Yes! At the Beagle Project we're always harping on this - it's a big problem - the 'icons' make people feel disconnected from the possibility of genius and alienate young would-be scientists.
- Karen James
The reverse also seems to be true - grant reviewers being alienated by the young guys' ideas.
- Daniel Mietchen
This can be simply achieved by providing a similar three strikes mechanisms for traditional media. Thus if a television broadcaster uses, without appropriate attributions or licensing, video, images, or text taken by an individual then they should have their broadcast licence revoked. Similarly if print media utilise text from bloggers or Wikipedia without appropriate licensing or...
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- Frank
I would take issue with the notion that we need economic growth, even though he and most other politicians keep reiterating it - what we really need is an economy that develops and diversifies in a way that takes into account the limitedness of resources. Otherwise, your letter is to the point.
- Daniel Mietchen
removing internet access! wow, that wouldn't fly here. well, maybe it would, some types of criminals are enjoined (word?) from using the internet, going near schools, living certain places.
- Christina Pikas
Daniel, don't entirely disagree with you - but its a question of speaking the language of the politicians, explaining how its not bad because of the problems it will cause us but because of the problems it will cause them.
- Cameron Neylon
Excellent letter, Cameron. If it hasn't already been sent, I'd be tempted to add a single line indicating that it's been CCed to your blog.
- Michael Nielsen
Oh yeh - forgot about that...ooops. However I suspect if LM actually sees it it will be via teh interwebs route anyway.
- Cameron Neylon
I agree it's important to speak their language, but had you written "development" instead, he (or his stuff) would have understood "growth" anyway but the message would not have been inaccurate.
- Daniel Mietchen
It arrived today. Have a stack of PLoS t-shirts in various sizes/designs. I now need to think of a cool way to give them away to folks that will wear 'em (I already have 4) . Any ideas?
- Graham Steel
Wore mine from #sbcPA yesterday. All the non-science peeps needed explainations.
- Jim Hardy
@ Ricardo, (you is as subtle as a brick shaped object) what size are you? I'll trade you one for a Mendeley one :)
- Graham Steel
Since I've yet to hear back from Dave M, plan T is now underway. Here are the shirts http://www.flickr.com/photos... Top row middle is now winging it's way off to Dr H Gee of Nature.com http://twitter.com/McDawg... even though, this might be rejected via i-stone !!. Ricardo V (shirt size yet to be disclosed) might have another (he has 12 hours left to comment) , so there are still four avaliable for free from me as matters stand. Code = ask politely/candidly. #PLOS
- Graham Steel
After what I suffered in the link posted above, I think I would be extremely happy to have a new PLoS T. Thanks!
- Paulo Nuin
Paulo, one can still do S, or L or XL. (One XL one went to someone in Cromer). Name your size and it will be shipped. ONLY three left now and you folks must try harder to convince me give this stuff away, err convincingly. (Each pack will contain other PLoS goodies too).
- Graham Steel
I will take the L. Can you send me an email with whatever you need? Maybe it's too far for you to ship :-)
- Paulo Nuin
And the L will be shipped to Paulo later in the month. So what's left? After a re-count, 2 S and 1 XL. Rather than simply giving the last 3 away in the manner thus far, one shall devise a competition and three lucky winners will get the last of the pickings.
- Graham Steel
Hmmm - somehow this comment thread dropped off my first few FF pages... Good luck with the competition, I might be a M but I'm not a S, so I'll pass :)
- Allyson Lister
Competition Idea ! As matters stand, me thinks it's boiling down to some form of pub quiz thang down in the, err pub after Science Online London http://www.scienceonlinelondon.org/blog... It will last for 5 - 10 mins and will be called "Who's Round Is It Anyway" Whilst the rules will be made up as we go along, the Host (not me) will ensure 'fair-play'. Cheating will be allowed within reason. 10 Prizes up for grabs inc. a priceless mystery top prize !! #solo09
- Graham Steel
Graham - I'll happily take you up on the trade-for-Mendeley shirt! :-) Yes yes yes!
- Victor / Mendeley Team
Game on. Must dash - I have a train to catch...whooosh
- Graham Steel
I recently posted on researchblogging.org and have published in PLoS ONE. Does that qualify me for one of the red or black ones in size M?
- Karen James
Did I read Mendeley shirt? (am actually wearing one of my PLoS One shirts right now...)
- Björn Brembs
By the time I got round to playing "Who's Round Is It Anyway" most folks had gone, so I adopted a new strategy under the circumstances. In the end, the priceless mystery top prize was won (at random I hasten to add) by Brian Kelly:- http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2664... On Monday, 2 shirts went to Victor and Jan @ Mendeley. Thanks guy's for the Mendeley shirt in return...
- Graham Steel
That may be true, Geoffrey, but I think this paper isn't about citation metrics distorting authority but how citation distortions create undeserved authority
- Karen James
from iPhone
"While more money in science is a great thing and should be increased, the data suggests that money alone is not the answer to improving the engineer/scientist quality of life. Specific policy to increase salaries would do this, but the reality of that occurring is thin at best."
- Daniel Mietchen
from Bookmarklet
A good time to bring this up again: http://friendfeed.com/ruchira... "How and Why Government, Universities, and Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists and High-Tech Workers"
- Ruchira S. Datta
Its interesting. THere is this disconnect between career and quality of life. At a dirt poor shit pay of ~36K/yr I have a great quality of life. I live in a beautiful area, have a fun and rewarding job in basic research (i'm a lab technician). I work with people that view me as a colleague instead of a Masters level indentured servant. I wish I could make more pay, but the reality is...
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- Kevin Z
from twhirl
Interesting comments, Kevin. I think I'd be a lot better off if I'd stayed a tech and devoted the time my PhD used up to finding a research niche that really, really floated my boat. (Still haven't done that -- I find everything fascinating, for about five minutes.) Oh, and about that pay -- except for two years on an NIH fellowship, that's about as much as I've ever been paid as a...
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- Bill Hooker
Kevin and Bill, thanks for the comments. I'm currently in a situation where I'm finishing my Masters and have a pretty good opportunity to move in either direction, academia (PhD) or "real world". It's not an easy decision to make and there are various factors that have to be weighed in. You'd think that getting a PhD would guaranty you a good position down the road, but it can actually...
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- Ricardo Vidal
My bro is a social scientist studying science policy and international funding trends. He says Msters degrees will become in high demand with the next few years. He used to work for NAS and now is making real good money with a private consulting company. He pointed me to this NAS report: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.... It is titled "Maste's Education for a Competitive World". The summary itself is worth reading.
- Kevin Z
from twhirl
My comment: "Honestly.....this should not be an issue. The requirement that "To attend CSHL meetings, reporters agree to obtain permission from a speaker before writing up any results." borders on censorship and any decent reporter should say a loud a clear NO to such a request. Giving a talk at a conference is a public presentation, if you want to keep your data secret, then don't give a talk. If any conference organizer asks this of me, I'll either refuse to attend or do my blogging/twittering anyway. I expect any serious science-blogger to do the same. These are rules we must refuse to abide by.....honestly."
- Nils Reinton
from Bookmarklet
Liking for Nils' comments in the thread. "If your "unfettered presentation of unpublished work" cannot withstand the scrutiny of anyone but selected attendees, you shouldn't present it at a scientific conference. Such presentations belong in cults, sects or secret societies. Regardless of the venue however, no reporter (or blogger, or twitterer) should ever sign anything resembling a stamp of approval as a prerequisite to publish."
- Bill Hooker
I think the issue is really different to this. It's simply that people think they are speaking to a room of people they can see, and when they realize they aren't they get upset. There are situations where robust and honest debate is improved by agreeing that the details of what happens within a room are confidential. What is important is that there is a discussion of the "rules" and...
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- Cameron Neylon
This could go either way, but I'm definitely on Nils' side. Others that are less open probably fall on the other side
- Brian Krueger - LabSpaces
I agree with Nils but I think being polite and asking (and respecting other people's requests) is a productive way of spreading that message. If you want people to be open, be open about how you are making them open.
- Cameron Neylon
I think Cam's point could be addressed by conference organizers making sure that every presenter was aware that if they didn't want to be blogged and tweeted they must say so at the outset. That way there's no need to ask permission and individual speakers' wishes can be accomodated.
- Bill Hooker
Even better, part of the registration for speakers should be to indicate if they would prefer NOT to allow blogging, tweeting, etc during their talk. Then it can be indicated in the conference program and stragglers to any particular talk don't have to be in the dark. It might also lead to and interesting study of whether there is a correlation between "willingness to be...
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- Shirley Wu
+1 shwu, I agree and prefer that presenters get the choice on this topic, not the organizer.
- joergkurtwegner
Agree with Shirley that such information upfront would solve this (should be non-existing) problem. In the comment thread to the post there is one comment suggesting that these issues are specific to biology. Is this true ? Here's the quote: "This particular attitude of trying to enforce semi-close/semi-open (depending on your point of view) conferences seems to be something particular...
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- Nils Reinton
As I said to someone the other day, I want a t-shirt with a big CC-BY on the front of it (and on the back "this opinion can be freely shared and re-used) ;-)
- Cameron Neylon
Actually I remember what it was - Brian Kelly was videoing me giving a talk a few nights back and asked me to explicitly say on the video that re-use and posting of material was ok.
- Cameron Neylon
Ooh I can't wait to go to a scientific talk to see a sign at the door that reads "No blogging allowed"
- Wladimir Labeikovsky
Cam's comments remind me of http://researchremix.wordpress.com/2008... from Heather Piwowar, April 2008. I made a couple of suggestions shortly thereafter about t-shirts based on this. I shall now contact my e-fashion guru as to creating some designs and will crowd-source early on..
- Graham Steel
Did someone mention a t-shirt? This is my area. I'm onto it. Cameron: which of the different CC license images is it that you wanted on front?
- Karen James
Well, this whole experience has certainly taught me a lot about the interface between blogging and reporting; I'll be approaching conference blogging with considerably more caution next time. I do generally agree with Nils that open conferences are the ideal, although I am more sympathetic than he is about the pragmatic decision of conference organisers to place restrictions. Long term, though, I think something like Shirley's "opt out" model is the only viable solution.
- Daniel MacArthur
But will they allow me to use pen and paper? If yes, can I take my notes home? If yes, can I show it to a colleague? If yes, how many colleagues can read it? Seriously, I always thought that the main objective of a conference was to do science communication, not stop it.
- Marcos de Carvalho
There's a lot of discussion around this issue. It seems clear enough to me and I think Cameron and Shirley summed it up well. The onus is on conference organisers to (a) be aware of social media, (b) have a clear policy for their meeting, (c) make sure all attendees are aware of the policy. In the CSHL case, it just seems like there were rules for accredited media, but no-one had even thought about the unaccredited - i.e. everyone else.
- Neil Saunders
On the t-shirt issue the thing I had in mind was first and second in the "icon" category next to each other (see http://creativecommons.org/about...). The reason I've never gone on and done anything about it was precisely because it seemed like it ought to be a CC thing to release (and make money on) and I kept failing to suggest it to someone there when we had our heads on. But...
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- Cameron Neylon
Speaking as a conference organizer (albeit not for scientific meetings), I think the (a), (b), and (c) specified by Neil above are about as much as anyone can expect. Even if a speaker were to say (in advance) that they didn't want to be blogged or have their message broken up in disparate tweets, there's no way for conference organizers to enforce such a request. You can ask that...
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- Jill O'Neill
Quote from latest comment in the thread: "Second, lets face the power of amorality: Impeach tweeting/blogging/news coverage to avoid scoopers? First, have you already see a news feed precise enough to scoop someone? Second, considering the number of ruthless sharks in science, any scientist would be crazy to present interesting data still scoopable in any meeting being large or small". - well said
- Nils Reinton
In regards to "any scientist would be crazy to present interesting data still scoopable in any meeting being large or small" -- if the data were very interesting and highly tweeted and blogged, it would increase the level of shame a ruthless shark would endure upon trying to scoop. That is, tweeting and blogging so the whole world knows should (in my mind) reduce probability of scooping.
- Steve Koch
I always struggle when "scooping" enters any debate. I just don't believe in it.
- Neil Saunders
@Neil: what do you make of the stories so many people tell? Here's one I was told: A presented preliminary results from a knockout mouse model at a conference, B went home from that conference and repeated the work using siRNA and published first, claiming priority in an area in which he had not previously had an interest. Yes, A was still free to publish the mouse work, but you know...
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- Bill Hooker
@Bill I agree, and it has often ruined students along with the PI. Now I think about it from your angle. "A" presents preliminary results. The audience is excited -- they tweet & blog. "A" talks with more people afterwards who tweet and blog some more. "A" and A's students respond electronically by commenting on blogs and providing links to their Open Notebook Science. Is "B" really going to be able to rush home and publish "first?"
- Steve Koch
>>And I've heard plenty of stories where the "scooper" effectively prevented the "scoopee" from publishing, since you know how much emphasis is placed on novelty.<< journal policy seems to be the weakest link here. does anyone have info on whether (and how) the "scooping problem" manifests itself in physics and other fields enlightened enough to possess a preprint infrastructure?
- Wladimir Labeikovsky
Wladimir: good point. Andre Brown of Biocurious says that biologists look at arXiv and say, "how can you afford to make preprints public, you'll get scooped" and physicists look at biology and say "how can you live without a preprint server to get your preprints out there into the community without the publishing delay?" It's a totally different mindset, and I can't figure out how to get biologists to switch.
- Bill Hooker
Biologists will switch when they ask themselves "is there really such a thing as scooping?", instead of blindly accepting the establishment line that there is.
- Neil Saunders
Bill: That's great! I've had both conversations at least half a dozen times with both physicists and biologists, usually while discussing why the arXiv took off in physics, and not in biology. (Physicist: "It's because physics is more competitive than biology". Biologist: "It's because biology is more competitive than physics.") It's very difficult to keep a straight face.
- Michael Nielsen
As a biophysicist, I don't have any insight to add :) I think I see what Neil means now (maybe?), and it's consistent with what Bill and I were saying. Once the majority of the grant review panel (or tenure review panel) doesn't believe in scooping, then scooping will go away. In order for people not to believe in scooping, they need to believe in preprints (already done for physics), open notebooks, blogs, conference presentations with public slideshare, tweets, etc. So it's going to take a while.
- Steve Koch
Aw c'mon Neil, what about my story of A and B and the conference? Or here's another, told by none other than PZ Myers: https://www.blogger.com/comment... (5th comment). How is that not scooping (and theft, to boot)?
- Bill Hooker
Well, it's widely known what happened, so why doesn't that take the sting of of being scooped?
- Mr. Gunn
Suggest session on "whistleblogging" to uncover Bad Science. For those not present last year Ben Goldacre gave great introduction about bad science. We see many cases where the blogosphere is the first place where bad science (including bad science publishing) is reported. Examples are creationism, alternative pseudotherapies, plagiarism, ...
