Women science bloggers: Some thoughts

Robin Lloyd explains in “Woman science bloggers discuss pros and cons of online exposure” (Jan 18, 2011),

Blogging and other Web activities have allowed members of many marginalized communities to open previously locked media doors. But women still rely more on back channels and ask for less help than men do in the digital realm. This tendency and other issues of concern for women bloggers were discussed Sunday at the ScienceOnline2011 conference in Durham, N.C., primarily in a session called "Perils of blogging as a woman under a real name."

Huh?

Experiences varied among attendees on whether blogging under a real name did indeed present perils. Miriam Goldstein (@oystersgarter), a doctoral student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and blogger at Deep-Sea News says she has never had a negative experience. But stories surfaced regarding inappropriate comments by male readers. And one attendee voiced concerns about being emailed by a reader who said he was near her campus and about to stop by her office. Christie Wilcox (@NerdyChristie), a doctoral student at the University of Hawaii-Manoa who blogs at Observations of Nerd, said she only received nasty comments when she blogged on the science of make-up—and the anger came from women. Tribalism takes many forms.

Well, if you have dealt with minor Darwinists, as I have, and are not one of their companions, you get to hear how some of them talk about women. But God or nature or the guardian angel of marriages - or somebody or other anyway - invented a back browser button and a delete key.

I guess the big time Darwinists approve of all that stuff. I've never heard of them telling those dudes to smarten up, or slide their keesters to the low class boozehole down the road. I once had a problem with a guy who professed support for ID who behaved like that, but I heard vaguely that he had his can kicked six ways to Sunday over it. Nothing to do with me.

Actually, we had a problem with Darwinmouth here in Canada, but a smart blogger chick discovered and publicized the guy's true name. Worked wonders. (= One reason I don't like avatars is ... )

About real names: I blog under my real name. Yes. Can we get past that? (After all, if I had to consult the police station down the street about a truly difficult person, what is the first thing they would ask me?) I kind of miss the days when writers insisted on their byline.

I can't relate to all the questions raised in the article because they involve concerns about tenure or promotion tracks that elude a career freelance hack like me. But this gets better:
Read more »

Blogging: Crocodile, crocodile, cry me some tears ...

Alan Mutter at Reflections of a Newsosaur blog reports that

While more people than ever may be visiting newspaper websites, they are sticking around less this year than they were in 2007.

That’s the troubling problem the Newspaper Association of America failed to mention this week, when it reported that the number of unique visitors at its members’ websites increased 12.3% to an all-time high of 199.1 million in the first three months of the year.

But an analysis of the first-quarter web traffic reported by the industry association determines that, by most other key measures, the relative popularity of newspaper websites has waned in the last year in spite of the industry’s professed commitment to aggressively building online products and revenues.

Anyone familiar with today's news environment won't be surprised at the fact that many people prefer to go to blogs.

Meanwhile, the New York Times, whose circulation seems to be bleeding while mine is growing, published a story recently by Matt Richtel about the Web World of 24/7 stress of "blog till they drop" types (like me?), citing two recent deaths of bloggers:

The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves — and are being well-compensated for it.

“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

“This is not sustainable,” he said.

Funny, I would have said that about The New York Times. But hey.

Well, here's one blogger's less melodramatic tale:

I make a living, am still undead, and have not come anywhere near a nervous breakdown. I prefer blogging to writing for magazines because I can usually link my readers to my sources. So if they want to pursue a story in more detail, they can follow the links. Not only that, I can link to images, audio, and video.

Improvements I would like to see: If I were a techhead, I would long ago have figured out how to offer images, audio, and video myself. But I am not a techhead, there are only so many hours in a day, and I do NOT blog till I drop. Just like you, I have a life - a family, friends, a church, a garden, and all that. And every so often a publisher wants me to write a book, too.

Problems I would like to see solved: (1) bonehead governments that make laws about the Internet which don't make sense and (2) publications that charge a fortune to view their articles - which means I can't link my readers to my sources.

But I don't see how The New York Times can help me with any of that. For all I know, they would want more bonehead laws and higher fees. So go ahead, Times, cry me a river. We need rain here in Toronto.

The growing importance of blogging

I asked some friends a while back what I should say to a group of magazine editors about blogging. Is it just a passing phase?

A young scientist relied, noting the following:

I, a biotechnology lab researcher, have not read a printed newspaper or a hard-copy magazine cover-to-cover for about 10 years. I would (informally) break down my media exposure (per visual/audio word) in the last 5 years as follows:

35%: blogs about science, international, and national news (delivered to me via RSS/XML)
35%: email updates from Google News, Nature, Science, NCBI(PubMed)
10%: websites covering news
8%: podcasts about scientific issues
8%: conversational/word of mouth
2%: radio news (like NPR, local talk radio, news blurbs on music stations)
1%: printed news in any form
1%: TV news

His media consumption habits - I find - are becoming more common, with both good and bad effects, but all of them unavoidable ones.

I started this blog about two and a half years ago now, with the idea of cumulating the events of the intelligent design controversy that happened after the publication of my book By Design or by Chance?. That would certainly make the book easier to update.

Somehow or other, along the way, this blog took on a life of its own. (A new origin of life theory, anyone?)

But I had learned something too. As soon as I recovered from writing my share of The Spiritual Brain, I started the Mindful Hack (a riff on "mind hacks" - materialist neuroscientists and neuroscience writers). I didn't wait for the Spiritual Brain book to be published.

For my next book, I think I will blog while the book is in progress. There is definitely some synergy between books and blogging, though I am not certain how to describe it ...