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Ed Yong (@edyong) doesn't like Khalil A. Cassimally's recent post "What is the place of new science bloggers in today's science blogosphere?"

Here's where it loses me: the argument is that the stable size of science blogging networks is depriving new bloggers of "chances" and that "not only is this unfair but it's also unmeritocratic."

Ed's criticism is spot on -- for those science bloggers who are trying to make a career. But he also misses a few points I'd like to make.

1. Simply getting bloggers who are part of one of the big networks to link to independent blogs or smaller networks won't decrease the dominance of the networks. It will bring attention to a few bloggers who might not otherwise have been noticed, but it won't reduce the dominance of Discover or Scientific American as a "go-to" place for science blogs. If there dominance is a problem (and I don't think there is), Cassimally's suggestions won't solve it.
2. There will always be a small number of science bloggers who are relatively prominent and a much larger number (like me) who are barely noticed. It can't be any other way. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many readers. No matter how many "missing links" or "tip jars" Ed or other prominent science bloggers provide, only a tiny fraction of science bloggers will be widely read. Those links will bring a post or two to a wider readership, but few of those readers are likely to stick around. If you want to be in the tiny fraction that is widely read, read Ed's post and follow his advice.
3. Some of us are content to blog away at the margins of blogosphere barely being noticed. I get only about 60-70 unique visitors a day, and I doubt that I'll ever get many more. I blog because I know there are a few people who are interested in what I have to say and occasionally I can point them to something they find useful or interesting. Sure, I'd like to have a few thousand visitors a day. It would be a real kick. But I am also realistic enough to know that I don't have enough time to find that much interesting stuff to write. I have a day job (resarch and teaching). For me, blogging just a small way I can share some of what I learn with a few people who aren't my students.¹

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I'll be visiting family and friends in Idaho and lecturing in Module 3, Population genetic data analysis, of the 16th Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics at the University of Washington in Seattle. Blogging will be light (or non-existent) until I return.

I am not a bot.

Last year, Luca Aiello, a PhD student at the University of Torino, began analysing an online social network dedicated to the discussion of books. He created software, known as a crawler, that mapped the connections within the network. To give the crawler access to the network, Aiello had to create an account for it. To his surprise, users started noticing that the crawler was visiting their pages. They flocked to the crawler's page. It now has over 70 followers and has received over 2,000 messages, says Aiello, making it one of the most popular members of the network. (from New Scientist)

If I were a bot, you'd see posts a lot more frequently.

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This blog gets very few comments, so there won't be many of you who notice this change, but I've had to change the comment policy here. Only authenticated commenters will now be able to post. You can authenticate yourself through Google, Facebook, or several other sites, but I've had to institute this because darwin (my server) has been getting slammed with comment spam over the last few days. I know that requiring authentication makes this site less friendly, but I didn't have any choice.

Sorry.

Once again, a few miscreants make the world a less pleasant place for the rest of us.

Have you missed me?¹ I was in Beijing for the Chinese edition of the Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics just before the semester began on the 30th of August, and I've been playing catch-up ever since. I'm going to try to start posting regularly again -- maybe not once a day, but at least 3-4 times a week. Here are a few things I hope to mention later this week.

• Gene Likens  started off this year's Teale Series with a talk on the "voice" of science in policy (his scare quotes, not mine). He made many excellent points, but he missed an opportunity to make one important one. I'll offer a few thoughts on his talk, which is more than a little daunting, since he's had so much more experience in applying science to policy than I have.
• My copy of resonate arrived late last week. I won't have a chance to read it carefully for awhile, but I'll share first impressions based on a quick survey of its contents. I'm really looking forward to digging in.
• The University of California and Nature Publishing Group appear to have reached an agreement on subscription prices, avoiding a threatened boycott of NPG by the UC system.. I haven't had a chance to see what's publicly known about the agreement, but it's an issue I really want to follow up on.
  

I haven't been reading the blogosphere for the last month either, so if there have been major flame wars. I've missed them. I'll start reading again now, and I'll try to catch up on the posts at a few of my favorite blogs. That may provide some additional material.

Oh, I may have to say something about my new iPad, too.

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As you may have noticed, posting has been really light for the last couple of weeks. First, there was Botany 2010, and it took me a while to catch up. Then there's the Beijing edition of the Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics. I arrived in Beijing yesterday, after a long flight through Chicago. I'll post when I can, but don't be surprised if you don't see anything until I return to the States on the 27th of Augus.

Google FeedBurner is supposed to make syndicating my RSS feed simple and stable, but for the past several months its been unreliable. Suppose you subscribe to the FeedBurner feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncommonGround

Right now you're getting a blank feed. Now suppose you subscribe to the Atom feed that I send to FeedBurner:

http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/uncommon-ground/atom.xml

Right now you'll find a feed with 15 entries. If you're subscribed in an RSS reader, you might want to check your feed address and move it to the second one. I don't know what's up with FeedBurner.

Sheril Kirshenbaum writes:

In just the past few years, we've watched the number of science bloggers swell, while the tone of much of the commentary changed. Most disheartening, the relationships between bloggers fractured across once cohesive networks as small friendly communities chose sides in a growing culture war.

One advantage of being obscure is that I haven't been embroiled in any of those blogwars.

I share Sheril's disappointment that there is a lot of vituperative commentary within the community of science bloggers. Fundamentally, we share the same values. Our goals and purposes are diverse, but we share a common approach to understanding the world. And we share the conviction that the world would be better off if an empirical approach to understanding the world were more broadly applied.

I suggest that we all learn a little humility. Before we dismiss someone as stupid or ill-informed, let's pause for a moment and try to understand why (s)he holds that opinion. That opinion may be completely wrong, but chances are there have been a lot of smart people in history who thought the same thing. Knowing that won't change the mistakes in facts or logic that lead to the erroneous conclusion, but it will help us to respect the person who made those mistakes -- even as we demolish her/his conclusion.

I don't know if any of you ever bother to scroll down far enough to notice the "Kent H's Shared Items" box from Google Reader. If you do, you'll notice that posts from this blog are starting to show up there. That's because Google Buzz, the new social networking tool from Google, posts shared items from Reader to my Buzz page. By sharing posts from Uncommon Ground through Reader the (very) small group of followers I have on Buzz can see excerpts from these posts and easily click through if they're interested.