondency at the US/Mexico score last night. Almost. I think one guy in Denver noticed.
I don’t know about hard data on the issue here. I think everyone knows someone who has been scooped or screwed over somehow. It happens enough that there is a communal/hive-mind response to sharing data. Does anyone know of some real analysis on this?
@Jenny: The editing was all-wright by me (once more…sorry). I had something in there about journos running for the banks of phones in old b&w movies that got cut out. No big deal at all.
As for posting on the net and everyman + dog™ finding your work. Well, I wonder, who cares. 99.9% of people are not scientists, and those that are who might care about your work will (or should) know about it via the literature and perhaps, if your work is novel enough, or groundbreaking enough, even be at the conference.
I don’t think it’s a disingenuous comparison at all. I think it’s a non sequitur.
And of course, I understand about the risks of being scooped. Mentioning the wrong gene in the wrong pathway and alerting the world to your findings before you’re ready to publish (my PhD is in genetics!). At the same time, you mention Chatham House rules. Well, these are supposed to be in play, by the rules of fair play, and people still cheat.
I think it’s a question of humankind being…well…human. If someone can get a dishonest leg up, there will always be a proportion of those who will seize that advantage. Whether I tweet your data or not.
I can see your argument, that Prof X (or his postdoc) might be following my live-blogging and thus scoop from afar, but then don’t present data you aren’t prepared to share. Boring conferences? Conferences are boring. The real science is done behind the scenes, not at my poster/presentation.
I can’t imagine this halcyon conference scene that everyone seems to think exists/did exist.
@Maria: I think that would infringe their copyright :) My words belong to them now…
@Samantha: I think that the addition of an ad hominem attack is completely unprofessional and unnecessary and that whomever did that should be “punished” in someway. Often one tries to be careful of one’s reputation. Maybe some people forget when they’re live-blogging in someway. But, that’s one of the major issues about the internet isn’t it? That feeling of anonymity leads people to ignore/disregard social constraints and launch the most scathing, vicious attacks. There’s name for it: trolling. And anyone doing so should be treated as such: We get Legolas to kick their ass in an Elf-ninja kind of way, while Gimli and the rest of the gang deal with the goblin hordes!
natch!
conferences are an opportunity to talk about work you’re not certain about and are not necessarily ready to share with everyone
but we don’t usually, so we. Unless you’re at an "elite’ conference like the Gordons, you don’t present something you’re unsure of because A) you open yourself up for lambast and attack (welcome to the conference circuit), and B) someone will steal it. Blogging/tweeting doesn’t change this. That’s the disingenuous argument here.
@HG: I remember that post, and the fall out. Storm in a tea-cup. Welcome to the wired world.
@Wintle: or you send some poor sap in a red shirt to investigate…
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, Ian. If you don’t see how a discoverable note on the internet can disseminate information faster and more widely than a phone call or a photo, then I doubt I can make it any plainer.
That would be Legolas, in one of his more lucid moments, when he’s not busy skateboarding down some stairs or turning completely unnecessary backflips as he jumps on or off an Oliphaunt, or a ship, or something.
It is a fact universally acknowledged that I am a Tolkien Geek. Much less well known is that Mrs Gee isn’t. She wouldn’t know the difference between a Hobbit and a Large Hadron Collider. She might have had The Hobbit read to her when she was young, but The Lord Of The Rings completely passed her by.
One evening I came home with the extended DVD edition of Fellowship of the Ring and put it on. Mrs Gee assumed her usual position when watching a film, which is horizontal, on the sofa, under a cat, with her eyes shut. Every few hours she’d wake up, glance at the screen, say “That’s nice, dear,” and fall asleep again.
A year later I came home with the extended DVD edition of The Two
TiddlersTowers. This time Mrs Gee was on the edge of her seat, throughout, totally engrossed even though she had no idea who was who, for how much, or why.Except when we got to the siege at Helm’s Deep when she said “300 elves against 10,000 orcs? What are the elves gonna do? Pour their shampoo all over them?”
@Jenny: but that’s also not the point I’m arguing. Of course it is getting information to a wider audience. But what are that audience going to do with it?