May be worth raising the legal implications of getting into this area, given the litigious nature of some affected organisations. What about JackofKent as a speaker? He's a lawyer with a close interest in the current Singh case? http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/
- Stephen Curry
What would you discuss in the session? We all agree that whistleblowing is necessary and that blogs can be very good at that. Would you talk about positive examples, start an initiative to better coordinate the efforts, ... ? I very much enjoyed Ben Goldacre's talk and his book.
- Martin Fenner
Is debunking creationism really whistleblowing? And reporting bad science publishing? I think we should be careful no to mix everything and use the terms watchdog journalism ("holding accountable public personalities and institutions" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... ), whistleblowing ("alleging scientific misconduct" http://poynter.indiana.edu/see-ckg...) and...
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- Enro
Enro, talking about these different ways of uncovering bad science could already be interesting material for a session.
- Martin Fenner
Enro: debunking creationism can absolutely be whistleblowing, if what you're doing is exposing misconduct (e.g. http://thedispersalofdarwin.wo... ) or false claims (e.g. Darwinius hype).
- Karen James
To my mind disinformation on internet is separate from "correcting the published record" -the journal that published the research is a better route than the blogosphere for the latter. Cimate is a very good example of much bad and misleading (political etc) internet disinformation. Gavin of Real Climate blog would be great on this - if you can't do US speakers how about Olive Heffernan editor of Nature Reports Climate Change and Climate Feedback blog? Autism/vaccination and AIDS two other possible areas.
- Maxine
@Enro I was thinking of the Wiley Proteomics fiasco last year where a highish impact journal published creationist and plagiarist material and the blogosphere reacted instantaneously
- peter murray-rust
There is not usually a control to these blogostorms, though - ie journals make corrections anyway, without the blogosphere, so you can't know cause/effect. Whereas un-peer-reviewed, devious misinformation about climate, autism/vaccines, AIDS, crank "science" et al is prevalent on the internet. What are scientists doing about that? Good topic for a session.
- Maxine
Like that proposal Karen - now all you need is the other 20 pages...but I'll vote for it
- Cameron Neylon
Iddo's and Karen's example tweets had stuck in my head. Question for grant reviewers: how much important information do they contain that is usually spread over 20 pages? 20%, 50%, 80%? (Iddo didn't describe precisely project, so let's take Karen's tweet)
- Pawel Szczesny
@Pawel, I don't claim to be the most experienced reviewer, but I'd say 80% is closest in my opinion for NIH proposals. The 20% cruft usually pops up in the "methods" type section, and I think at some point you just have to believe (or not) that they'll get the details right. Anyway, also don't mean to say that proposals couldn't be shorter, but I do think most of the currently requested content is at least useful.
- Andrew Su
Thanks Cameron though according to Andrew it sounds like I only need another 16 pages.
- Karen James
LOL guys. It would have tasted had it been OA. It is a decision I regret after having dealt with the journal for over 2 years with this pub....
- Kevin Z
from twhirl
You should (if they allow it) immediately post the PDF on your personal website, make links to the PDF from various sites, and make sure google scholar scans those sites and then probably the PDF on your site will show up in Google Scholar making the pub available more broadly. Plus post the PDF link here and everywhere.
- Jonathan Eisen
Good thinking! Thanks for the tip. I'm redoing my homepage right now because I am getting rid of my .mac account. Searching wordpress.org templates right now actually, for Zelnio.org. ;)
- Kevin Z
from twhirl
The publisher's not listed in RoMEO (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/)... if they won't allow postprint archiving, they may allow a preprint (your final draft, as resubmitted after refereeing etc).
- Bill Hooker
According to copyright form, pertaining to electronic transmission of the document, my retained rights are: "The right to make and distribute photocopies or PDFs of the published Manuscript for teaching and research purposes.The right to make and distribute photocopies or PDFs of the published Manuscript to colleagues for the advancement of scholarly or scientific research or study.The...
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- Kevin Z
from twhirl
(cont'd) Author’s secure internal university or corporate network."
- Kevin Z
from twhirl
These are rights granted back to me by the publisher, Biological Society of Washington.
- Kevin Z
from twhirl
've had a discussion yesterday – why haven't anyone presented open science ideas at TED? Bill, Michael, Cameron, JC aren't you up for this? ;-)
- Yaroslav Nikolaev
Open Science TED talk? That would be just so awesome.....
- Graham Steel
Yaroslav - it would be great but it is pretty hard to follow Bill Gates :)
- Jean-Claude Bradley
Yaroslav -- I was indeed thinking of Jean-Claude, Cameron and a growing number of others who are actually *doing* Open Science. The TED people seem pretty forward-looking so I don't think it's necessary to have already changed the world, just made a good start on that project. A TED talk would certainly put ONS on a LOT of peoples' radar, which is where collaborations come from, which is the secret to ONS success...
- Bill Hooker
My feeling, at least as far as I am concerned is that I've still got a bit more "doing rather than talking" to get on with here. JC has actually got out and done a lot more
- Cameron Neylon
Bill - Sylvia Earle, who I believe is involved in a partnership with the Beagle Project, won one of the TED Prizes this year. I'm guessing that's what Karen is referring to.
- Michael Nielsen
Yaroslav - Sure, it'd be great fun, and would, I hope, do some substantial good for open science.
- Michael Nielsen
great, seems we might expect one of you on TED 2010?! ;-) Or what about this one – http://www.ted.com/pages... I believe we could make some open biocrowd-sourcing to help financially! ;-)
- Yaroslav Nikolaev
I brought this to the attention of Peter Suber yesterday who has given this his full approval.
- Graham Steel
actually was the Open Access concept ever presented at TED? there are many scientists who are not aware of these ideas...Graham, do you think Peter might consider presenting OA as well?
- Yaroslav Nikolaev
Damn, Yaroslav, I like the way you think. Peter Suber would be an *excellent* candidate for a TED Fellowship, and community financing to send someone to a TED conference regardless of fellowship awards is also a great idea. (Before anyone nominates Peter, note that he has had health issues and may not be up for the travel. Still a great idea.)
- Bill Hooker
Nice work, Yaroslav and Bill. I wasn't aware of Peter's health issues. As such, can I throw another hat into ring - what about John Wilbanks?
- Graham Steel
John would be a brilliant choice as a first step...
- Cameron Neylon
+10 on John!!! Ideally it would be John + Michael/JC/Bill, since OA and OS perspectives are slightly different...although it is not clear of what are the chances of securing two fellowships?!
- Yaroslav Nikolaev
John Wilbanks is another great idea, and more complementary to than competitive with Peter Suber: Peter for OA, John for Open Data. I'm flattered to be mentioned above but won't accept a nomination: I'm not *doing* anything but cheering from the sidelines and imo that's not the face the Open (Notebook) Science community/movement/whatever wants to show the world.
- Bill Hooker
Interesting development. TED have been in touch !! Following comment was posted on my above blogpost overnight "Hi, we'd very much be interested in seeing an application from one of you working Open Science projects! Cheers, Tom Rielly TED Conferences".
- Graham Steel
great news Graham!! ;-) this year only TED@Oxford (July 21-24) is left for the Fellowship..Can you ask Peter whether he might consider that one a possibility?
- Yaroslav Nikolaev
John will reply in more detail later, but says he would be honored to take part in this!!
- Yaroslav Nikolaev
Yes, it was xlnt to hear from TED via the blogosphere. I established contact with Tom Rielly last January as I mentioned in this post, BTW, you must watch Tom's Ted Talk, it's a hoot.:- http://mcblawg.blogspot.com/2008... Looking forward to hearing from John :)
- Graham Steel
Whilst we're here, can I also flag up POP!TECH:- http://www.poptech.org/ . I am now able to confirm that Hope Leman has submitted a nomination for Jean-Claude and is in the process of doing the same for Cameron and Michael. With this in mind, i.e., wheels are already in motion, it's most certainly worth giving this a shot. POP!TECH Fellows page:- http://www.poptech.org/sifello...
- Graham Steel
TED is a slightly different entity and imo, taking all of the above into consideration, John would be the most, but not only, practicable person to self-apply for a TED Fellowship before the 3rd April deadline for this year:- http://www.ted.com/pages...
- Graham Steel
John has applied for the fellowship, and Graham made sure Tom Rielly (TED) is updated on this! hoping its a safe bet & we will see Open Science at TED soon! ;-)
- Yaroslav Nikolaev
Whilst this thread is currently off the FF radar, a quick resume. Thanks to all involved in this discussion (on and off web) John Wilbanks has put himself forward as a TED Fellow (TED have been advised by myself), and POP!TECH nominations for Cameron Neylon, Jean-Claude Bradley, and Michael Nielsen should now be complete. A big thanks to y'all !!!!
- Graham Steel
For the public record, here's what I said to Tom Rielly - Partnership Director TED Conferences on 4th April:- "Dear Tom, I've just been informed that John Wilbanks http://revminds.seedmagazine.com/revmind... has applied for a TED Fellowship. As Vice President of Science, John Wilbanks runs the Science Commons project at Creative Commons. On behalf of the Open Science Community, we wish him lthe best of luck in applying for a TED Fellowship. Warm regards, Graham"
- Graham Steel
Graham and Hope, many thanks for all the legwork you have both put into this. Is there anything to be gained by sending Tom Reilly individual or a joint email further supporting John's application?
- Bill Hooker
I think if we are to do something, it probably would be better to send Tom a joint email.
- Graham Steel
I looked into a few people I've recommended. On Twitter they are getting followed at a MUCH higher rate than their friendfeed accounts are.
- Robert Scoble
That's not a good trend for friendfeed, because it means that there's a much stronger power law in effect there where people like me will have more power to get content noticed than new people who come along.
- Robert Scoble
That is because Twitter is getting a lot of mainstream media attention unlike Friendfeed.
- Veetrag
I wonder why that is? I have some theories that I'll explore over next few minutes.
- Robert Scoble
either im missing something...or haven't used friendfeed much... can you only comment on the main post - or can you comment on a comment?
- Cole Orton
It's much easier to add people in twitter and then to just ignore them. FriendFeed is much richer.
- Kevin Gamble
Robert, just because you recommend someone on FF doesn't mean they'll automatically get followed. If he or she isn't interacting here, why would I? I could just read their tweets elsewhere.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
i really think ff is missing out if you can't comment on a comment
- Cole Orton
Veetrag: not true. I filtered out for numbers of people on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Tina; yet on Twitter if I recommend someone they get followed in droves.
- Robert Scoble
twitter doesn't require an attention span, which a lot of the internet doesn't have anymore
- BCK
Robert: When you Like and comment on entries from the folks you follow on FriendFeed, you're putting their material in our line of sight. It's not as important to follow massive numbers of people on FF, because one's network does the work of pulling in new content.
- Ken Sheppardson
Cole: what are you talking about. Just use the first name of the comment you are replying to, just like I did.
- Robert Scoble
Brevity of information in twitter? More thorough information on friendfeed? It depends on how much the follower is wanting/willing to consume.
- jcunwired
While your point may be true, I don't understand if it means anything....
- Bwana ☠
BCK: nope, I don't think you've hit the answer either.
- Robert Scoble
jcunwired: FAIL too. You still haven't hit it.
- Robert Scoble
Flashback to 1997. Twitter = Lotus cc:Mail. FF = MS Outlook/Exchange.
- Peter Ghosh
that just seems like bad design - there's no "link" as to what comment you're commenting on that way.
- Cole Orton
Just try to have this conversation in Twitter. That's not happening.
- Kevin Gamble
That's true, Robert, but assuming you're talking about the rec you made Friday night 1) it was in a comment, not your original post (which would get more attention) and 2) time of day really does matter.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Bwana: on Twitter everyone's page has tiles of the people who they've followed and the numbers of people they are following. Twitter has created a "follower game." Friendfeed doesn't make that game so obvious so people don't play it.
- Robert Scoble
Friendfeed is more serious than twitter. I mean that friendfeed is used for spreading interesting topics and conversations. Twitter is more to get updated and the majority uses for uhm lets see.. nothing useful.
- Rafael
I already follow 1300 people. I only follow more people if they A) are adding good content B) are participating or C) are friends/family
- Alex Scoble
No follower game is a bad thing? FOaF obsoletes it imho.
- Bwana ☠
I have followed you on friendfeed since yesterday... much easier to break through the noise, but I have been on Twitter longer so I tend to follow your recomends there.
- Michael Angelo Truncale
I can interact very easily with people I'm not following on here. Sometimes I don't even realize that I'm not following certain people.
- Michael McKean
Tina: I've been watching the follower numbers of other people who recommend people too. On friendfeed we are far more adverse. I believe that the real-time version of friendfeed has caused people to unsubscribe, too.
- Robert Scoble
I get all kinds of nuggets on FriendFeed from people I don't follow... through FoaF
- Bwana ☠
You don't have to necessarily be friend with someone on FF to see his/her comments. If it's a friend of a friend you'll see a lot of likes/comments of that person "for free".
- Christoph Studer
Michael: you can tell you're not following. Their icons next to their comments are white.
- Robert Scoble
I agree that people are trimming their follows possibly due to real time. That's their choice. On the other hand, content is still readily accessible via FoaF (assuming of course that it's still on).
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Steven: yes, we are cliques here. More like nodes.
- Robert Scoble
My followers who don't follow Robert, see this conversation by default. Twitter doesn't do that.
- Bwana ☠
I find the real-time version of FF makes me want to stay and watch more. This conversation, for example, is very interesting and great to watch in real time.
- Jason Mayoff
Tina: unfollowing people in friendfeed is stupid. Just put the lame ones onto a list.
- Robert Scoble
Since beta I've had lots of new subs - have you just reached critical mass, Robert, whereby everyone on FF is only a FOAF away from you?
- WorldofHiglet
i'm thinking i'd use friendfeed more - if there was a killer mobile (ahem, iphone) app for it
- Cole Orton
Bwana: true, and that makes following people a lot less important. But it does give hyper connectors like me more power to get a lot of people involved in a conversation.
- Robert Scoble
Well hyper connectors is something Twitter has in spades :)
- Bwana ☠
Robert, lame or not that's what people are doing (and really, you're going to call someone else's choice lame just because it's not what you would do?). Lists are an option, filters are an option, and so is unsubscribing. So is doing nothing.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
WorldofHiglet: I still am getting new subs, but this isn't about me. I'm watching normal people's follower behavior.
- Robert Scoble
Tina: it's lame. It's also a free world, so I can call behavior lame. :-)
- Robert Scoble
This Sunday night conversation is brought to you by... Rackspace... And now, back to our program
- Bwana ☠
It's also interesting how a conversation like this goes hot and heavy for about two minutes and then just dies as it rolls off of everyone's pages and the numbers of comments gets too unweildy to navigate.
