Paulo, you can lump me into Cameron's category if you like, but I think you are holding him to an unfair standard. He walks the walk as far as I can see (does open research, writes grants for it, organizes events, etc), and uses his blog simply to flesh out some of his ideas as pretty much everyone does. I can understand that you differ in opinion but I guess I'm puzzled at the vitriol and the strange expectations. - Shirley Wu

There is one solution to open science, doing it!!! I think Cam meets that bar. - Deepak Singh

I think Cameron's positions are being distorted. I think the quote from the original post that's gotten him in trouble is: "it is important to make sure that the watering and care of the community doesn’t turn into the building of a walled garden." I'm not sure he was only refering to FF there. On the FF thread for that post he says: "I agree that FF gets the balance very close to perfect." I assume here that he's thinking out loud, exploring positions, and if he modifies or softens his stance during ... - John Dupuis

...the discussion, well, that's what discussion is for and that's what FF is really good at. - John Dupuis

Yep. I somewhat disagree with him on the specific FF aspects, but do agree a lot on the thought process - Deepak Singh

Paulo - I think you're taking some from the blog post that I really didn't intend at all. Looking back at it - I think I can see the title and the structure might have lead to the idea that it was meant as a criticism but actually what I meant by the post was that I was really excited by the discussion - by the possibility of having it - and specifically by the fact that people disagreed with what I said. The last paragraph was just meant as a bit of a caveat... - Cameron Neylon

...that it is important to remember in any community that there are other people who aren't involved and without their input none of this will go anywhere. Overall I think - and have said that Friendfeed is very very close to the perfect tool. If you want a concrete solution to the (potential) problem I posed it is simply to be aware there are other communities - to post pointers and add references to all the places where similar conversations are happening elsewhere. - Cameron Neylon

First, this is a series of posts on the matter and it's not a vitriol-dump on Cameron per se. He's just there, because he's there. He put his face out there to be slapped, as we say in Brazil. Yes, the only way to do it is doing it, but who is doing it? It's the usual suspects, the same group. Read the other tree or four posts about it. Until there is no clear definition the "ordinary" scientist won't do it, it'll be a buzzword, a fashion. - pn

Regarding the tone you used in the post, Cameron, maybe you have to change your style of writing, maybe be more clearer in what you try to convey to your reader, because definitely I didn't see your post as the way you explained it here. It's a global time, and a global audience, and part of the audience might not interpret things the way they are intended. You shouldn't care of what I think, of course, I don't advocate anyone's causes, and the slaps I might get might be much softer than yours. - pn

Paulo, I am not sure of what was your intended message but it came off a bit on the aggressive side. I think we all agree that the only real way to show that open science brings advantages to science productivity is really to try it out. On the other hand, if there not enough people interested in trying it out there will not be enough critical mass to kick start the process. There is no point in forcing collaborations just for the sake of it. - Pedro Beltrao

I don't agree that open science is a buzzword, you might be over exposed to these ideas but it is far from being something that most scientists think about. For most people (at best) open science = open access publication. - Pedro Beltrao

Yes, the only way is trying it out, or doing it. The buzzword part is for the "ingroup" only I guess, it's not a mainstream buzzword, just for a selected people that were, as you said, overexposed to it. As Cameron did no intend to criticize FF's walled-garden, I did not intend to be aggressive, just show the reality as it is, maybe with harsh expressions, but that's the way things are. I'm sorry if I offended you. I will only believe that Open Science works when someone outside this "ingroup" tells me ... - pn

about it, without me mentioning it first. - pn

FWIW, I have had a steady slow stream of follows on Twitter from people with science backgrounds, many of whom aren't in the in-crowd here. Most of the activity is tangentially related to the conference, suggesting that that was useful in pulling in some people who may previously have been on the sidelines. I think we'll see them in here before long. - Mr. Gunn

Compared to a few years ago, it's a lot bigger group. The discussions have changed too. It's more about examples, and not about what we could do - Deepak Singh

The so-called in-group is growing. Before I joined FF, I hadn't heard of Open Science. I'm sure with all the talks Cameron gives, more and more people are hearing about it, then his and Jean-Claude's interview with Nature and so on. If it's really an in-group, it's expanding. Moreover, Cameron is thinking about alternatives himself and soliciting ideas, see: http://friendfeed.com/e... So I can't really see what the problem is? - Björn Brembs