If a tree falls in a forest… <- aimed for something geekier, but too busy rushing between meetings…
I think blogging can be a really positive thing but I still think it will have a negative impact on conferences, whether it should or not, if people are worried about it.
I think this could be reduced a lot by developing some simple rules and then disseminating them so everyone knows where they stand. If someone is going to blog a conference everyone should know in advance and they should know where the blog will be so that they too can participate. This might also result in a more interesting blog. Then the obvious stuff like no trolling! For some conferences it may also be necessary to have additional rules like no discussing the details of animal work or where it is done – this depends on a lot of things, animals involved, country work is done in, etc and there are probably other similar topics in other fields that could potentially be security issues.
@ Ian you ignored the second half of my comment, I just want to know what is being disseminated to whom and where so that I can participate.
and conferences are not always boring…
I think blogging can be a really positive thing but I still think it will have a negative impact on conferences, whether it should or not, if people are worried about it.
People blog. There’s nothing we can do to stop it, unless you fail to provide wifi at the conference center block the internet in hotel rooms or wrap the host-city in a giant Faraday cage. So, instead of making sure the stable door is shut, we should be off looking for the horse. I am metaphor crazy today!
I think this could be reduced a lot by developing some simple rules and then disseminating them so everyone knows where they stand.
I completely agree. Jenny referred to the Charter House rules, which basically cover these sorts of situations. Unless explicitly told otherwise, assume that all communication is private. In the context of the conference this becomes the participants at your talk/poster. However, this is naive to a massive degree.
Firstly, we already know people will try and scoop you if they can. This already happens, and the interchoobs haven’t changed that. They may have sped things up, but they haven’t changed the basic concept that if you want to keep a secret, don’t tell anyone. If you want advice or input, ask privately; don’t stand and shout from the street corners. You don’t know who is listening.
I think this could be reduced a lot by developing some simple rules and then disseminating them so everyone knows where they stand.
this is a nice idea; along the lines of an (un)official conference blog. I think some are coming round to this idea already. however, it will not stop private/personal blogging, and it certainly won’t stop someone stealing your ideas.
Then the obvious stuff like no trolling! For some conferences it may also be necessary to have additional rules like no discussing the details of animal work or where it is done – this depends on a lot of things, animals involved, country work is done in, etc and there are probably other similar topics in other fields that could potentially be security issues.
Good luck censoring the internet. Let me know how you get on with that…
@ Ian you ignored the second half of my comment, I just want to know what is being disseminated to whom and where so that I can participate…If someone’s blogging your work and you don’t know about it, you probably won’t get the benefit, or an opportunity to defend your comments…
I really do agree with you here. Part of my argument is obviously playing Devil’s Advocate because the knee-jerk reaction of “oh noes he blogged me!” irritates the hell out of me. It’s ill-conceived reactionism and has no place in scientific discourse.
But, the benefits of interacting with someone, picking their brains, bouncing ideas back and forth, comes form just that: interaction. Static reportage is not interaction so there is little to gain except from the blogger’s PoV: dissemination of something of personal interest. If someone is blogging about your work they are doing nothing more than relaying information. there is no discussion, no exchange of ideas, no argument, discussion or sharing. So, you’re not losing anything. Now, if everybody who went to your talk ran off and blogged about it, that would be a sorry situation: you would get no feedback and bloggers like me would feel less cool and cutting-edge. However, that’s not going to happen, so we return, D.C. al coda, to “oh noes” et al.
300 elves against 10,000 orcs? What are the elves gonna do? Pour their shampoo all over them?
Of course, you (Henry) are a big enough Tolkien
geekfan to know that the Elves weren’t at Helm’s Deep.Also, my wife and I are at present working our way through the whole extended set right now, for the umpteenth time (12 disc set, courtesy of Brother Wintle). Of course we will need to replace it with a Blu-Ray version at some point. Sigh.
Of course, you (Henry) are a big enough Tolkien geek fan to know that the Elves weren’t at Helm’s Deep.
Ah, but they were in the film. With their haircare products.
I got one of the first boxed sets to come out. And lost it when I moved :( sniff sniff
Sorry to go back on topic elphofiles, but could we appeal to bloggers, conference organisers or funding agencies
betterfinancial instincts?Many (if not most) conferences have a pretty high attendance fee – of the order of hundreds of dollars per individual, which soon adds up for large meetings.
