In which I crave some nomenclatural consistency - Mind the GIn ap - Jennifer Rohn's blog on Nature Network - Duncan Hull

Starts well then as usual at NN, descends into something off BBC Radio 4. Tiresome. - Neil Saunders

why BBC4? - Paulo Nuin

I'm with Neil. Tiresome is the word. That thread is a good example of why I don't bother with NN most of the time. - Bill Hooker

The trouble with "if you don't like it, go elsewhere" is that if no one ever speaks up, nothing changes. (Of course, what I dislike about NN isn't going to change, so I'm not doing anything useful here, just letting off steam.) But Eva is doing more: making the criticism where it counts. Eva, what don't you like about FF? It's pretty flexible, so perhaps you could customize your view to suit you better. - Bill Hooker

Have you tried the "show best of" links up there on the right? You can even hack the URL to get any number of days you want. I don't use it much but others have commented that it's a good way to get up to speed after a break and/or stay current with the "hottest" topics. - Bill Hooker

It's tiresome when someone raises an interesting, important issue only for the comment thread to fill with irrelevant, time-wasting crap from people trying to out-do each other and who are oh-so-very-witty and erudite. It seems to be a characteristic of NN and like Bill, it stops me going there. - Neil Saunders

I guess the tendency of any thread to go to waste with irrelevant comments is a characteristic of many online forums. And this tendency increases with the increase on the number of users. I don't access NN that much and based on what you guys said I won't be accessing it. - Paulo Nuin

@Eva "assumes that I like what *most* people like or commented on, and that's not necessarily true" absolutely, Not all that is famous is important, and not all that is important is famous. Sometimes I find the friendfeed echo chamber too noisy, but on the whole its worth filtering out the noise for the occasionally good signal. - Duncan Hull

It's worth remembering that FriendFeed is searchable. If following in real time is too much, you can always mine it for keywords of interest at your leisure. - Neil Saunders

I've just been pointed here by Corie Lok's blog. I've read your group views before about NN so I'm not surprised. The fact that some people like the conversations there is "tiresome", you think, Neil, and beneath you even bothering to participate, Bill? Why should we be interested in knowing you think this, as you don't bother to provide a reason? (a Twitter post, limited to 140 words, would have been even better for a withering unsubstantiated comment). This old blogopshere sure does make people feel they can be rude about anyone behind their backs, but in public. Well, that whatever faults you damn NN for,it cannot be said to be like some of the comments here and elsewhere in this "little group" about people's personal integrity and intelligence. - Maxine

Maxine, it's just two opinions (mine and Neil's). As several posters have gently, calmly and not at all defensively pointed out on Corie's blog, the optimal solution is for us not to read NN so much. I do post there, usually when someone points me to a good thread. I even recall helping you out the other day, in a NN thread. And I pointed out above that I'm "not doing anything useful" in this thread -- I felt a bit of a heel for the unprovoked jab. - Bill Hooker

But since you asked, I hardly think it out of bounds occasionally to point out that every other thread degenerates into a second-rate Goon show, particularly when Nature is forever trumpeting how web-savvy it is and pointing to NN as an example. - Bill Hooker

I see NN as an Orkut-for-scientists (maybe because I used Orkut for a while to keep in touch with old friends), basically the you have to be a scientist to enter it ("normal" people would find it boring) but in the end the quality of the discussions is not much better than any other social website. - Paulo Nuin