Musing on Science Blogging Networks

"The remnant of a supernova explosion consists of a compact object and a rapidly expanding shock wave of material. This cloud of material sweeps up the surrounding interstellar medium during a free expansion phase." -Wikipedia.

I was up until the early hours this morning. Why? Well, there was a sudden outburst from some Nature Network science bloggers on Twitter and I was too intrigued to not follow the proceedings (in real time). Long story cut short, a bunch of high profile bloggers were leaving Nature Network to form a new independent science blogging network called Occam's Typewriter.

As Bora Zivkovic, now community manager at Scientific American science blogging network, predicted in his blog post following the mass exodus of bloggers from uber-popular science blogging network, Scienceblogs.com, it will become more common practice for science bloggers to move their blogs around the blogosphere. (I agree but only a certain extent. More on this below.) In the past six months or so, a number of science blogging networks have sprung to life. Some are hosted by reputable publications like The Guardian and Wired while others are ‘brainchilds' of independent parties as is the new Occam's Typewriter. With such a variety of science blogging networks now around, science bloggers have a greater choice of where to set tent. They now have a greater chance of finding a network that better fits their blogging requirements or ideology, for instance.

This week, Nature Network was not the only science blogging network to see some of its more popular bloggers leave though. Independent science blogging network, Labspaces, saw some of its most respected bloggers leave as well. The fact that both networks lost bloggers is not of particular interest per se and I shall not dwell into the details of the bloggers' demise. What is interesting however is that those two fundamentally quite different networks went face to face with the same problem: dissatisfaction from their bloggers which ultimately led to them leaving.

Some science blogging networks have aim to regroup a substantial number of bloggers in one place and others are more interested in providing a more cozy space for a smaller bunch of dedicated bloggers with whom they share a similar philosophy. Nature Network falls in the first category while Labspaces falls in the second category. It is important to state those categories as the way a blogging network is run depends to a considerable extent on the number of bloggers it encompasses.

However different the two networks are, it is my opinion that the root of their troubles is the same. In my opinion, things took a bad turn for the networks because the bloggers were no longer in sync with the networks' aims or goals or philosophies. As both networks tried to ‘progress' in their own individual directions, some of their bloggers decided they did not want to be part of said ‘progress' and opted to leave.

And here we touch a dilemma: bloggers make up a blogging network and they surely should have a say in the network's running but the network provides bloggers with the tools, space and exposure and it should have a say in its running too. Ultimately, I believe that this is the hard bone. Who should have the final say? Who should be listened to? Who should decide if and how the network should ‘progress'.

Whichever strategy is decided upon will be an important factor in how a network will be run. But the strategy should be acknowledged by all bloggers and network overlords and should be respected. The factions that developed at Nature Network and Labspaces shows that this point was either not taken into account or taken too lightly by both the networks and the bloggers.

In my own personal view, the strategy that will eventually be adopted by most networks is one where both the bloggers and network overlords will decide together how the network should be run. As the number of science blogging networks and science blogs increase in the future, the truly successful ones will be those who are the most stable-i.e. those where dialogue between the overlords and bloggers is courteous and frequent-and with a profound understanding of their niches. A constant dialogue may be more easily implemented in smaller networks where compromises may be more easily attained amongst bloggers. In bigger networks, perhaps an elected group of bloggers may be elected to represent the bloggers as a whole. In such a landscape, bloggers will find less incentive to jump ship or find it more difficult to do so, even.

The state of the science blogosphere as it is now is one of eruptions, supernovas, remolding and rebirth. It will eventually calm down into a more stable ecosystem soon enough. In the meantime, networks and bloggers should be more clearly aware of their responsibilities to one another.

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I would like to stress that the views presented in this blog post are mine and mine only. Furthermore, it is not my intention to point fingers but rather to critically analyze the events of this week and build on them. I would also love to hear your thoughts on this blog post so please feel free to leave a comment or two.