If more people can get their conference info free via blogs, attendances may drop, organisers get less money, advertisers get less exposure, organisers get less money, scientists get less (useful, face to face) feedback, attendances decline, organisers get less moolah…
Perhaps this will evolve into a self-policing phenomenon. Organisers will do
sumsome sums and develop blog rules, elves will continue to do things, because they’re worth it. And Brooksy will sneak shameless birthday present hints into his blog. {kudos}I think that’s what’s going to happen in the long run. If not financial (and this is a BIG incentive…my professional conference is $245 to register and they expect >30,000 attendees + businesses…), professional standards will evolve.
It’s getting increasingly difficult to stay/keep anonymous, and I think e-society will evolve such that any ‘negative e-impact’ is minimized by openness/awareness of some type of consequence.
Also, and I’m surprised no one picked up on this: when one is scooped one knows the offender. I can cause a great deal of friction (+1 for understatement!). It will be increasingly obvious who offending bloggers/twits might be as the nature of the medium evolves.
@Jenny: but that’s also not the point I’m arguing. Of course it is getting information to a wider audience. But what are that audience going to do with it?
Quite a bit, if they want to. I think until something bad happens to you in this arena, it’s hard to be sympathetic to my particular point of view on this. To make a long story short, I was heavily burned a few years ago when someone took information I presented at a closed conference and posted it on the web. This then was seen by the person who scooped me – he told me so himself, with much smugness. The person who stole my information never bothered to attend conferences in the field. So your earlier statement, 99.9% of people are not scientists, and those that are who might care about your work will (or should) know about it via the literature and perhaps, if your work is novel enough, or groundbreaking enough, even be at the conference., may all be well and good, but if you’re at the receiving end as the 0.1%, it’s not fun. Especially if you attended on the understanding that people would respect the house rules. I also doubt that it’s as low as 0.1%.
Basically, I think there is still a place for occasional closed conferences and that the restrictions should be accepted by all, twitterers included. As I said before, if you don’t like closed conferences, don’t go to them. There are plenty of open ones to choose from. Leakage will never be eliminated, but if everyone is respected, it can be kept to a minimum.
Leakage will never be eliminated, but if everyone is respected, it can be kept to a minimum.
Absolutely. I hope I made my view (sans devil’s advocate stance) clear over my last couple of comments.
if you’re at the receiving end as the 0.1%, it’s not fun.
I can’t imagine how bad and frustrating that is. I really can’t.
the person who scooped me…told me so himself, with much smugness
I sincerely hope you wrapped a insert blunt implement of choice round his head for that…I certainly would…
Ah, I’m far too sweet for revenge. Didn’t anyone tell you?
How can miscreants be punished?
Jenny: I am not sure I would see that as revenge. More like, “dish it out, you can take it, right?” i.e. justice.
I am sure it said somewhere in my MyerBriggs personnality test that I am all for justice and objectivity , not about revenge ;)
In regards to the whole internet/conference thing I only have one quick comment. It’s like the same for me about taking pictures of posters when noone is around. I don’t like that per se either. Talk to the presenter etc but it is just too easy (lazy) to take pics of power points and posters and then post them on line…. I’m sorry, my feel is that you would contact some people in email/phone based on their abstracts in case you are interested in what they do. That is more open way of communications. And I would guess this openness/scooped do have implications for what ou are willing to present at certain conferences and not – like the idea of smaller closed conferences for the cool people in the field where research may be discussed in detailed but not for anyone…. (not necessary bad per se but it does turn into more of a “closed club for the initiated”)
But of course, I am probably playing it too nice – it is a competition and all people are clearly not honest but rather wanting to finish on top, taking short cuts or not….
@Jenny: You wot? Mucho LOLOLOz….
@HG: Set Jenny on ’em.
@Asa: my feel is that you would contact some people in email/phone based on their abstracts in case you are interested in what they do. That is more open way of communications.
Are we still talking about scientists? Some of the most socially inept people on the face of the
middleearth?BRooks< yes, scientists. Supposedly you should be able to communicate… then again, I might be too optimistic (see the joke there? haha, me too optimistic. HAHA)
Well done!
Thankyuh Very Much