I think I can safely say that our event on Friday at the Harvard Kennedy School, entitled "Unruly Democracy: Science Blogs and the Public Sphere," was a success, and perhaps even exceeded expectations. The room was full; the presentations were great; we had a historic first panel bringing together representatives of Seed, Discover, and The Boston Globe to talk about three different approaches to science blogging; we had a real debate about whether blogs are "good" or "bad" for science--and we had a move towards some constructive suggestions for finding better norms in the blogosphere. If you want proof that the event has caused some very important thought and reflection, you need go no further than this lengthy post from Jessica Palmer of Bioephemera, who attended and gave a rockin' talk on my panel. Jessica is, broadly speaking, in my camp--or what on Friday was called the "Sunsteinian" camp--when it comes to the negatives of blogging. Why? Some excerpts from her post:
My big concern? While individual blogs often have communities who are internally civil and share norms and history, when you move from blog to blog, those norms and history break down. There are no universal norms in the science blogosphere, ...