This time they’re going after Tara. So sad that a fundraiser would inspire such an underhanded attack. Someone must be feeling very desperate!
* * * * *
Reading Aetiology was fun — but suddenly I was washing my hands obsessively, sending back rare hamburgers at restaurants, and turning down rest-stop guitar-string tattoos. My friends want to know what happened to the happy-go-lucky guy I used to be.
That blog turned out to be a vector of buzz-kill.
I plan to protect my kids from the germ theory of disease.
Category Archives: Blogospheric science
Being ethical — and being prudent — with pseudonymous blogging.
I’m following up on my earlier post in the wake of the outing of dKos blogger Armando. At Majikthise, Lindsay Beyerstein had posted an interesting discussion of the issues around pseudonymous blogging, and whether it might sometimes be ethical to reveal the secret identity of a pseudonymous blogger. She raises lots of interesting issues about whether blogging is properly regarded as a species of journalism, and how the ethics of blogging might be related to the journalistic ethics of the “old media”. As well, Armando turns up in the comments to disagree with Lindsay’s analysis of the issues.
My read is that the disagreement between Armando and Lindsay arises from a conflation of a number of distinct questions:
- Are bloggers journalists, or are they something else?
- If bloggers are not journalists, what are their ethical obligations (e.g., to their readers)? Do they have a duty to disclose potential conflicts of interest?
- Do journalists have a duty to protect the secret identity of a blogger who wishes to blog pseudonymously?
- Does a blogger who wishes to blog pseudonymously have a right to have his or her secret identity protected (by journalists, bloggers, and others)?
There seem to be some important theoretical details to work out here, such as whether bloggers are journalists, and whether the ethics of blogging are different from traditional journalistic ethics. As well, though, there are important questions about what sorts of policies are prudent for a blogger who wishes to blog pseudonymously — regardless of the ethical obligations relevant others might have in the situation.
Two days in: DonorsChoose progress report.
We kicked off the ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose drive just over 50 hours ago. Since then:
- ScienceBlogs readers have made donations totaling $8498.73
- SEED is matching that $8498.73, and will match up to another $1501.27.
- Doing the math, your donations plus SEED matches means at least $16, 997.46 will go to help teachers and students. But, we’re going until July 1, so I know we can do better than that!
- Dave and Greta at Cognitive Daily are sweetening the pot even more — they’ll kick in their own money to add another 10% to any amount you donate to their challenge. (Don’t forget, that gets matched by SEED, too!)
- The Pharyngula challenge hit — and exceeded — its goal. (Nothing exceeds like excess.) At this point, I leave it to PZ to advise his minions about which of the other bloggers’ challenges they ought to support.
- Publish my haiku.
Help teachers help their students.
Hey, I can do both! - So far, exactly 17 readers who have made donations have forwarded their email confirmations from DonorsChoose to sb.donorschoose.bonanza@gmail.com to enter the drawing for fabulous prizes at the end of the drive. We have way more than 17 prizes to give away. Just thought you should know.
- Speaking of the fabulous prizes, I must give a shout-out to editor extraordinaire Mark Taber who got us 10 copies of SAMS Teach Yourself Blogging in a Snap to offer as prizes gratis! Knowing the author, I was psyched that we’d be able to get the book at the “author’s copies” price for the drawing, but Mark decided free was better.
Keep up the good work, folks!
Slashdot: News for nerds, or merely sexist?
Maybe this is a bad idea, but I’m unable to resist poking this particular hornets’ nest. (I’ve poked it before, after all.)
There’s a post on Slashdot reporting that GNOME got 181 applications for Google’s Summer of Code from men and zero applications from women. As a result, Google has seen fit to mount a Women’s Summer Outreach Program 2006.
But here’s the “value added” to this information by Slashdot:
Most any science department will tell you that the amount of interest and involvement of women pales next to men of similar age and background. Is this sponsorship a creative way to get women interested in GNOME, or is it merely sexist?
DonorsChoose update: now with matching funds from SEED!
Since we kicked off the drive yesterday morning:
- ScienceBlogs readers have made donations totaling $3784.30
- Our beneveolent overlords at SEED have put up as much as $10,000 to match reader donations*. That means that so far, SEED is kicking in $3784.30 to match what you all have donated. And, if readers can collectively donate another $6125.70, SEED is committed to matching that as well.
