A few additional updates on the ScienceBlogs debacle (sounds way better than “Pepsi-Gate”):
- Angry weighs in on the ScienceBlogs debacle with a web comic summary.
- A recently updated scorecard of who’s in and who’s out at ScienceBlogs from Skulls in the Stars. The “strike” has apparently been resolved.
- Luboš Motl compares the science of the “Food Frontiers” blog to ScienceBlogs’ most popular posts:
Seed Magazine happened to forget that their blogging platform has been built upon a time bomb. The magazine has filled their server with dozens of unhinged activists who pretend to be interested in science but whose real passion is radical left-wing politics.
Interestingly, Myers says Luboš Motl’s claim to have been invited to join ScienceBlogs was ludicrous because Myers and the existing ScienceBlog bloggers were going to blackball him anyway so he’d never have been accepted. Right. If that kind of reinforcing self-selection were going on, it goes a long way toward explaining the mindset of so many bloggers in the ScienceBlogs community and also why the decision to add “Food Frontiers” without consulting the bloggers already in the network was so contentious. It’s no wonder the communications were so poor between Seed Media and its client bloggers – I certainly wouldn’t welcome trying to explain the benefits of enhancing revenue through corporate sponsorship to the anti-corporate types at ScienceBlogs. I empathize with Seed Media.
- Watt’s Up With That? has a post about ScienceBlog bloggers’ exodus. Andrew Watt’s post riled P.Z. Myers.
- If you missed it, some great comments on my original post.
- And finally, “A Tempest in a Pepsi Can” from Carl Fink, for a good common sense analysis. Of course, linking back to AetherCzar always makes sense! Thanks!
3 thoughts on “More on the ScienceBlogs Debacle”
You, Anthony, and others have missed the rationale of the Scienceblogs implosion entirely.
You write:
“It’s no wonder the communications were so poor between Seed Media and its client bloggers – I certainly wouldn’t welcome trying to explain the benefits of enhancing revenue through corporate sponsorship to the anti-corporate types at ScienceBlogs.”
But the heart of the problem is that Seed didn’t even try to explain. They just switched revenue models in mid-stream without telling anyone. THAT is the issue. They made a significant business decision without consulting the stakeholders. And of course the stakeholders were pissed.
Many bloggers at Sb- myself included- had been less than happy with a lack of transparency between Seed and the bloggers. To me, the incident revealed how little Seed management really understood the network they had created. Some of us would be fine with the corporate-sponsored model if it had been handled in a way that showed Seed was competent to manage the interests of all parties involved.
Instead, we got a glimpse of a poorly-run operation, one that lacked vision and one that seemed oblivious to some basic principles of management. Some of us decided we’d prefer to blog elsewhere. The Pepsi/Corporate issue is a red herring.
I understand the widespread dissatisfaction with Seed Media among the ScienceBlogs bloggers was a key factor in the implosion. I understand that some bloggers felt blindsided by Seed Media’s decision. I also understand others were angry with the thought of their blogging forum being shared with a “sponsored” blog that bought its way on instead of having “earned” it. Finally, I understand some were not happy with sharing space with a “paid advertisement” – as they perceived it, no matter what disclaimers or notices Seed Media might put on the blog in full disclosure of the relationship.
But help me out here with a thought experiment…
Suppose Seed Media had agreed to accept Food Frontiers *without* any sponsorship – the same deal as all the other ScienceBlogs bloggers get. Yes, the blog was lackluster and prone to PR type posts (at least back at the time the implosion happened – they seem to be improving of late). But Seed Media could have made a plausible case that the stable of bloggers at Food Frontiers included some credible scientists – and could have taken the position that they were willing to let their readers vote with their page views and to either read it or not.
I hypothesize that the reaction would have been similar because I suspect a large portion of the antipathy against Food Frontiers was due to anti-corporate bias. I suspect that while individual corporate scientists who happen to blog might be tolerated, ones officially blogging on behalf of their employers’ science and scientific achievements were considered unacceptable.
Would you disagree?
I particularly like David Appell’s take on the subject. And yes, I’ve seen David Dobbs’ rebutal.
In any event, thanks for taking the time to drop by and comment. And by the way, I love your “bug” portraits. I’ll be making a point of showing them to my kids.
Just to clarify – I have no problem with ScienceBlogs posting lots of non-scientific posts (though perhaps “ScientistBlogs” might have been a more appropriate name). Part of the fun of sharing one’s enthusiasm and passion for science is passing on one’s full range of interests including potentially politics. That’s exactly what I do at AetherCzar – blogging not exclusively about antennas, electromagnetics, real-time locating systems and the like, but also about issues facing entrepreneur-scientists, and completely unrelated things that just happen to interest me.