I found the article about science using modern tools interesting, especially the part about ‘blogophobia’, which in my experience is often a substantial issue: many potential guest posters aren’t quite ready, because of the fear of a permanent public mistake, because it is particularly hard to write about the unknown (the essence of research), and because the system for public credit doesn’t yet really handle blog posts.
So far, science has been relatively resistant to discussing research on blogs. Some things need to change to get there. Public tolerance of the occasional mistake is essential, as is a willingness to cite (and credit) blogs as freely as papers.
I’ve often run into another reason for holding back myself: I don’t want to overtalk my own research. Nevertheless, I’m slowly changing to the opinion that I’m holding back too much: the real power of a blog in research is that it can be used to confer with many people, and that just makes research work better.
Thanks for the post John. this is a very importent subject. blog your thoughts and the rest will come.
Cheers,
Tal.
So very true and right, I’ve been having the same feeling and “fears” for my research, as I recently started my work. Nevertheless, I’m becoming more and more fond of opening the door to more ideas and interaction leveraging the benefits and opportunities of a blog.
An example is SYSLAB(http://syslab.dsv.su.se)which has already started such an initiative a year ago using ning promoting interaction among its members and not only.
I agree with your conclusion. From my point of view, the more you write, the better for me. 🙂
Thanks for the great blog.
I’m surprised the article didn’t mention http://researchblogging.org, which “strives to identify serious academic blog posts about peer-reviewed research with an aggregation site where others can look to find the best academic blogging on the Net.” They also have their blog about research blogging (meta-research-blog?) at http://bpr3.org. I also read several of the blogs hosted at http://scienceblogs.com, many of which also do the “blog about peer-reviewed research” thing. I’m particularly fond of “Good Math, Bad Math” (Math/CS) and “Uncertain Principles” (Physics). There’s also http://badastronomy.com/bablog for astronomy.
Daniel Lemire has recently made several posts related to the use of blogs in research, collaboration thru the web, etc…
Overall this seems to be a hot topic among blogger/researchers, a turn in science practices?
John, I definitely agree with you on this point. When writing about research, you generally have two fears. The first is making a mistake and the second is someone using your idea, getting better results and publishing before you 🙂