- So far, exactly 13 readers who have made donations have forwarded their email confirmations from DonorsChoose to sb.donorschoose.bonanza@gmail.com to enter the drawing for fabulous prizes at the end of the drive. We have way more than 13 prizes to give away. Just thought you should know.
- In the bragging-rights battle between biology and cognitive science blogs … well, it’s not even close. The participating biology blogs have so far raised $2315.26 (or $289.41 per participating blog), while the cognitive science blogs have raised $146.81 (or $73.40 per participating blog). Come on, you brainiacs, give the biologists what for!
In case you’d like another look at the array of fabulous prizes, I’ve reproduced the list below the fold.
New data on awesome generosity of Sb readers.
Just a quick update on the progress of the ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose raise-money-to-help-science-classrooms-a-thon:
- At last check (as I’m composing this post), across all the Sb blogs participating in the challenge, readers have donated more than $3000. That’s a strong start, readers!
- The bloggers at The World’s Fair are going to try to get you to donate to their challenge by promising, for a donation of $10 or more, to publish a science haiku of your composition in The Science Creative Quarterly. Is that fair?
- If you would like to help a particular geographical region, it’s worth combing through the participating bloggers’ challenges. For example, Mike Dunford of The Questionable Authority has set up a challenge aimed at helping classrooms in the Bronx. And I’m just betting that Coturnix’s challenge and Abel PharmBoy’s challenge include some worthy North Carolina proposals!
- Do cognitive science blogs have better readers, or do biology blogs? We’ll have to watch the progress of the challenges from the cog sci camp and the biology beach-head to find out for sure! If you’ve got a horse in that particular race, it’s time to represent.
- If you give, you might just get! Don’t forget to forward your confirmation email from DonorsChoose to sb.donorschoose.bonanza@gmail.com if you would like to enter the drawing for the fabulous prizes!
You folks are the best!
(The full list of participating bloggers, and links to their challenges, after the jump.)
Bringing the new neighbors some pi (a Sb 2.0 meme).
In honor of the arrival of all the new neighbors here at ScienceBlogs Towers, here’s a little getting-acquainted meme.
3 reasons you blog about science:
- To make the scientific method less scary to non-scientists.
- To examine the ways in which behaving ethically really makes for better scientific knowledge.
- Because I find science endlessly fascinating.
Point at which you would stop blogging:
If I ran out of things to say (which is hard for me to imagine).
1 thing you frequently blog besides science:
Academic stuff (pedagogical musings, rants about cheating, etc.)
4 words that describe your blogging style:
- Conversational
- Opinionated
- Curious
- Witty (sometimes … I hope!)
(More decimal places after the jump!)
I sense a disturbance in the Force.
It’s like the blogoverse suddenly got more concentrated or something.
Oh wait, I remember! It’s move-in day at the newly completed ScienceBlogs Towers! Look at all those moving vans! Look at all those bloggers! A quick run-down of my new neighbors (and their previous addresses) after the jump. And mad props to Sb Towers architect and interior designer Tim Murtaugh!!
Anonymity, openness, safety, and responsibility.
This week, the National Review Online’s media blogger revealed the secret identity of dKos blogger Armando, who says that this unwanted decloaking probably means he will no longer blog.
While I’m not heavy into the political end of the blogosphere (until someone can provide me with more than 24 hours per day), Armando’s story resonates with me because one of my favorite science bloggers, BotanicalGirl, had to stop blogging when members of her department became aware of her blog. So I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging anonymously versus blogging under one’s own name, not just in terms of the costs and benefits for the blogger, but also in terms of what the readers are getting out of (or reading into) the blog.
All the form, none of the content!
After the fall of humanity, when the hyperintelligent cockroaches are trying to reconstruct the ancient human practice of “commenting on a blog”, this is the entry they will end up putting in the textbooks.
I disagree vehemently with the entry itself, but the comments come as close to the Platonic form of constituents of a comment thread as you will ever get in imperfect, materially instantiated cyberspace.
(Hat tip: Crooked Timber)