- Robert Scoble
Why follow a lot of people when FF search and filters are so powerful?
- Tom Landini
Cole: agree. Would love to see a killer iPhone app.
- Jason Mayoff
i also don't like that i have to scroll alllll the way up to click the comment link if/when i have all the comment fully expanded on a post that has, say, >10 comments.
- Cole Orton
Hey, I know: how 'bout we try to get over counting stuff?
- Ken Sheppardson
Robert: unfollowing people is "stupid"??
- Ken Kennedy
One word - twollo.com - that's why Twitter has higher follow rates
- Jesse Stay
Robert: Lots of things humans love aren't good for them.
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken: yes. Just put the people you hate onto another list. That way you can watch and see if they get more value later.
- Robert Scoble
I don't know about the rest of you, but my stats on Twitter vs my stats here don't make a damned bit of difference to me. Here, I barely follow any stats beyond how many people like my posts and who they are. On Twitter, there seems to be this huge drive for getting bigger, better numbers of followers, how many tweets someone has posted, etc. Guess what? It's bullshit.
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
Its a lot easier on Twitter to follow ppl ,its like the 1 click amazon patent :-)
- Johni Fisher
Tom: I think you are right there - if I was starting FF now I wouldn't necessarily follow the people I do now and use filters to find the stuff i want. Which would be awhole different experience.
- WorldofHiglet
Chris: bingo, but on the other hand, it's a game that people like to play.
- Robert Scoble
Let me rephrase: users will look to you for how they think they're supposed to use the service. Calling a use choice lame is your way of directing their use. As for who gets followers: what's more useful, a couple hundred mildly interested follows just because Scoble mentioned you, or 10-20 really interested follows that found you via a search, filter, or FoaF?
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I enjoy FriendFeed a hell of a lot more than I do Twitter, simply because I don't have the drive to improve my stats. I can post whatever and expect real responses and discussions, not plain old resharing and quick-quip replies.
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
Tina: well, following me is lame too. :-) But unfollowing really is lame. It sends a message to those people that they aren't important anymore. Everyone is important.
- Robert Scoble
Jason: Click the timestamp under the entry
- Bwana ☠
If people are more concerned about how many people they follow, how many are following them, and how many things they're pushing out, they're missing out on the opportunity to really affect things. They're simply playing for the score, not for the game.
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
Chris: Right. I'd rather have "low" stats and high interactivity rather than high numbers of people who I'm not particularly interested in.
- Michael McKean
Jason - that's where Twitter puts it as well :)
- Bwana ☠
It's quality vs quantity. FF = quality. Twitter = quantity.
- Brian
Jason: it is odd, but it is always there and you'll never forget it. Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
What I fail to understand every time one of these conversations is brought up is why they are brought up at all. Comparing apples to oranges never results in any definitive result.
- jcunwired
What Bwana said - FoaF Also, I think twitter's 15 mins of fame is almost up IMHO
- BEX
It's a LOT easier to get followers on Twitter, whereas on FF it's like pulling teeth. The whole point of social media is to be social, and if users can't socialize quickly "out of the box", then they'll move on.
- Ryan Garns
who feel's these real-time posts are hard to follow?
- Cole Orton
Brian: the thing is my friendfeed is moving a lot faster than my Twitter and I'm following a lot fewer people here.
- Robert Scoble
Twitter is follows the KISS method. Keep It Simple Stupid. For some, FriendFeed looks too complicated and they don't feel like spending that extra time to benefit from the true purpose of the network. Though I'm reassured that most people on here understand what FriendFeed has to offer over Twitter.
- Michael Forian
Wouldn't it be nice to have a keyboard shortcut for entering comments when threads get long and fast like this one?
- Tom Landini
jcunwired: I disagree. I learn something by doing comparisons to other services.
- Robert Scoble
one big diff is the showing of following/subcriptions and followers/subcribers. Twitter showed it on the mainpage while ff show it on your profile page. in a way, twitter succeed when everyone is trying to win in the number game. but i feel ff is where real conversation can be held between more than one stranger across the world. and it can be more than 140 chars.
- Gerald Neo
andrew: you really need to look into filters. And read my blog from the other day.
- Robert Scoble
Andrew: do you mean being able to find your content within FF, or do you mean getting a return on the hours you're investing?
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Andrew: Try following even 250 people. I pretty much ignore half the stuff that goes by on Twitter these days because I can't follow it all.
- Chris, Taskerrific Guy
twitter's brand and uniform design are untouchable right now - not about features; twitter can develop them
- Andy Fox
scoble - that is easier to track. thanks.
- Cole Orton
I can find content so much easier on FriendFeed, it's scary
- Bwana ☠
The purpose of participating in twitter and the purpose of participating in friendfeed produce entirely different results, that's what I'm saying. I stay on friendfeed because I enjoy the conversations that others share about an individual's comment, shared item, etc. I use twitter to make me aware of the comment or share. Very different experience.
- jcunwired
It's not the quantity, it's the quality... That said, how many seriously deranged cyber-geeks are engaging in this conversation? FF is still too confusing for the average user.
- Neil Jensen (Vermonter)
"FriendFeed Filters are the star of the beta" A brilliant guy wrote that.
- Bwana ☠
jcunwired: true, that's why I have a screen that is all about Tweetdeck.
- Robert Scoble
I think FF could have made the live pages like this could do well to have the newer comments on top instead of updating at the bottom
- Charles Rice
I can easily dive in and swim with a conversation in FF. Twitter now feels very random.
- kilbuda
Chris: Twitter search is fine, but if you have search but no content then you've got nothing
- Jason Mayoff
Bwana - that too. In a sense, I use friendfeed as a source of bookmarks (knowledge). Twitter would not give me that.
- jcunwired
Only thing that scares me about FriendFeed is history. That area seems iffy.
- Bwana ☠
Vermonter: really? Facebook is more complicated than Twitter OR friendfeed and it has 10x the users of Twitter. MySpace is more complicated than that, and has 7x the users of Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Bwana: what do you mean by "history?
- Robert Scoble
We cant find on Twitter this kind of conversation as we do now live here
- Johni Fisher
Robert: Search history...how far back can I go?
- Bwana ☠
Bwana: Twitter only goes back a few months.
- Robert Scoble
The quality of content is more important! I got more info from FF. The content from twitter in FF is just a little part!
- netvista
as I said, twitter is good for updates and curiosities, Friendfeed is good for conversations about interesting topics(or not). Frienfeed is the serious side of twitter
- Rafael
Robert: that wasn't always the case. Is this a recent change?
- Bwana ☠
Bwana: I can't find my Tweets from the Chinese Earthquake over on Twitter, for instance.
- Robert Scoble
What I like about FF is that I can sit here and have/watch this conversation without being distracted by thousands of other things going by.
- Michael McKean
Bwana: you can search for it, but you can't page back more than 300 items unfortunately (here on friendfeed).
- Robert Scoble
I'm a relative FF newbie and this discussion has sold me. I'm stayin'.
- Jason Mayoff
Bwana: the content has always been there on FF, available by search. The pagination that far back has been restricted though
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Yeah I have to say, this discussion has seriously changed my opinion on FF. Thanks Robert.
- Andrew Leahey
Jason - you've found the Holy Grail! :)
- jcunwired
@Robert... True.. Facebook is unwieldy, too. But mass usage has forced tolerance. Unwarranted tolerance perhaps. Hard to see how FF will gain traction unless users help make use of FF clearer.
- Neil Jensen (Vermonter)
Andrew: it's both, depending on the topic at hand. If you play with the DM feature to a group of people, it's definitely like a chat.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Jason: try to find my Chinese earthquake tweets. I tried and I can't get to them.
- Robert Scoble
Jason: they might be in a database somewhere, but you can't search on anything older than about August of last year, if I remember right.
- Robert Scoble
Facebook/Friendfeed are also very different. Our real life friends and our social networking friends are entirely different audiences. What FF brings is a different perspective - the opportunity to share with those who might not agree with us, who might teach us something that we wouldn't learn from our circle of RL friends. Invaluable, incalculable.
- jcunwired
I'm not even going to bother expanding all the comments. I'm just going to assume Scoble said something along the lines of "Easy access to cat pictures, babby pictures, my brother, FFundercats, Leather Donut"
- Mike Nayyar
Robert: where do you find the permalink to this thread?
- Tom Landini
At any rate, since the beta, Twitter has seen less of me.
- Bwana ☠
Tom: on the date under the topic that started this.
- Robert Scoble
I'll get this one. The date. CLick the date
- Jason Mayoff
And if the beta improves, it may get worse for Twitter in my world.
- Bwana ☠
That's what I'm talking about! Look how the conversation change the focus. Now we have another interesting things being discussed here... Thats awsome right?
- Rafael
To get back on topic a little... it would be really cool if when you clicked a white chat bubble on the left if it turned to blue and you were following them... like a toggle button. Do you think that would lower the barrier too much? like people digging stories they havent read.
- Frankie Warren
So just out of curiosity, what is the page within FF that you spend most of your time browsing/following? Filters? An individual post like this?
- Andrew Leahey
Robert, very curious about your theory that prompted this post.
- jcunwired
Thanks: the permalink page puts a comment box under all the comments so it's easy to enter stuff.
- Tom Landini
Here's the thing. I'm a fairly sophisticated user. But I don't have any idea how to follow this thread, or why I even got here. Or how to follow (I'm don't text. Web only.) I think that presents a challenge for FF adoption. I've been wrong before.
- Neil Jensen (Vermonter)
Frankie: If you hover over someone's name next to their comment you can subscribe from right there.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
andrew: me? I skip around my filters when my lists slow down (in real-time)
- Bwana ☠
unless it's a juicy thread like this one
- Bwana ☠
Andrew: I have five friendfeed screens open at most times. Home screen. Tech list. A window like this one. And a filter or two or something else I'm tracking.
- Robert Scoble
Is there a reason to add new comments to bottom, not the top, thus avoiding having to scroll?
- kilbuda
I'm a speed reader. I love these fast-paced conversations :)
- jcunwired
Hmm, interesting. I'm just trying to get a handle on how people who have found FF really integral, use it.
- Andrew Leahey
Tina: yes, but then it refreshes the page.
- Robert Scoble
Once Internet users have decided to play the microblogging game, they're ready to adopt one microblogging tool, and only one (forget the geeks). Then, if their intention is to notify friends about their actions and thoughts, they'll take Twitter. Because even CNN may follow them there ;) If their goal is to discuss and discover stuff, they'll take the plunge with FF. Unfortunately, 98% of those users want only to notify and be sure their notification won't get lost in a "content vaccum" (andrew's words).
- Jérôme Flipo
Funny someone mentioned searchability. I just discovered the limitations of that on Twitter this morning. When I can't look back past thrity days without having to learn how to use the API...and that really irritates me.
- George Hall (Australia)
You can use the friendfeed sidebar too... its very easy to follow!
- Rafael
Bwana: I wish they would make it so new comments appear at top.
- Robert Scoble
185 comments here are just fine - no way I can follow a conversation of 185 tweets.
- Bora Zivkovic
Francine: get onto real time and give up on alerts. Alerts are old school. Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
Did you know that if you re-click the permalink from the permalink, you get a pretty simple window?
- Jérôme Flipo
I think the idea behind having comments appear at the bottom rather than the top is because somebody's under the (perhaps naive) impression people actually read everything other folks wrote before they comment themselves :-)
- Ken Sheppardson
jcunwired, what would you like to know? My theory is that people on Twitter follow a lot more. Mostly because it's a lot easier to follow, but also because everyone knows how many followers everyone else has (it's on their main UI).
- Robert Scoble
Ken - New comments appear at the top and no one reads the history
- Bwana ☠
I would like to be able to comment on a comment. I'm into real time, but sometimes I like to follow FF out of the corner of my eye and not focus on this conversation. I multitask
- Francine Hardaway
Robert; thanks. And I second the request to have an option to display comments at the top of a real-time display, however I think that for older, inactive postings I'd prefer to read the comments in order.
- Keith Barrett
Francine: I multitask too. I just run five screens. :-)
- Robert Scoble
I submit the follower game can ruin the quality of the network
- Bwana ☠
Oh, I like the pop-up window. I didn't realize that Friendfeed can do that.
- Robert Scoble
I really hope FF never threads/indents comment. An entry's a nice unit of conversation. If something needs it's own branch, just start another entry.
- Ken Sheppardson
FriendFeed is just too much for the typical user. First you have to "get it". On Twitter there's not much to "get". You put some words in the box and hit send.
- Eric Florenzano
netvista: good point. That's a bug. We should start a spreadsheet for the friendfeed team of things that are bugs.
- Robert Scoble
Eric - that is very true. There is a learning curve to FriendFeed that does not give the instant satisfaction of Twitter.
- jcunwired
Rafael: from your feed click the timestamp of a post. On the resulting page, click the timestamp again, and you'll get the pop out window
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I'm still learning how to be a power user of friendfeed. I haven't memorized the keyboard commands yet.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: Just watched the vids now. Rly interesting stuff, thx for putting them up. Sometimes was hard to understand questions from the audience, though...
- Christoph Studer
Ben: Its better you run... everybody wants to hug you ;)
- Rafael
Any one got new follows from this conversation?
- netvista
Robert: i loved the video!! seriously its very difficult to figure out how to use friendfeed at first effectively. seeing best practices from power users helped a lot
- Frankie Warren
Christoph: current features are largely sufficient
- Jérôme Flipo
I want to dock good conversations on my blog.
- Robert Scoble
Wow, I've put that read through a text-to-speech app, makes it even more productive right now, This could make a little booklet from it. The new forum post experience.
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Interesting search/filter, at least 100 comments and -friends:username. Interesting FF'rs you've missed.
- Andrew Leahey
Robert: I f you use Firefox, try to use this sidebar, easily bookmark you realtime page to bookmarks bar and in properties choose to open with the sidebar : http://userstyles.org/styles...
- Rafael
Maybe have the "pop outs" integrated into the main window instead of new browser windows. Would make it easier for me to track multiple discussions from one spot.
- Christoph Studer
Kinda like a big party... wouldn't it be cool to be able to break off into small groups, as new topics develop?
- kilbuda
This format kinda makes the comment count they used to have meaningless now... theres a big difference between one well thought out comment and just chatting in the pop out.
- Frankie Warren
Phil Maxwell: because i subscribe someone here for this conversation! haha
- netvista
Anyway, Twitter brings me interesting content, but FriendFeed is true brain candy. I'll never get this level of conversation or knowledge from twitter.
- jcunwired
Michael: the engagement of friendfeed has gone WAY up in new friendfeed due to the real time comments.
- Robert Scoble
Maybe "comment counts" should be more like "like counts". One comment per discussion and user.
