Personally, am not convinced of some of the assumptions, e.g. "...Both are unfortunate, but are parts of the current culture [reference to sharing early lab results]. Any network that hopes to succeed must adapt to the culture of the community, rather than trying to rewrite it." First, though likely rare, I think there are instances where culture gets "re-written" -- another perspective is that this form of communication provides an alternative to established routes. That is, does not replace them but adds to the diversity of communication means. - Mickey Schafer

The only thing I really disagree with here is that I think there will be a shift towards more open approaches as more examples of success show up. Then everyone will go over the edge like lemmings and there will be a backlash again but by then the funders will be piling in with conditions to push things forward. - Cameron Neylon

<cynical>It doesn't matter what the scientists think. What matters is what the funders demand of them.</cynical> Open science doesn't really depend on "[online] social networks" and never has. It's true that most open-science sorts are active social networkers, but when the rubber hits the road, I don't care who's on FriendFeed -- I care who's sharing data. If the funders demand the latter and not the former, good on 'em. Behavior will shift accordingly. - D0r0th34

But the funders are the scientists in most cases - so a mixture of pushing from within the community - as well as top down mandates will get us there. The question is how to get the funders into a position where they feel bound to impose mandates _and_ provide the infrastructure that makes it possible to observe them...? - Cameron Neylon

Mmm, I'm not sure I agree. Funding infrastructure relies on a fair amount of scientist labor, yes -- but it's not career scientists who have been calling the funder shots; it's been top-level administrators (some of whom are ex-scientists, admittedly) looking at bottom lines. The Wellcome Trust mandate didn't come from scientists. Neither did the NIH policy. <cynical>One can't rely on scientists for effective science policy.</cynical> - D0r0th34

Fair enough. UK Research Councils case is more nuanced. Even Wellcome Trust policy was driven to a certain extent by the fundees or at least not in the face of belligerent opposition from them. But comparing the independent funders like Wellcome to the Research Councils (run more by councils of academics) is instructive. - Cameron Neylon

I thought the spin on your lovely shout out for Medeley on ch 4 news was interesting, Cameron (nice monitors btw!). 'government backing for innovators to meet and share' was the message. Have you had any responses to that yet? Maybe systems like Mendeley will be the things that start to crack the nut of social networking for scientists? I'm not sure it's a killer app, more the thin end of the wedge... - Jo Badge

Shorter DC: I don't like social networks or spend any time on them, so they must be useless. - Bill Hooker

I'm afraid they're not my monitors but those for the control room for one of the instruments (not incidentally the one that got filmed in the piece - but at least there was no blue liquid!) But they are in fact necessary to keep the instrument running and processing data efficiently. - Cameron Neylon

Bill, I am afraid your DC is heads on :-) - Claudia Koltzenburg

I can imagine a report from 1670, a full five years after the creation of academic journals, concluding that virtually no scientists were using academic journals as a matter of course, and thus they are useless. (Technological progress has sped up a lot since 1670, of course. But social change isn't all that much faster, in my opinion. And this is fundamentally a social change.) - Michael Nielsen

Michael++ - D0r0th34

I think we also tend to forget the granddaddy social software: email. In some fields there are tremendously active listservs that have been around for over a decade especially at research universities where faculty got email before it really caught on in the wider world. What evidence would convince a scientist that Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter offer better communication opportunities than an archived listserv? - Jenny Reiswig

Well, aren't most scientists using email as "communication opportunities" and nothing else? (social network, listserv etc)? - Maxine

were observations limited to sites specifically designed for scientists? perhaps to the exclusion of other significant mainstream platforms like facebook or twitter - Mike Chelen

Jenny: it might be better to gauge usage based either on features such as address book management or by traffic metrics such as size of audience - Mike Chelen