Why I blog instead of writing papers

Why I blog instead of writing papers

@rdmpage

http://iphylo.blogspot.com

Blogging

Facebook

Twitter

Blogging

Facebook

Twitter

Why blog?

Rants, raves (and occasionally considered opinions) on phyloinformatics, taxonomy, and biodiversity informatics. For more ranty and less considered opinions, see my Twitter feed.

What sort of things do I blog about?

Rants

Reviews

Experiments

Grant proposals

NERC said NO

Analyses

Dark taxa

http://iphylo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/dark-taxa-genbank-in-post-taxonomic.html

Mammals in GenBank

Proper Linnaean names

Aus sp.

Mammals

Proper Linnaean names

Aus sp.

“Invertebrates”

BOLD

Is this a problem?

It’s the norm for Bacteria

Why blog?

Déjà vu

@cboettig

http://www.carlboettiger.info/2012/09/28/Welcome-to-my-lab-notebook.html

Immediate feedback

(great if you are a shy attention seeker)

Blogs can lead to conversations

“Dark taxa” conversation 68 comments

Isn’t it vanity publishing?

Of course it is!

Isn’t any publishing?

Is your blog any good?

Does it get cited?

Citations to “dark taxa” blog post

An update on DNA barcoding: low species coverage and numerous unidentified sequenceshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-0031.2012.00408.x

No name, no game http://dx.doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2012.10

Ramping up biodiversity discovery via online quantum contributions http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2011.10.010

Applications of Natural Language Processing in Biodiversity Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/391574

https://twitter.com/dpsspiders/status/281094052072542208

What do I want for Christmas?

DOIs for my blog posts

What about peer review?

Watson and Crick 1953

Not peer reviewed

Peer review as filter

Physical and/or economic limits on how big a journal can be

Accept for publication

Submitted for publication

Filter, then publish

Peer review as filter

Physical and/or economic limits on how big a journal can be

Accept for publication

Submitted for publication

…publish, then filter

Attention filter

Peer-review doesn’t guarantee science is correct

NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2 [2010], to discuss an

astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.

A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus

Wolfe-Simon et al. 2010Science

doi:10.1126/science.1197258

@RosieRedfield

(University of British Columbia)

Lots of flim-flam, but very little reliable information … If this data was presented by a PhD student at their committee meeting, I'd send them back to the bench to do more cleanup and controls.

http://rrresearch.fieldofscience.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-bacteria-nasas.html

https://twitter.com/ironlisa/statuses/11579028288839680

NASA DID NOT HYPE anything – others did. Credible media organizations have not questioned NASA about any text. Bloggers and social media have.

NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Absence of Detectable Arsenate in DNA from Arsenate-Grown GFAJ-1 Cells

Reaves et al. July 2012

Sciencedoi:10.1126/science.1219861

Rebuttal in peer-reviewed literature

but released as preprint…

arXiv:1201.6643

…and initial concerns raised on blog

What’s next?

Science as a process will be open

figshare.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.92668

Everything of interest will be citable(papers, data, figures, blogs)

http://www.altmetric.com/

http://impactstory.org/

… and that is why I blog instead of writing papers