- Christoph Studer
I like pronouncing the name Bwana out loud: it's fun: Bwwannna. Heeehehhee
- sofarsoShawn
You know; it's too bad I can't just click a comment speak bubble image and have it automatically format it as a comment response by filling in the name)
- Keith Barrett
Wow.. I never noticed that you can subscribe to comments and likes!
- Michael McKean
So the pop-out window moves much faster without the load of the page...nice
- Wallace
I think you're looking at this wrong Robert. The big difference with FF is Friend of a Friend. I use *you* to bring me other people. I trust you to *filter* it for me. After a while I might add someone who continually pops up in my feed via your FOAF, but why subscribe right off the bat. The context between Twitter and FriendFeed is different. It's not about quantity and reaching follower numbers, it's about quality and interaction.
- AJ Kohn
AJ: good point, but that gives me a lot more power than I have over on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
Sorry Bwana, it's just one of those things: I'm weird
- sofarsoShawn
FriendFeed is great for deep threaded conversation ... but Twitter generates so much more exposure.
- Brandon
can you imagine this conversation on Twitter... I mean really.
- Bwana ☠
AJ: I don't mind the power, though, cause I'm an egotistical bbaaahhhssstttaaarrrddd. Just ask my brother. Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: It's not necessarily a bad thing to have "hubs" with power, is it? You have them in real life, too.
- Christoph Studer
Anyone using the sidebar script for Firefox?
- Andrew Leahey
Christoph: true, I'm not sure it's a bad thing. It's a good thing as long as I behave. If I start being an asshole, then it's a bad thing.
- Robert Scoble
Bwana, I reach for the advil just thinking about it :)
- jcunwired
Scoble's a power hungry Green Hulkster
- sofarsoShawn
sofarsoshawn: What's the difference? :)
- Michael McKean
Robert: i agree with that... with out an install base its really hard for comments to get noticed in the real time feed unless you have a bunch of people keeping your stuff at the top.
- Frankie Warren
The point is Twitter is a hype! Appear in all big corporations and tv programs... twitter has big popularity... friend feed is a shy guy at the moment
- Rafael
Christoph: power corrupts eventually, though.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: And people will start treating you as one, i.e. unsubscribe. :-)
- Christoph Studer
Christoph: you nailed the force that will keep me from becoming too much of an asshole. :-)
- Robert Scoble
Power corrupts only certain individuals. I haven't seen you exhibit those traits yet Robert :)
- jcunwired
Robert: That's way you say unsubscribing is "lame", haha.
- Christoph Studer
@Robert: Well, I've given you that power and everyone else I subscribe to. Should you fail to be a good filter, I'll drop you like a hot potato :) So who really has the power? That's why FF will win IMO because it creates a far better mechanism for authority and trust. But ONLY if you're selective with whom you subscribe.
- AJ Kohn
Christoph: yes, I have a bias there. Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
Oh! I just noticed that if you press "enter" once in the search box, you get the advanced search page. A kind of little feature you'll never find on Twitter ;)
- Jérôme Flipo
Robert: One of the biggest differences is that: Friendfeed doesnt have ads and bullshits.. Twitter its a treasure for ads.
- Rafael
Jerome - just press the search button, you get te same thing
- jcunwired
Rafael: friendfeed has decentralized moderation. That's a KILLER feature the rest of the world will discover in about 18 months.
- Robert Scoble
@ Mckean Hype vs. Exposure: Hype I'd say is exaggerated publicity hoopla if you will. Empty. Whereas exposure is public focus but what matters more so here is that Twitter can't function to the same quality as Friendfeed now can
- sofarsoShawn
Chris Charabaruk: Yeah, but did the beta get any major media attention? Nope. None what so ever. And that's sad. It seems like people are purposely ignoring everything "FriendFeed" and it isn't right. I think the world is big enough for two cool and active social networking sites (or more), yes?
- Michael Forian
Rafael: friendfeed will prove to be more resistant than other social networks to spam and assholes because of decentralized moderation. It's one reason why I love it so much.
- Robert Scoble
jcunwired, even Google doesn't have this function
- Jérôme Flipo
people go where the identities/profiles/people/contacts are; right now, when it comes to non-permission blogging, thats Twitter. Its not about features. You can speculate as to why Twitter has the people, but thats just academic. They have the people and they win....features can come...it doesnt matter, does it?
- Andy Fox
Don't give him power. You wouldn't like Robert when he's omnipotent :)
- Keith Barrett
Michael: friendfeed is in Financial Times tomorrow.
- Robert Scoble
decentralized moderation? Does that mean if someone offends me and I block them, their comments won't show up for me anywhere?
- Phil Maxwell
Robert: what do you mean by decentralized moderation?
- Frankie Warren
Sometimes I wondef if FriendFeed would have taken off if the founders weren't ex-Googlers
- Bwana ☠
I really want feature of FF is : What's hot on FF right now?
- netvista
Robert: How many FT readers want bacon with their tea? :D
- Jérôme Flipo
Phil: exactly. Frankie, decentralized moderation means I can delete you in my items and you can delete me in yours. As long as we keep adding value to each other's lives we'll not delete. But, let's say you were a spammer. Bye bye!
- Robert Scoble
Frankie - we (you) moderate, not an administrator.
- jcunwired
Ok, I definitely do dig the pop out window for an indivdual post/conversation.
- Ken Kennedy
Bwana: How does the ex-Googler's factor in?
- sofarsoShawn
Robert: We have to create a strong community in friend feed and hoping that we could separate the bullshit and ads from the interesting topics, in a way we could keep the good of friendfeed.
- Rafael
decentralized moderation = crowdblocking. It takes only a few comments for a spammer to get blocked by many and that then trips internal FF daemons.
- AJ Kohn
netvista: that's called a filter. I have a filter that shows all items written by anybody but that have at least one "like." That's what's hot right now.
- Robert Scoble
Rafael - we have, we do - the developers have. What we see Twitter becoming will never happen here because we have all the power.
- jcunwired
netvista3987: you can even exclude your friends (add -friends:netvista3987), exclude items you've already liked and commented (use the minus operator again).
- Jérôme Flipo
sofarsoshawn: friendfeed was started by four superstars from Google. HOw does that factor in? It's been down one hour in past year. Search is freaking fast. It has an ugly, but workable UI. Heheh.
- Robert Scoble
Being reminded so much of Gmail chat I'd like to see who's currently typing into the comments field. :-)
- Christoph Studer
Well, regardless of my hesitancy, this is the first engaging convo on FF I've engaged. And though I had seen the beta briefly, I hadn't taken the time to really understand it. And this has inspired me to flesh out my FF profile. FF anti-fail all around.
- Neil Jensen (Vermonter)
Currently listening to Berlin "No More Words" on Shoutcast right now...interesting.
- Christopher Knopick
Vermonter: wait until this is used by a conference for a back channel. Leo Laporte was using it on Gillmor Gang and TWiT this weekend and got 1000 comments each.
- Robert Scoble
Here in Brazil Twitter started to get lost by people who dont know what to do with a simple question. thanksfully friendfeed will not get popularity here in brazil
- Rafael
Pressing enter twice on a search box... clicking a feed then clicking the tim to get a popout...directly referencing "/friends" in a URL I do sense a need for some documentation on how to engage the cool features.
- Keith Barrett
Alex - when main street gets it, there goes sophistication :)
- jcunwired
Oh I'm not complaining at all! I'm trying to help..
- Keith Barrett
Rafael: friendfeed does support lots of languages. But I need filters. I want to see ONLY Farsi comments, for instance. I can't do that.
- Robert Scoble
Alex: At one time computers were too sophisticated for most people.
- Michael McKean
@Alex I didn't get it really until tonight. Not sure I do yet, but I'm getting there. Maybe others will too.
- Neil Jensen (Vermonter)
Alex: I disagree. The mainstreet is on Facebook, which is far more complex than either this or Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
My wife speaks Farsi and I'd love to be able to have her see only Farsi items here. I can't filter by language. Yet. They have that on their feature lists to build out.
- Robert Scoble
even my mother is om Facebook, I can't see her on FF really
- Alex
I don't keep close tabs on my follower levels, but I've noticed my Twitter followers have gone up, and my Friendfeed followers have gone down too.
- Ian May
more or less yes: "Sometimes I wondef if FriendFeed would have taken off if the founders weren't ex-Googlers" - Bwana
- sofarsoShawn
I'm waiting for the service that will automatically translate anything typed into the viewers chosen language without the need to manually translate individual lines
- Tony, Paradox of FF
Alex: four years ago you would have said the same thing about Facebook.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: I was hoping for a language filter as well.
- Michael McKean
Robert: but you can see... Facebook here in brazil its almost like Orkut for Americans... few people use it. But Orkut here is something like OMG you dont have an orkut account? you are a jerk! Got it?
- Rafael
Robert: where'd she pick that up? Nuts!
- sofarsoShawn
Tony we have done that in our chat for our online experiences using Googles Translate APi
- Tony
Tony: Picasa has it on comments. Would be great to have the same system for FF.
- Christoph Studer
most of the people on facebook don't know how to use 1/4 of the features, but they understand they have a profile and people write messages to it and that's enough to get them started.
- Phil Maxwell
No, Bwana: if you read your statement you are the one who distinctly wondered
- sofarsoShawn
sofarsoshawn: my wife was born in Tehran.
- Robert Scoble
sofarsoshawn: FF doesn't need users do develop the service (they have the money and the geniuses). So, in some way, they don't need the Google's buzz to make the killer app that Scoble and others would recommend because it rocks and not because of their authors.
- Jérôme Flipo
Sigh, go repeat my name or something :) I know what I said
- Bwana ☠
I am probably the only person in my 200+ list of friends that actually KNOWS how to set FB security features so that I can control what groups of friends (or the public) can see what items and apps.
- Keith Barrett
I know what you said too read your earlier post dude, I'll go say your name :)
- sofarsoShawn
I'll be right back. Heheh. Yes, friendfeed has turned into chat!
- Robert Scoble
I guess most of us only get what we think others will get too. FF beta makes the possibility of others getting it seem clearer than it did to me before.
- Neil Jensen (Vermonter)
Keith: Thats normal! the majority uses facebook just to watch other people lifes
- Rafael
The product lifecycle of gmail should be an indication of the long term approach I believe FF will take.
- AJ Kohn
I wonder if FriendFeed would have taken off if the founders weren't ex-Googlers. <-- Read again. if the founders weren't ex-googlers, would FriendFeed have taken off... maybe if I reverse, you'll understand.
- Bwana ☠
The amount of content that FriendFeed real-time commenting is going to generate is MASSIVE. Hope they have a good file system and DB setup!
- Keith Barrett
we could discuss about that for days, but only the future will tell
- Alex
Vermonter, search google for friendfeed filters. A few bloggers - bwana, Louis Gray, Scobleizer have some vvery good tips for controlling the noise so that you only see what you want to see. It helps a lot.
- jcunwired
AJ Kohn: I love comparing Hotmail/Twitter with Hotmail/Gmail. It's a matter of time before the best overpass the most popular.
- Jérôme Flipo
The conversation has strayed a bit, I think :)
- Michael McKean
Alex: For sure. we just need to work for a better future for friendfeed...keepin it healthy
- Rafael
My problem is that I don't know what I don't want to see :))
- jcunwired
I heard on Leo's show yesterday a good quote, about why having a too strong community (in FF) may be an obstacle for its success (I remember the word "insular")
- Jérôme Flipo
Thanks for the conversation all. Enlightening. And my fellow Vermonter is free from pirates, too. I'll sleep well tonight.
- Neil Jensen (Vermonter)
Omg, now I can breathe a little, this conversation is slowing down
- Rafael
yeah, be careful of those double negatives in the blog post
- Bwana ☠
It's amazing, I wonder how long a thread we could go. You just say a word, it creates ripples and we define an area around a topic. Like a tree or something. That's something that is appreciable and important in that experiment we enjoy here.
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Jerome - I haven't heard this week's TWIT, but I say poppycock :) Its a social networking site, there are tons of communities. You choose what you want, and filter/dismiss the rest
- jcunwired
well done boys and girls...I'm going to bed! Excellent conversation! Good night to everyone! Good night Robert!
- Rafael
The 'strong community' is what makes it worth staying. There is no sense of community in twitter, just a bunch of people blindly following other people
- jcunwired
Robert: why subscribe to someone who only pipes twitter into friendfeed? and another thought: maybe the average twitterer mindlessly follows and the average friendfeeder is more interested in the quality of their subscriptions
- Chris Heath
This is epic: I have to take my leave as well. 'Night All!
- sofarsoShawn
the best conversation I have ever had on FF, thanks Robert! see you guys
- Alex
Hearing all your names and comments made it very different to me. I was making coffee, reaching and being able to make it through when it was around 100 comments one very demanding but so enriching real all-way discussion.
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
jcunwired: sure, I love the community(ies). The problem is for FF newbies: they don't feel comfortable and prefer Twitter where discussions are less loud.
- Jérôme Flipo
Jerome - exactly. That is the one detriment to FF and why the masses have not shown up
- jcunwired
Hey Bwana, if you're still here, looking forward to your next appearance on TWiT. Always a great addition.
- Andrew Leahey
@jcunwired not so in Burlington, VT #btv is a growing and connected group of Twitter users. Can't vouch for other local communities.
- Neil Jensen (Vermonter)
10 followers from this convo... that's a record
- Bwana ☠
Vermonter - isolated cases exist, but the people themselves needed to build their community, it didn't just happen - you followed people in #btv to create the community. In FF, the community exists and individuals follow
- jcunwired
Whoever it was who pointed out how many comments. I don't look at these things as comments. They're just parts of a very large discussion.
- Jason Mayoff
jcunwired: I follow a lot of astronomy people on Twitter and we're all pretty well connected with each other. I imagine it's the same with other like-minded people.
- Michael McKean
Michael - have you explored the rooms here on Friendfeed?
- jcunwired
Jerome - Well, you can still just like lolcatz pictures and just follow the guy for that. I think there's more details here that makes it interesting. I use twitter when I don't have time to reach deep now and need a summary of past events (not a mobile user for that). Here I jump in, make investigations, keep the stuff I like for future reference, one thing I'm not too into with twitter.
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Ken - Well Robert's got me zoomed in on it now... I never paid attention to where I get FF followers from
- Bwana ☠
Michael - consider bringing some of your friends over here
- jcunwired
But I can't remember the last time I had 10 in my inbox so fast
- Bwana ☠
Bwana, I havent looked at followers in months, now I'm curious too
- jcunwired
jcunwired:Yeah, and I see what you're saying. It's not as "tight" on Twitter.
- Michael McKean
What we really need are those little presidential debate real-time opinion poll lines so we can see in real time whether people agree or disagree with what we're saying.
- Ken Sheppardson
Bwana - I haven't gotten a new FF follower in a dog's age, but I mostly blamed my own light usage.
- Phil G
Hehehe, when you reach the 'Ultimate Comment' connection, that's it, Bwana is the name. ;p
- ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,
Michael - the cool thing about a group of people with specific interests is that you can aggregate content from multiple sources so that your community can absorb them - google reader, social bookmarking, youtube, flickr, blogs...
- jcunwired
Bwana: you wrrean interesting contributor to thisconvo and want hear what else you have to say.
- Jason Mayoff
On Twitter it's more like a bunch of people who just happen to be following the same people.
- Michael McKean
Phil - that's true. I guess subscriptions increase with participation
- Bwana ☠
hi, is there some collections of interesting filter setting i can use? i think FF should allow people sharing their filters.
- netvista
I think the thing with FriendFeed vs twitter is that on Twitter, the more people you follow, the more content you get. On FriendFeed, it's related to how active the people you follow are. You don't have to follow a lot of people with FoaF.
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
Did anyone even bring up ffholic.com? I guess I should scroll up.. brb
- Bwana ☠
intelligent participation - or FFundercats, whatever floats your boat :)
- jcunwired
jcunwired: Right, and you can discuss them in a more controlled manner.
- Michael McKean
I want a timestamp of the last activity on FF profiles. I was wondering where Scoble could be right now (instead of participating to this discussion). Just beside the "About 15 posts per day", there could be a "2 min since the last like/comment/FF post". That could also encourage users' activity.
- Jérôme Flipo
Man. This is not easy to do on an iPod touch
- Jason Mayoff
nobody brought it up yet, Bwana.. chrome search worked well in this window :)
- Phil G
nope, no one brought up ffholic.com - which brings the follower/count game to FriendFeed
- Bwana ☠
andrew: click on Subscriptions, down at the bottom. They are called Groups now.
- Tony, Paradox of FF
So twhirl for friendfeed, totally useless, right?
- Andrew Leahey
the timestamps work except for the most recent comments of an active post...they all say 1 second, 0 seconds, etc
- Phil Maxwell
Excellent FF tips that aren't readily apparent are surfacing in this thread.
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
thanks for the responses on the timestamp comments ppl
- Chris Heath
I haven't found a FriendFeed client that rivals the web browser experience yet.
- Bwana ☠
I was messing around with AlertThingy all this time, I think thats why I didn't grasp the attraction.
- Andrew Leahey
This is a totally unmanageable thread. Most of the information here is lost and unfathomable. If there every was an argument for some sort of comments management (threaded or otherwise) this is it.
- Brian Sullivan
me either bwana, the iphone webapp is pretty good, i heard the beta iphone webapp kills the battery life though
- Chris Heath
andrew - with friendfeed, even though the api is great the web interface evolves faster than most developers can keep up with.. several microblogging clients have already given up on the challenge.
- Phil G
why don't my ff posts copy to twitter anymore? i didn't change any settings
- BASEnet
Rob: what would you think of the ability to digg comment by clicking on their icon, so that you can sort the discussion by "most liked comment" and get all the best juice of this thread in just few seconds?
- Jérôme Flipo
Bwana: I don't really see the need for a client. The web interface works very well.
- Michael McKean
Phil: Good point, maybe when FF itself kind of stabilizes and settles somewhere, clients will start coming out that rival the experience?
- Andrew Leahey
afterdark, you may need to disable and reenable, they're still there
- jcunwired
Michael: Bwana was just replying to me asking if twhirl was worthwhile.
- Andrew Leahey
That's probably another reason why Twitter is so much more popular - smartphone clients
- jcunwired
I think the real value for 3rd parties are going to be things that work with the API in ways that the web interface doesn't already do. Like FFholic, for example.
- Phil G
Following somebody on Twitter is very light, and usually fake. Following on FriendFeed is an investment.
- Louis Gray
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Louis Gray *plays piano*
- Bwana ☠
jerome: likable comments would rock... then you could have the most liked comments in a thread... or within some constraint... even the most popular of the day
- Chris Heath
@Scoble K, so Im lost how is this in Twitter's favor now?
- sofarsoShawn
Louis, kind of like what i was saying way above, friendfeeders are probably a bit more discerning in who they follow as well
- Chris Heath
ah, this is the first I've seen of FFholic
- Phil Maxwell
hehe Shawn, that's what I want to know - I want to hear Robert's theory
- jcunwired
If you can fill all your available inbound bandwidth by following 100 people, why would you follow 1000?
- Ken Sheppardson
So perhaps the Twitter follower count will retain the vanity, and FF will be more about what /you/ get out of it. Rather than Twitter, which is about all the who's getting something from you.
- Andrew Leahey
I think Scoble said it best, it's a game.
- Bwana ☠
@kshep, yeah once i'm into a discussion on friendfeed i like to use that embed view ... much cleaner imho
- Chris Heath
jcunwired: Well, following 100 people here means you see not just their stuff but the entries they engage on. That amplifies things at least 10x
- Ken Sheppardson
also, i'm not following you on twitter either... why get just your tweets? i want it all!!
- Chris Heath
hehe Mike, true. I do a happy dance if I get one comment for my posts :/
- jcunwired
I think its interesting to see the web getting pushed through these different filters. Like FF now, before it was digg for a little while.
- Andrew Leahey
Its like we're taking all new content added to the web and its sort of a value added proposition. Each service tacks something on as it passes through.
- Andrew Leahey
andrew, the web is still pushed thru digg, and digg is way bigger than friendfeed (currently) and bigger than twitter too
- Chris Heath
Front page digg counts have been declining, IMHO, I think the url shortening thing is going to take a big chunk out of them too.
- Andrew Leahey
andrew: how many digg users have the alexa toolbar, really?
- Chris Heath
isn't alexa only counting internet explorer users?
- Chris Heath
probably a comparable ratio to alexa toolbar users that twitter from twitter.com
- Andrew Leahey
i'm very skeptical of alexa numbers - other traffic counters too...
- Chris Heath
don't get me wrong, im not anti-digg, or knocking it. i just think twitter has more exposure now.
- Andrew Leahey
"unfollowing people in friendfeed is stupid. Just put the lame ones onto a list" - so you're ideal model is everyone is subscribed to everyone by default and then people are responsible for organizing lists?
- Todd Hoff
definitely, its flawed. i just think its flawed pretty equally for those two particular sites. i dont know, no offense intended.
- Andrew Leahey
todd: i think he's trying to say subscribe to lots of people since you can cordon them off into lists
- Chris Heath
Todd Hoff: lol, unfortunately, Robert has left the thread.
- Jérôme Flipo
He said "be right back". Did he get lost on the way to the bathroom?
- Michael McKean
andrew: no offense taken, i have no ties to digg (emotional or otherwise) - i'm just not sure about the numbers
- Chris Heath
Robert probably wanted to say that if you decided to sub someone, you had good reasons which justify to put them in list rather than unsub them once they become to loud.
- Jérôme Flipo
[OT] I love the ability to edit a comment. That's great for non-native English speakers who want to keep up with the conversation without making dozens of typos per comment.
- Jérôme Flipo
jerome, if it would update the comment in real-time after you edit it that would be wicked cool too!
- Chris Heath
I want the comment to go italic for few seconds to let me know it was edited, that always helps.
- Bwana ☠
Yeah, *some* indication of an edit in RT would be slick.
- Ken Sheppardson
well you can't always get everything you want... i just wish that they'd add some more stuff to the beta, i find myself going back to regular friendfeed to mess with subscriptions/rooms/settings and a couple other things too
- Chris Heath
yeah, I'm not getting the rooms thing... or the creating a feed for a room, that is no longer really a room.... but whatever :p
- Krikit Media
I'm *positive* they're going to be adding stuff in. There are things just just can't do right now without going back to pre-beta, and they're certainly not going to maintain both sites indefinitely. Tomorrow morning is the 1wk anniversary of beta. I wonder if that'll mean anything.
- Ken Sheppardson
They have to be very careful not to release too much features right now (if their goal is to go mainstream). Imagine if you had joined Facebook right now, with all its apps and buttons? Twitter is so simple, they've to upgrade slowly.
- Jérôme Flipo
[ot question to the chat]: i've been sending my FF comments to twitter... always have. but now in the beta i'm in conversations here much more (Gillmor Gang, TWiT shows etc) and i'm generating a lot of posts to twitter from my comments here. Is that probably a bad idea? would you turn them off? should i care? (since i'm still garnering twitter followers even quicker now that i'm posting to twitter more)
- Chris Heath
Scoble;The UI decides how the app is used. Conversations are interesting in FF and not twttr. Twitter added reply_ to ids some time back. What they are missing is a ui which looks like this. Optimized for a conversation under one topic.I would wager we will definitely see it some day. I suspect they are in no panic to add it and they might be thinking it is easier to gain momentum with the simpler feature set.
- Faizan
Ken: it'll mean it's been 7 days. I've confirmed that with a reliable source :)
- Phil Maxwell
And I just saw my first FF comment spam posted. FF is going to need some sort of mechanism to prevent that. Also the original poster of the feed item probably should have power to delete anyone's comments.
- Keith Barrett
Keith, you block them (not sure how in beta, but just remove beta. from the url and you can block them)
- Chris Heath
Interesting observation Robert. I've been observing the opposite with my FF vs Twitter accounts. The rate of new followers on Twitter has slowed for me (partially from spending more time here and elsewhere - partially from starting to just block numbers gamers that don't tweet) and the rate at which I'm finding new people following me here is (slowly) increasing.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Chris - personally I'm not nuts about the idea, but then I use Twitter and Friendfeed in two distinctly different ways. When I see a FF comment or like come over from FF to Twitter its often so out of context that its passed over
- jcunwired
Earlier in the week I think on Gilmore Gang on TWiT, Paul from FF said they were going to make the beta the standard within a couple of weeks.
- BASEnet
The system could be: if you're block by X% of people whose entries you've commented, you're kicked out!
- Jérôme Flipo
There needs to be a comment link at the bottom or hotkey for these long threads. omg
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Jérôme: or just hide their comments by default like a lot of sites do
- Phil Maxwell
Jerome - jerks need social interaction too. A better policy would be to have those people all force-follow each other :)
- jcunwired
jcunwired: one thing i'm thinking about doing is to stop sending comments to twitter, but at the same time start sending likes to twitter (which i'm not doing now) that way i'll only send one link per discussion - you know i'm actually going to do that after typing it ... i've convinced myself
- Chris Heath
Phil: that's what I said. I hide, you hide, others hide, then FF catches the spammer, close his account, and thus, prevent others to be spammed
- Jérôme Flipo
I wish I could choose WHICH likes to send to Twitter. Or maybe I'm missing something?
- Michael McKean
I think the real problem for someone like Robert is that the real time has increased the noise on people's home feeds, and they haven't really started to use lists and filters yet. ANd I have to agree with Robert about not unfollowing people -put them on a list, you never know when they might add more value later on. This is why you follow astronomical numbers in the first place. To find the gems
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Michael, I don't think you can differentiate. Its all or nothing.
- jcunwired
Here's one for you, Robert...on subject of filters...if I wanted a filter containing JUST my flickr feeds, how would I set up the filter?
- George Hall (Australia)
Jérôme : that's how tiwtter handles spammers ...seems to work pretty well
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Chris: I caught a lot of heat ffrom my twitter followers for the comments going to twitter during a discussion like this. I turn them on only when I really want a single comment to go there so they get the link with outme having to "like"something and give them the wrong idea
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
George Hall, i have a feeling that the feature you request will be forthcoming
- Chris Heath
Oh, I see. I thought most systems report the spammers for action, before hiding its posts to others, i.e you have to bear the flow of spam before the team in charge decides to take action.
- Jérôme Flipo
One ittty-bitty filter like that would make my beta experience complete...;-)
- George Hall (Australia)
guruvan, interesting i haven't heard word one from my twitter followers... i rarely do - most of my @replies come from ppl i've found via im@twitterspy.org
- Chris Heath
Michael: perhaps they could pop up a little check box below the Like asking if you would like to send it to Twitter? That would probably work.
- Phil Maxwell
I wish there was a way to choose each time I like or comment to send it outbound or not, or set the answer to that question as a default maybe a check box next to the comment or like links
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
guruvan: why that's an excellent idea.
- Phil Maxwell
Chris: I did hear from several 2 of which accused me of "spamming" them with ff.im links - but it was always after a discussion that moved like this one is...where it was multiple comments pretty quickly....So I leave the Likes turned on by default, and the comments off.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
NOW my beta experience is complete...thank you Mitch. That can be adapted to the other services, I take it?
- George Hall (Australia)
guruvan, that's what i was affraid of and i've done exactly as you have
- Chris Heath
Yeah for sure. I think friendfeed is service:internal
- Mitch
Chris: That's why I'd like to be able to turn the outbound feed on and off right at the discussion. A lot of comments are really just that - comments...I'd like those posted to twitter to get more people involved in the goings on over here. But I don't think they need to see a link to every time I say something in a thread. (which could be yet another feature...not posting outbound more than once per thread per time period)
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
guruvan, earlier today (and yesterday) i had the idea to turn it off while commenting on twit-conversations but decided not to (changed my mind now) - but the once per thread per time period is an interesting idea too
- Chris Heath
Mitch: Got everything set as a filter except any specific rss feed. How does one do that?
- George Hall (Australia)
Chirs: If it was easier I would turn it on and off all the time. I get a lot of traffic/RTs and follows on twitter form the FF likes and comments. It really only irritates with it's like 10 in a few minutes. Some twitter people feel "spammed" on the likes because they have to click 2 times to get to the story that I liked. I wouldn't mind seeing the "original link" check box next to the like link. -so that if there isn't (or isn't likely to be) discussion I want them to see, I can send them straight away.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
George: Check with Mark Traphagen (trappermark) re: RSS filter..he's been working on that and I don't recall where that stood.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
And to add to that point: With the way that many, if not most, twitter users are following massive quantities, and yet still using the website, or a client and no groups, how COULD they see Robert's tweets? But they MUST see Robert's tweets, or Louis gray couldn't have said this: http://beta.friendfeed.com/louisgr...
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
curious as to why this friendfeed comparison to twitter discussion is (as the saying goes) beaten in like a dead horse -in so many variety of ways. is it really that fascinating in describing advantages of friend feed over twitter? (i'm agnostic in either service but curious as to the catalyst(s) in why this is a continuous thing.) there's mechanistic differences, but isn't the point of all this to make of it all what we will? make it our own?
- sɹǝɥʇɐǝɟʞɔɐןq
I think people readily follow on Twitter because the tolerance for spam on Twitter is higher. It is after all a 140 char message. But on Friendfeed with all the metadata and functionality you really want items that are meaningful to you.
- Vishy
Holy long comment thread, batman! (aside: the existence of such comment threads is one of the advantages of FF) Okay, so I think FF will only succeed if it can encapsulate your entire Twitter existence within FF itself. In other words, on top of all the great things FF does, it needs to become a good Twitter client. This will take some serious pumping up of tools like imaginary friends...
- Karen James
Takes a while to catch up on 300+ comments =P @Netvista: you asked about sharing filters. There's is a room/group where people are doing just that http://beta.friendfeed.com/fffilte... When they share a filter, it's a link to a specific search result. When you're looking at the result, there's a link @ the top in the red bar to create a filter from it. @Mitch and George: to search only FF generated posts, service:friendfeed works.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
So did Scolble finaaaallly answer his comment? "So how does Twitter favor from this BIG difference?" Or was he just inciting more frenzy Scoble style? Looks to be not yet...he disappeared.
- sofarsoShawn
Shawn, it's 6 am in Scoble's time zone. Even he has to sleep sometime =)
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Both of them have users forcing people to click through which is a pain. End.
- Richard A.
Great Conversation, I missed the "live" version as it happened but was able to catch up quickly. Things I'm interested in, sidebar for FF live for browsers? Never mind found it here http://userstyles.org/styles...
- Mark Essel
I tried to read this thread but it was at 600+ comments. Does FF have a tl;dr auto-summarizer yet? No offense folks, but I don't have an hour on Monday morning to catch up here.
- Daniel J. Pritchett
Timestamps for what, Chris, the comments? Those are available: hover over the speech bubble to the left of a comment
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Tina beat me to it, but beyond the bubble, some sort of timestamps would be nice so you can just scan the list and tell who said what when. For example, I'd like to be able to see what folks said after I gave up keeping up with the discussion on this around 10pm or so last night.
- Ken Sheppardson
Exactly Ken... Maybe something more along the lines of how Twitter does it. "Chris Poulson 34s ago"
- Chris Poulson
I don't buy that FF generates less followers. The sample size is much smaller to pull from. For an apples to apples compares we need to look at percentages. I'll bet you, percentage wise, you have more followers on FF and Twitter.
- James Furlo
Why do we have to focus so much on the tools? We couldn't expect this behavior to go mainstream. They are nothing other than means to enhance human interactions and relationships. Twitter is about notification and Friendnfeed is better at conversation; but let's ask what's the value of social media to us human being. I'd like to just be able to follow what I think are the best aspects of the people I like, so that I can be good at one thing and leverage on them when it comes what I think they are gd at.
- Tim Lai
*bumps* the contradictions are just ubiquitous
- sofarsoShawn
Question for FriendFeed users: what do you do about the fact that your Twitter friends is not synced with your FriendFeed friends (especially those not on FriendFeed)? I tried creating imaginary friends but it was far too tedious.
I created a few for the ones I'm most interested in. If there were a better, automated way to do this, FF would be the *best* Twitter client.
- Pat Hawks
@Edward - I tried that for a while, but it's still too much work. I want FriendFeed to be _the_ place where I organize my friend lists, so that's enough work for me. Selling my friends on the service or creating imaginary friends puts it over the limit of "too much work" :)
- Patrick Lightbody
And when I add someone as a friend on FriendFeed, I want it to follow them on Twitter too. Right now I can only handle one social network, and it tends to default to Twitter over FF, FB, LinkedIn, etc.
- Patrick Lightbody
Remember, if you create an imaginary friend with the same twitter nick, it will be unavailable to them when they /do/ sign up on FF.
- Ahsan Ali aka. Slick
yeah, i use imaginary. i also usually pull in their blog or other feeds, too.
- MikeAmundsen
Very true. Vegetarianism is another form of meat eating. To be pedantic, veganism is the term you were looking for, because that's where you avoid any foods created by, from or tainted with animal products.
- Alex Scoble
Teetotalling is another form of getting drunk
- Dave Slusher
Zero is always part of a set unless you are a Roman.
- Alex Scoble
nope. the right analogy would be "vegetarianism is another form of eating". Adding "meat" to the "eating" in that analogy is just twisting it a little to fit the argument IMO.
- vijay
Completely logically incorrect but thanks for playing
- Dave Slusher
Your understanding of logic is apparently in need of an upgrade.
- Alex Scoble
Veganism is another form of carnivorism.
- Dave Slusher
The only reason I didn't say "carnivorism" originally is that it is a cumbersome, not everyday sort of word.
- Dave Slusher
simply trading one belief system for another - any "theory" that explains anything is a belief system - granted, science is more rational than mythic religions
- William Harryman
Religion is a very specific belief system that allows for the supernatural. Atheism is a very specific belief system that does not allow for the supernatural. They are disjoint sets. Trying to fudge semantics on this point will be unproductive.
- Dave Slusher
OTOH, it's unfortunate that atheism/agnosticism doesn't get the same legal protections of conscience that religions do, at least in the US.
- LogEx
If religious belief was 0, then atheism would be 0 as well. But since religious belief is certainly non-0 but a certain value of X, then atheism cannot be X as well, since it is not-X or 'absence of X'
- Bora Zivkovic
I think what matters is what the definition of religion is. If religion equals "world view", then yes, I guess atheism fits that bill.
- Meryn Stol
Religion is expressed through rituals, prayers ecc. for this reason Atheism can't be defined as religion.
- Manuela
I also like to see atheists take a seat at the "interfaith" table. That is, those atheists who have at least faith in something, like the ability to better ourselves.
- Meryn Stol
That is a dangerous conflation of two different dictionary definitions of the word "faith".
- Bora Zivkovic
Religion doesn't need to be expressed through rituals or prayers, you can't put your religious framework as THE definition of what a religion is. Religion is simply a belief system. That is all.
- Alex Scoble
Wikipedia says about religion: "A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth." In that sense, no, atheism is really NOT a religion. :)
- Meryn Stol
To believe that the universe was created out of random chance and that there is no god is still a belief system. To believe nothing is still to believe in something.
- Alex Scoble
I belong to the "unicorns don't exist" religion
- Alejandro
@alex basically, anything you follow.. religiously. It's where the term came from ;)
- alphaxion
"To believe that the universe was created out of random chance and that there is no god is still a belief system." NOT! It is not in any way akin to religious (blind) belief. It is the understanding of the world as it is, not belief in whatever parents or preachers say no matter how far removed from reality, for the sake of group cohesion, a.k.a., differentiation between in-group and out-group, which is what religion is.
- Bora Zivkovic
Wouldn't it be better to drop the term "atheism" and instead state that you're "not religious"? That would be much clearer I think.
- Meryn Stol
People believing in god don't have to be religious. if they don't belong to any religion they are theists.
- Alejandro
That is what the word means: a+theism. It's not my fault that the religionists managed to frame it negatively.
- Bora Zivkovic
I 'got' the post, found it funny, understand the point, am now moving on.
- Aaron Macom
Your understanding of belief as blind is incorrect and too narrow. As is most people's definition of religion. To say that an atheist doesn't believe anything is to completely ignore how the human brain HAS to function in order for US to function. Without belief there is no way a self aware being can survive.
- Alex Scoble
Alex, I'd say that having beliefs is not the same as being religious.
- Meryn Stol
BELIEF: something believed; an opinion or conviction. RELIGION: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
- Alejandro
That is, again, a dangerous conflation of two different dictionary definitions of the word "faith".
- Bora Zivkovic
@Alex I got your point but I still think that there's no religion without practice; you can believe in God or in Ceiling Cat but your personal feeling doesn't make you a religious person. Religion is a shared knowledge
- Manuela
All "religions" have a set of prayers, rituals, beliefs, etc. Atheism is a non-belief in a higher-power. Agnosticism is a question of whether there is a higher power. Not religious can encompass both Agnosticism as well as Atheism. But Agnostics can sometimes participate in "religion" like an inter-faith service. However, there are two distinct types of Athiests. One is really more of a satanic "religion" than a non-belief......
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
Correct, Manuela. Individual belief in God is spiritualism in some sense. Religion is always a collective, group endeavor as the main purpose of religion is differentiating the in-group from out-group: who is with us who is 'gainst us: http://www.amazon.com/Darwins...
- Bora Zivkovic
@Mike Just a quick note, there are many types of agnosticism too
- Lindsey is Fierce!
....True Athiests actually do not take part in ANY faith-based activity, reject the notion of a higher power, and are more often than not pretty docile and kind people. I am more in-between Atheist and Agnostic. Atheism is not a religion really, it's a lack of a religion.
- Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
I'm agnostic and i wouldn't say it's a form of religion either.
- Lindsey is Fierce!
Hey, I am an atheist, and a vocal one to boot, and I am hosting a Seder tomorrow. Dawkins celebrates Christmas. When properly secularized, the old religious traditions can be quite pleasant.
- Bora Zivkovic
@Bora yep, and they also make the economy go round
- Manuela
If you have to broaden the definition of "religion" to "any arbitrary belief system" in order to disprove my original post, then the word has no actual meaning anymore.
- Dave Slusher
There is a reason why everything I'm saying is as short as possible and with the simplest language possible. I'm trying to pin this down without wiggle room, and a lot of people persist is trying to wiggle nonetheless.
- Dave Slusher
Ummm... Many/Most Buddhists are atheists. I'm Buddhist, but I hold the question of whether or not there's a God as more or less irrelevant in my daily life. So I guess that makes me a religious agnostic? And yes, Buddhism is actually a religion.
- Internet's Tad
I'm an Atheist and I love when someone asks me if I believe in/worship the devil. LOL
- BEX
@tad buddhists can't be atheistic because they still have a set of rituals and dogma they follow *religiously*. Lack of belief in a god does not equate to atheisim. Personally I don't think anyone can be a true atheist due to the fact that it would require the total absense of any philosophy in order to purge out theistic practices. If anything, buddhism closely matches my own belief more than any other, but I still reject even their practices.
- alphaxion
The word Atheist means someone who doesn't believe in God, right? No religion is not the same as Atheist. You can believe in God, but have no religion and not be an Atheist. Unless I'm horribly confused.
- Internet's Tad
Seems to me the whole point of religion is to create the space where X can indeed equal NOT X. (I usually find it pretty hard to continue the conversation when that little tidbit surfaces.) @Dave, it's also been said "atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby" :) (More of this topic all the time over here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/aasfshn...) <-- is that shameless or what?
- Edward Zwart
Atheism is a lack of belief in unprovable (by definition unprovable, not 'yet-unproven but potentially provable') concepts, which in most religions (not Buddhism) includes a belief in God.
- Bora Zivkovic
After reading this, does anybody else want a hamburger and then wash it down with a nice glass of holy water?
- Derek Coward
as dave knows already but i'll share for others, i am a catholic vegetarian snowboarder who freely associates with and tolerates the eating habits, opinions, beliefs and lack there of of almost all folks i come across in my life - except for skiers of course, so pls don't let me ever hear you say that "snowboarding is just another form of skiing" - lol, lighten up folks :-p
- mike "glemak" dunn
@Mike: if they were atheist they wouldn't believe in Satan either.
- Alejandro
Virginity is a form of sexual behavior, though.
- Dossy Shiobara
Oh: How is atheism not a form of religion? If you had actual proof of atheism's correctness, that would be one thing - but, as any religion, atheists believe based on faith that their theory of God's existance (or lack thereof) is true. Atheism is just a step above cult following, really.
- Dossy Shiobara
@dossy atheism isn't a belief. it's not a claim of anything (never mind any correctness), it's the rejection of all theistic creations in all their forms. It's the equiv of stucking your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes & singing "lalalala". Most atheists just carry on their lives & observe nothing spiritual. Some will celebrate their lack of faith, but in my eyes anyone that visibly celebrates their lack of faith, displays faith. By showing you are atheistic, you no longer are. A new quantum kitty?
- alphaxion
This has well crossed my threshold of what I can keep up with. I'm doubling down on my original statement but addressing bad logic is way more work then good. Obfuscators - mission accomplished!
- Dave Slusher
One particular philosophy of the several labeled 'atheism' is equivalent to a religion (the assertion, as an article of faith without proof, that there is no god). There are milder forms that make non-religious assertions (ie. that there is no proof for the existence of god, and asserting the unreasonableness of believing in something without proof, while acknowledging that proving a negative assertion is inherently impossible). Also, agnosticism often gets lumped in as well.
- Michael R. Bernstein
If nothing else, the thread has gotten bizarrely interesting. It's like watching a train wreck. Who'd think that making an assertion about having a lack of belief in the supernatural would be this controversial? So much for our evil genius just leaving us with a gentle "Thought For The Day"...
- Ken Kennedy
Excuse me Madam, but does this bus go to the station.
- Henry Gee
All you guys are wrong, as proven by my counterexample that having a love for science and technology is simply another way of being a luddite.
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
Personally, I think the whole question is pointless. I'm Apatheist... Whether there's a space man up there watching me or not, it's up to me to make things happen for me in my life and take responsibility for my actions and situation. The time and energy arguing about what religion is or not and which one is the right one could be spent to so much more productive purposes. I don't have a problem with people practicing religion because they need it as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others.
- Lindsay
To quote somebody or other, "If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby".
- Richard Carter, FCD
This reminds me that the framing of religious people as "people of faith" bothers me, as it assumes atheists as lacking faith of any kind.
- Eric Berlin
Still like the old, "if atheism is a religion then bald is a hair color."
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
Atheism depends first of all on your definition of Theism. The very first Christians were once considered Atheists by the pagan religious mainstream of their day. Not much has changed, really. Same religious mainstream, with a surface layering of monotheism, but essentially the same as the pagan days. Or hasn't anyone guessed that the Trinity is a hedge bet sitting between polytheism and monotheism? A good honest atheist isn't that bad.
- George Hall (Australia)
I've never heard that one, but I can see why it would be frustrating. Atheism is a statement about God, but that doesn't make it a religion.
- Richard Klein
from twhirl
Let's get some use from the unwanted traction of this post. If you are driving distance of Myrtle Beach SC, there will be a panel on using new media in your church at CREATE South http://www.createsouth.org/ April 25th. If you disagree with my stance, come attend that panel and tell me in person how wrong I am. I'll be easy to find.
- Dave Slusher
LOL. Dave I think you just invented "Controversy & Confrontational Marketing"
- Paul Reynolds
lol paul - i like it ccm (not the hockey company) :-p
- mike "glemak" dunn
I'm at least 25 years too late for that.
- Dave Slusher
And I believe I'm going to be making the definition of "driving distance" about 1600 miles.
- J Wynia
You heard the man. Y'all have NO EXCUSE!
- Dave Slusher
Here, let me sum up and contrast my definitions: A belief in the (unprovable) lack of god is religious, while a lack of belief in an (unprovable) god is not. These are very different, but unfortunately both positions get labeled as 'atheism', and both can be described as 'not believing in god'.
- Michael R. Bernstein
Yea did the Wicked Pharaoh of Nature banish us even after three rounds of review. Our appeals from the wilderness fell on deaf ears. So we journeyed 40 years in the Wilderness of Nih until we cameth upon the Promised Land of PLoS One (hey - did I really write that?)
- Henry Gee
I wonder if she came come over and help me.
- Mr. Gunn
I knew there must be a word for that! Funny thing is that this only happens to me (okay not so severely but let's just say I recognized FSP's colleague) with peer-reviewed papers. No other kind of writing causes me to seize up quite the same. I'm struggling right now to produce a draft of a paper and I'd say the problem is one part having a thousand other urgent things I have to do, one part graphophobia, one part procrastination.
- Karen James
Having been there, walked around, eaten, walked again, met, video-d, live-streamed, slept there, photographed, chatted, Tandoori-ed, blogged, Twittered, haz beers, mighty breakfasts, explored Maison das Girrafes etc - I thought, hmm, maybe it's time I should get the t shirt. It's now in the post !
love this. I wonder if you could mount a model rocket to that beast and have it fire once in the stratosphere. With the less dense atmosphere, I wonder what kind of altitude you could achieve.
- mikepk
Awesome. And could be the source of so many science exam questions. How long does it take to get to maximum height? How far does it travel laterally? How much does the balloon expand, and why? Given the density of the air, could you hear the balloon pop? :)
- Matthew Todd
Those are good questions, Mat. But somehow my thoughts are dominated by mikepk's proposal to combine with a model rocket :)
- Steve Koch
Rod, as you know I was at your talk and it was absolutely brilliant to have you hold such an honest and well-articulated mirror up to us (us = the Natural History Museum). I'm cautiously hopeful it will spark a quickening of pace (and pulse!) here re. web2.0. Looking forward to hearing how the Brit Library talk goes over.
- Karen James
Small update of the reference manager overview, now including comments. Also added JabRef as one example of a BibTex application (Bibdesk is one alternative for the Mac).
- Martin Fenner
Most of these tools, and many online databases, support import/export of BibTex and RIS files. This means that you can move your data around between all these tools, but import/export is a little bit too much work for a regular reference management workflow.
- Martin Fenner
Import/export is also tough because there's no standard way to handle keywords/tags, so sometimes they'll be transferred, sometimes they wont.
- Mr. Gunn
Am I too old? Today I downloaded Mendeley for the second time and Zotero for the 3rd. I still don't see how I can use either of them. Mendeley was only 50% (at best) successful in gathering citation info from my PDFs. Whereas I tried importing my endnote library into Zotero and it's been stuck in "Progress" for an hour.
- Steve Koch
Assuming I can get Zotero to work...what does Mendeley provide that Zotero doesn't?
- Steve Koch
The social features (sharing, groups, etc.) are more mature in Mendeley compared to Zotero. That might change in a few months.
- Martin Fenner
Steve: The latest Mendeley release should automatically retrieve the correct metadata for all arXiv papers - which other databases are you using? One of the differences to Zotero is that Mendeley also extracts cited references from papers; the next Mendeley release will also include a PDF viewer with annotation capability and improved LaTeX integration, as well as an online PDF viewer and a shared group/lab working space.
- Victor / Mendeley Team
Hey, I can't wait for the next release. I really can't.
- Paulo Nuin
Hey Victor -- What I tried was importing my PDF library. Many articles had problems. I can fix these by hand, but then I lack confidence in my database. When I clicked on the PMID lookup (or DOI), nothing seemed to happen. I also didn't see any citulike option, but I then gathered that this hasn't been rolled out yet.
- Steve Koch
The online PDF viewer is intriguing -- will that allow me to share PDFs with my group so that we can all take notes on the same version of a PDF? I like to use sticky notes and highlighting on my PDFs and it would be cool if I could share these marked up versions and our whole group could access one version without having a bunch of our own personal copies. But doing that online in PDF format sounds complicated
- Steve Koch
Steve: Could you please give me examples of DOIs or PubMed IDs for which metadata retrieval didn't work, so we can fix it (I assume that you entered some before pressing the lookup buttons)? CiteULike synching hasn't been rolled out yet - but should be in the next release (~5-6 weeks).
- Victor / Mendeley Team
Re:PDF viewer - don't know yet whether we manage to do the *shared* annotations you've described already in the next release, but that's exactly the idea! For starters, annotation will only be available in Mendeley Desktop, not in the online PDF viewer in Mendeley Web though.
- Victor / Mendeley Team
Victor: I put a screenshot on the following page. When I click on the "lookup" button it doesn't do anything. None of those three buttons do anything for me. http://openwetware.org/wiki...
- Steve Koch
Man, an error on Mendeley? What gives?
- Paulo Nuin
It happens in the best families, Paulo! Steve: Thank you for taking the screenshot, I'll give it to our support guys.
- Victor / Mendeley Team
Paulo, what do you have so much against Mendeley that you want to make the world to know that?
- Egon Willighagen
Steve: I tried looking up the PMID in an empty metadata form (after pressing Add Document > Manual Library Entry), and it retrieves all the metadata correctly. In your screenshot, all the data that could be retrieved is already filled in, so perhaps that's why it *seems* nothing is happening? Which is a UI problem, of course, it should be telling you what's going on.
- Victor / Mendeley Team
@Egon: I'm just joking now, having some fun. Isn't that what internet is all about? I wish that they have success with their application.
- Paulo Nuin
Thank you, Egon, and thanks, Paulo! We're taking it in the spirit in that's intended - Paulo had a not-very-good experience with one of our first public betas and rightfully complained. And since one of his friends (Ricardo Vidal) joined us as Community Liaison, he's been poking a little fun at us...
- Victor / Mendeley Team
Well, there was just today a comment here on science(2.0?) being sort of a game... I agree that fun should be part of it. But in science there really is something at stake: the future of mankind. I have been pondering about using Mendeley, and tried the beta... it looks nice, but I have not found a compelling reason to replace my other tools with it. And being closed source, my preference goes towards equally functional just less polished open source versions... Poking is OK, but it smelled like more...
- Egon Willighagen
So, I was curious about pro's and con's about Mendeley...
- Egon Willighagen
I'm curious about collaborations between different tools that would make sense. Papers / Refworks has little overlap. Maybe JabRef / Zotero. Connotea and CiteULike would work great with most of the other services. Of course we already have Mendeley / CiteULike as well as Web of Science / Endnote and Scopus / Refworks.
- Martin Fenner
The conservatism of scientists has always puzzled me, but I agree with you - it's the "I need results yesterday" culture that keeps people in their comfort zone.
- Neil Saunders
I think this goes beyond scientists. Pretty much the only reason to adopt another desktop word processing platform other than Word is ideological. If there was something else that worked as well, people would not spend the money that Office costs, but there isn't. We are all busy and getting things done on time is really important.
- Deepak Singh
I remember saying at a workshop that the only way CDISC, etc standards were going to get popular was via Microsoft's efforts in abstracting out the complex XML. Whether we like it or not, that's the best option out there and they're making the effort. And y'all know I have no love for Microsoft
- Deepak Singh
"If there was something else that worked as well" -- you mean apart from Google Docs, Open Office, BBEdit...? There are plenty of choices, some of which work as well and some of which work better. The point is, none of them work exactly the same, and it's the disinclination to do a little extra work now for a big payoff later that puzzles and irritates me. "I'm busy" only goes so far.
- Bill Hooker
And what is the big payoff. I don't see it. It's a change just cause, to an inferior product in most cases. Yes, for most document writing, I agree that Google Docs is more than sufficient (and Google Docs isn't open source either for this argument). The fact remains that you need to get things done quickly and efficiently and it will take a significantly better product to get people to move away from one they are familiar with. And in this case the only reason to change is "Microsoft is evil".
- Deepak Singh
Being occupied is definitely a big piece, Deepak's argument is another. The idea of supporting noble causes while working being completely alien to most researchers is a third. Ask around who actually knows that there is more to a computer than Windows ("what is an operating system?"), Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Power Point and Photoshop?
- Björn Brembs
And then there is the problem of IT departments preventing users from installing anything on their machines at all...
- Björn Brembs
Actually I'd argue that Explorer is an excellent example. Most places I have been to, people still word, but they also use Firefox, so much so that internal IT has to start developing apps that support Firefox. People changed not because FF was open source, but because it was much better.
- Deepak Singh
I would love publishers to accept manuscripts in other format than .doc - last time I've tried, Bioinformatics template was usable only with MS Word (OO messed up things completely). I think somebody mentioned this already, that possibility of Google Docs to automatically submit a manuscript to a journal would be a killer feature.
- Pawel Szczesny
Deepak - you're well aware of the effects that MS's monopoly power has had on standards alone and you know perfectly well the potential of standards (= semantic web) and the payoff that comes with not allowing commercial lockin of that potential. There is more reason to change than "MS is evil" and you know it. What there isn't, is enough immediate personal advantage to get selfish (/oh-so-busy) people to change.
- Bill Hooker
Bill, even as someone who doesn't use Windows at work or at home, or anywhere else, I do not grudge Microsoft their "monopoly", even if I don't agree with all the methods and the damage to standards, etc. If there were high quality alternatives (see Firefox example above) people would make the change, even corporate IT. The burden on the competition just goes up to be REALLY good.
- Deepak Singh
http://www.w3schools.com/browser... - FF and Explorer are roughly even in 2009. Given that (by your own lights) Explorer is a vastly inferior product, what explains its persistence except MS's willingness to abuse their monopoly -- sorry, "advantageous market position"?
- Bill Hooker
Explorer has been around a lot longer, used to have 95% market share just a few years ago. For those who care about their browsers, FF's market share is even higher. That it's come this far in such a short time is testament to the fact that it's a better product. Otherwise it would not have a chance. And remember the people using older versions of IE are the ones who don't know any other world, but they are not the people we are talking about by and large.
- Deepak Singh
I know all too well the attitude that Bjorn and Deepak refer to. Getting the word out about open data helps a lot, but sometimes the tools just aren't ready either. Years ago I tried to turn my PI onto Connotea from Endnote and he found it lacked features, but I've turned dozens of people on to Firefox with no problems.
- Mr. Gunn
Bill, ever read The Delicious Lesson? http://bokardo.com/archive... I think that's very relevant here. Even if the imagined global end state of the system is far more desirable than the current state, this state will only be reached if all local transitions are beneficial too. This doesn't have to mean "naive" self-interest. Living up to ideals can work too. Just not so much. Find something that really serves people's own interest, and the system state will topple quick.
- Meryn Stol
It's just about making better offerings... Our current ones suck. Or they are "sold" badly. For example, storytelling might help to explain benefits of online networking and sharing.
- Meryn Stol
As for Open Office vs MS Office... I don't know if OO really helps that much. I hate all "office" documents anyway. A move away from paper documents to dynamic views on data would be far more beneficial. You can't expect the mass to do something purely out of "MS-hate".
- Meryn Stol
Thanks for the link, Meryn. I hadn't seen that, and I think you're right, it's very relevant. What I think I'm learning here (with all the usual caveats about generalizations firmly in place) is that Jo/e Average is reluctant to give anything up, even for future gain -- he/she wants every change to be a gain right away. People who want systemic change (e.g. OA nuts like me) had better understand that... and should really just quit railing against it, because it ain't gonna change.
- Bill Hooker
Nice place to quickly share my personal theory of why OO isn't as good as a competitor to Office as FF is to IE: Developers don't care about Office suits, and rightly so. Office suits are "passe" to developers. The web is not. The web is there for as far as we can see in the future.
- Meryn Stol
It could be that the current transition the OA movement is looking for is impossible. Maybe it could work better to start something entirely new, something not based on papers, but on direct sharing of everything. "open notebook" science, but with a notebook on a site like Delicious, with networking and collaboration opportunities. FriendFeed already has brought some well-willing scientists together, it seems.
- Meryn Stol
Part of the reason FF works is that it doesn't conflict with other activities. It's very low-commitment.
- Meryn Stol
Great post Bill. What do you think if the plugins were made available for MS Word AND OO Writer?
- Ricardo Vidal
As people more eloquent than me can explain: open science, open access, and open source are very different issues. Sometimes it is helpful to use an example of success in open source software to explain the power of openness and shared resources. But in other cases, such as in Moody's attack on Wilbanks, conflating open science with open source software does a lot more harm than good. I think people are going to look at that attack and be prone to write-off "open science" as a crazy fringe movement.
- Steve Koch
Cameron Neylon, Jean-Claude Bradley, Deepak, and I'm sure many others do a much better job as ambassadors for open science. They recognize that persuasion is going to win over a lot more people than attacks. And that there are many existing legitimate reasons for scientists not to embrace complete openness.
- Steve Koch
It's preposterous to criticize a proponent of open science for needing or even enjoying to use MS Word. I don't see any difference between this kind of criticism and demanding that an open scientists immediately cease using any technology or information that is protected by patent, copyright, trade secret, or market dominance.
- Steve Koch
There is no paradox in me wholly supporting open science and profit-driven capitalists simultaneously. I support money and people who make lots of it. I think MS Word has added a tremendous amount of value for billions of people over the last couple decades. I don't think you can argue with that. You can argue that 10x or 100x as much value could have been added by an open-source word processor--but that's an experiment we can't carry out (as far as I can see).
- Steve Koch
Steve - the only thing I can add here is that when embracing a closed source solution, you have to be careful about vendor lock-in. It sucks to be forced to upgrade on their schedule because they control the data format.
- Mr. Gunn
Well asking that I be careful is a much more reasonable position than branding me a hypocrite for using closed-source software :)
- Steve Koch
ambassadors for open science? forgive me you must be kidding, why we need brand ambassadors and what kind of open science you are talking about, if you want to do advocacy for open science you need to make a strong case, set the examples where people really admire to move on open science, by forcing the ideology- just attacking and writing provoking blog articles you can not bring the changes.
- Abhishek Tiwari
Abhishek -- That's a big part of what I meant by citing those "ambassadors." They make a strong case and have set really great examples that I think people can admire...and without attacking or forcing ideologies, in my opinion. So, I wasn't kidding, but I also don't have very strong opinions about that word, ambassador.
- Steve Koch
well I have only one objection that is phrase "ambassadors", otherwise I agree totally with your observation. Problem is when we promote some one at that level aka "ambassadors" they start thinking what they observe is only way to do the things, open science will be a community effort
- Abhishek Tiwari
when you start doing Open XYZ, there is a responsibility to convince people that you have good intentions at first place, from Bill Hooker blog all I see is his anti Elsevier agenda depending on the way he present the things. Why don't he write on how much money was waived by Open publishing houses such as PLoS and BMC in past where some one was not able to pay open access fees?
- Abhishek Tiwari
rather than showing negative side of others better present positive side of yours
- Abhishek Tiwari
The appropriate philosophy is making small changes, going for the small wins first and think about what is more important. Open source software or semantic underpinnings in this case. It's never cut and dry. If you go for the all or nothing solution, you won't get anywhere.
- Deepak Singh
Abhishek, one could argue that people like Cameron and Jean-Claude have done for open science, both in writing and in practice than pretty much anyone on the planet. And while Bill and I might disagree, he is single handedly responsible for bringing open science to the masses with his classic posts at Three Quarks Daily. I agree though that providing solutions (see Jean-Claude) is always more effective.
- Deepak Singh
@Deepak I think there's just one tweak I would make to your otherwise cogent contributions to the discussion: the open product doesn't have to be *better*, it just has to be good enough to compete as a free product. This is the lesson I learned from Lawrence Lessig's tale about ASCAP and BMI from his TED talk. http://www.ted.com/index...
- Chris Lasher
I am not modest, but I have to disagree with Deepak's kind assessment of my contribution. Paul Davies was talking about Open Science, at least to fellow scholars, while most of the BioGang were still in diapers -- and Mitch Waldrop's SciAm article did more to bring Open Science "to the masses" than any blog post ever. To name just two. I don't mean to be ungrateful, Deepak, it just felt funny to leave your comment un-footnoted, as it were. (Or perhaps I just like arguing with you. :-))
- Bill Hooker
Chris ... for an non-entrenched product, correct. For an established product, it has to be better. Inertia is a strong force. Take Chrome for instance. Even if there was a mac alternative, the only thing that would make me leave firefox was if it was significantly better, since I have all these plugins.
- Deepak Singh
Bill ... Arguing is good ;). I do think though that your trilogy of posts has had more of an impact than you realize. I will admit that Mitch is the man :)
- Deepak Singh
@Deepak Well, sure, but that's not the same situation. You don't pay for Chrome or Firefox. Somebody pays for MS Office. Lessig's point was about expensive v. cheap/free. Now, if the department pays for it, does that negate the effect (because it doesn't feel like you personally paid for it)? Maybe.
- Chris Lasher
Also, the nice thing about being associated with the CS department, now, is that papers are written in LaTeX. ;-) So be careful about "scientists" as a broad term. Probably the more quantitative the research, the less likely they'll use either word processor. LaTeX FTW!
- Chris Lasher
Exactly, most people do not pay for a copy of office. They get it via their department, etc. Most people also don't use LaTeX (I know very few biologists and chemists who do). If I want to develop a plugin which I want people to use, Word is the obvious target and if you want to choose another platform that's great, but you better have a good reason to do so.
- Deepak Singh
The Mumbai attacks showcased the use of Twitter as a real-time, peer-to-peer information service. Throughout the event, people twittered the movement of the attackers. The police were on the service admonishing people not to disclose their own movements. Though there was criticism of whether or not the details were accurate (the BBC was criticized for integrating Twitter into its reporting), the larger point is that this real-time communication system influenced the physical behavior on the ground in Mumbai. This is a key point about the social nervous system: It coordinates (and sometimes directs) physical activity in the world.
- Meryn Stol
Author's use: "I used Twitter during the Oakland riot to stay updated on local transit outages and plot a new route home from work." Smart.
- Polly Potter
It's a tad unusual to release a "The Making Of" item ahead of the release of a film. All part of the fun though, innit. No wonder I never went into a career in marketing !!!
- Graham Steel
The "Accordion Hero" looks like a teaser. Worrying, but still.
- Bob O'Hara
Comprehensive! Love Henry's hat. Great effort, Graham - can't wait for the main feature.
- Maxine
Thank you dearly, Maxine. Am emailing the producers as I squeak regarding this and the next potential LostHorse Films/CISB adventure. @Bob, the accordion element might just be the icing on the cake, so I can't say more than that, at the moment.
- Graham Steel
I can also reveal that in filmaker terms, to "knock one off" is apparently when you stumble upon an unexpected location/potential shot, assemble all/some kit and hit record, in our case, in HD. I wasn't the only one who was 'perplexed' when the first "knock one off" moment happened. 'Twas a tad Michael G et al given the (out of shot) particular surroundings.
- Graham Steel
harumph. When I try and play it, nothing happens. It's all black. Like ... none more black. Nada. Zip.
- Henry Gee
Shall re-post to YouTube in a sec. link to follow.
- Graham Steel
It works ok with a PC running Firefox - my Mac and Safari were having none of it.
- Graham Steel
Worked fine for me in good old IE7 ;-) Posted on Petrona tonight, which should get you masses more viewers, ha ha.
- Maxine
the second last comment didn't come from me, so I can only assume that this came somewhere from MdG's in that Henry is logging in as me. Funny !!
- Graham Steel
Yes, my PC FF still thinks it's Graham, after all the twiddling around he did with it in. Cromer
- Henry Gee
Anyway, Mr G S of Glasgow, when do we get to see the rough cut?
- Henry Gee
2 - 3 weeks. Dr Ghee, as you know, I offloaded the software I required to use on your olde Dell. Apparently, I'm now signing in here as Boris Becker, the confusion e-VOLVO's and, thickens.
- Graham Steel
Graham, is "Dr Ghee" a mistype or a comic moment of genius?
- Cameron Neylon
"a comic moment of genius", as one would expect, Mr Nylon.
- Graham Steel
Dr Ghee and Mr Nylon sound like supervillain names... can the next Watchmen be far behind?
- Bill Hooker
Thanks a lot for the appetizer, Mr Steed. I'm looking forward to the finished movie.
- Martin Fenner
Damn, he's discovered my secret superpower...to generate a lot of static...
- Cameron Neylon
I'm sending the accordion music to Mr Steel right now. Mwah hah hah hah hah!
- Henry Gee
Mr Steel's mailboxes remain empty, Dr Ghee. No rush anyways as I can't complete the soundtrack until I have the unpolished "rough cut" of da film. Wiki:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Graham Steel
Mr Steed now has Dr Ghee's accordion music, warts 'n' all. Thanks, Dr Ghee. Don't tell that pesky supervillian Dr Martini Fenner though.
- Graham Steel
Update. Things are coming together well. Two of the team have new tasks to complete by Wed and have been informed. Shortly after, I'll drill in the music and circulate a low-res draft of the film to the team for review. Once the "Pier Review" is complete, the Producers will master the final cut in HD and proceed to upload it to teh interwebz.
- Graham Steel
Is "Sickness is SO bracing!" pour moi?
- Karen James
Nope, but it could be. That jpeg was by Mike Fowler in Finland a few months ago.
- Graham Steel
i work for a company with huge stacks of software development requirements and the bare minimum development resources for it, so it always disgusts to me to see such overengineered sites with features as pointless as the overlay text box on that guardian in pictures thing!
- Joe Dunckley
I have to agree about the overlay text boxes thing. They add nothing, and get in the way.
- Richard Carter, FCD
Chris, that's a big project. You might want to refine what "all genomes" means. Do you really need, for instance, all of the Drosophila genomes, or does a representative like melanogaster answer your question? For eukaryotes, Ensembl covers the evolutionary space well and has downloads in GenBank format and even their MySQL tables if you want to go that route: http://www.ensembl.org/info...
- Brad Chapman
Hmm, is there more than one Drosophila genome available from NCBI? I notice there are two GBK files for chromosomes 2 and 3, but only one for chromosomes 4 and X. Either way, we definitely want just one representative genome per species.
- Chris Lasher
Tim, I spotted your comment and made a few edits so the motivation for a local database is clearer. Now, it gets me a bit that we're collecting and storing redundant copies of data that already exist out there, but we're not in data-integration land yet for biology, so I can't see any alternative.
- Chris Lasher
you know what would solve this? ;-) seriously, it seems to me an API would work, do the data integration for you. unless you need to run some intensive real-time calculations. <shrug>
- tim
I think FASTA qualifies as "intensive calculations". In order to run a local FASTA, the sequences have to be in a local DB--AFAIK.
- Chris Lasher
Chris, I wasn't trying to be pedantic, but rather suggesting that you may be able limit the scope of the work and still answer your biological questions. Delving deeper, do you need all Arthropods, or can D. melanogaster represent them? and so on. Coming up with a rational set of species spanning evolutionary history also works well since it forces you to confront the biases in the data.
- Brad Chapman
Okay, but practically, did Ensembl work for Metazoan genomes? What else are you missing? For plants, how about Gramene: ftp://ftp.gramene.org/pub/gramene/CURRENT_RELEASE/data/. They have GFF instead of GenBank. For fungi, maybe Jason S is around and could offer expert advice there.
- Brad Chapman
@Brad Oh, my apologies--I didn't interpret your suggestion as pedantic at all. I think it was quite astute and helpful. I definitely also appreciate your suggestions immediately above. I will have to run them by Prof. Jelesko. He gave the orders, "I want every genome available for FASTA," and I just said, "Hey, this is bioinformatics! I know this!" It was, perhaps, a bit of an ignorant "Sure thing!" That's why I'm soliciting advice--including yours! Many thanks!
- Chris Lasher
Awesome; glad to help. No need to apologize at all. Hope you all come up with a solution that answers your questions and doesn't fill up all your hard drives.
- Brad Chapman
I can read FriendFeed entries/likes/shares on FriendFeed; save Twitter for tweets. FF tweets bury my non-FF friends on Twitter, and buries my FF friends' *actual* tweets. :-( It's nothing personal, it's about signal:noise.
- Chris Lasher
So it's been nearly a month and more people, not fewer, are using this. :-( I don't like unsubscribing from Twitter accounts. This is my desperate plea to stop. It's uncool. Keep your services from spilling over. Think of the children!
- Chris Lasher
I send my likes to Twitter, but not comments - they just end up as context-free noise. I've even stopped following people on Twitter whose stream consists almost entirely of FF comments.
- Neil Saunders
I send items that I share in a public room to Twitter. even that makes me a bit uncomfortable, though, so I may re-think it. in general, I agree that some discretion is necessary! =)
- tim
@tim You know what would solve this problem?... ;-)
- Chris Lasher
@Chris, I was piping FF through Twitter because of Hope's suggestion in the thread about the ONS logos, but now I've limited it to pipe only if I've posted something new on my blog
- Shirley Wu
I don't want to see anything from FF in Twitter, because I use both. For Twitterrific, this helps: "defaults write com.iconfactory.Twitterrific tweetTextFilter -string 'ff\.im'"
- Michael Kuhn
I despise it. Thanks to some noisy FFeeders, my Twitter is riddled with more noise than usual.
- imabonehead
I think I'm now reduced to only sending direct messages and posted links to Twitter. Started off with comments and likes as well and then dropped them one by one as the volume seemed too high.
- Cameron Neylon
I like the friendfeed to twitter thing, I'm sorry if that annoys you Chris, but I'm able to communicate to two different (although overlapping) crowds this way. Like Paulo, I try to keep it to a minimum, but I do not see myself likely to stop anytime soon....
- Nils Reinton
I find the FriendFeed activity on Twitter annoying too. I have finally decided to change strategy: instead of hiding Twitter entries in FriendFeed, I unsubscribe from the people in question on Twitter to avoid seeing things in duplicate. Unsubscribing from people on Twitter is the only way that I can suppress the noise. Nothing personal.
- Lars Juhl Jensen
Anything which encourages Twitterers to get FriendFeed accounts seems like a good idea to me.
- Richard Carter, FCD
@Richard Do you really view it as a legitimate means to get Twitter users on FriendFeed? It seems like a very aggressive and likely unwelcome strategy for recruiting new FF users.
- Chris Lasher
I'm only on twitter because of Hope's suggestion. I still don't "get" twitter--maybe I'm too old?
- Steve Koch
I dislike the FF to Twitter stuff (I like following Cameron N, but was 24 hrs away from unsubscribing, just before the FF to Twitter noise stopped). 'Likes' on Twitter I can tolerate, but would prefer not to see.
- Andrew Perry
Chris Lasher, get out of my head! I couldn't agree more and was thinking of posting something to the following effect: twitter --> FF okay, FF --> tiwtter annoying as hell.
- Karen James
If you're too 'nice' to unfollow tweeps who spam your feed with their FF stream, and/or if you want to keep following them for their *real* tweets but skip the FF tweets, certain desktop clients allow you to filter out tweets with particular content. I have used TweetDeck to filter out tweets containing the text "ff.im"
- Karen James
Interesting comments from approx 18 different people. Try following that lot on Twitter. Whilst I agree that seeing other people's FF Likes on Twitter is pretty tedious, piping FF Comments through to Twitter, in my opinion, provides a very useful service. It says to a Twitterer's followers, "Here is something interesting, and here's the place where the conversation is happening". I don't see anyone objecting to seeing stuff they've already read in people's RSS feeds on FriendFeed. Same thing really.
- Richard Carter, FCD
Don't get me wrong; I think FriendFeed is great and I wish more people used it. It's just that it should be a linear - not circular - pipeline. Twitter, Flickr, YouTube etc. are input devices, while FriendFeed, Facebook etc. are aggregators and places for threaded discussion.
- Karen James
Richard you wrote 'piping FF Comments through to Twitter, in my opinion, provides a very useful service.' No, it's a one way ticket to getting unfollowed ...and I LIKE FriendFeed! You then wrote 'It says to a Twitterer's followers, "Here is something interesting, and here's the place where the conversation is happening"'. Why not just tweet that message then (repeatedly, if you must) and be done with it? I don't really want to follow people who only see Twitter as a giant marketing platform for FriendFeed.
- Karen James
Hi, all. I have just been in Twitter and saw there a note from Steve that helped me find this entire discussion, which I might otherwise have missed. I very much second Richard Carter's comments here, "...piping FF Comments through to Twitter, in my opinion, provides a very useful service. It says to a Twitterer's followers, "Here is something interesting, and here's the place where the...
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- Hope Leman
I like it, because I occasionally get pointers to interesting discussion on FF via twitter and because not everyone who follows me on twitter is on Friendfeed. I don't have much use for the twitter->FF myself. However, based on the consensus here, I'm going to try to reduce noise. I don't need both likes and comments to go to twitter. Maybe I'll just do comments, because I like frequently but comment less often(though still frequently).
- Mr. Gunn
Glad you learned from my message, Hope, rather than feeling attacked by it, as you might be forgiven for doing. Didn't mean to sound so ruthless, and I wouldn't unfollow a FriendFeeder in twitter without explaining first. One solution might be to follow someone in only FriendFeed OR twitter, but this assumes that all who use both services pipe their tweets to FriendFeed.
- Karen James
Okay, I've modified my position to take into account that it's only FriendFeed COMMENTS that annoy on Twitter. New entries (as they normally read fine in Twitter and provide their own context, and are usually less than 140 characters) and likes are both fine by me.
- Karen James
Hi, Karen. I was not at all offended and very much appreciate your tutelage on the etiquette and most efficient use of FriendFeed. I just saw in Twitter that Steve Koch has decided to stop sending FF comments to Twitter. What you guys decide to do and the discussion about your decisions are edifying and fascinating. Thank you for your patience.
- Hope Leman