Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Headhunted

So, after a year and a half, and having sucked up more than 60 bloggers, Seed(y) magazine is so desperate to expand its evil empire that they have even resorted to asking me if I want to join them at scienceblorgs.com. Is the barrel really that bare?

Just joking, guys and girls. There's a lot of interesting reading there, even if it does sometimes veer too much towards the politically-correct anti-Repuglicanism and evolution wars stuff (yawn) for my tastes.

So, the question du jour is: To blorg, or not to blorg? Lining up on the Pro side, there is the promise of more readers (probably). Lining up on the Con side, there is the promise of more readers (probably) :-) It's all very well having a select few discerning readers who pop by occasionally, but I'm not sure I want too many people to stumble across this drivel by accident, or even worse, get pointed this way in expectation of thoughtful, provocative analysis...I happen to be a scientist, and it influences what I write about, but I'm not really a "science blogger".

They also promise to pay me. Well, as a Japanese public servant subject to a strict ethics policy, I would have to apologise humbly to my boss for the embarrassment I have caused, fly over to the USA and return the "gift" in person, on my knees. No, that's a joke. I wouldn't really have to kneel.

You can probably guess I'm presently minded to come down on the side of not joining any club that would have me as a member. There are some other advantages of shifting: I would like to be able to edit comments properly (eg reply in-line, and selectively edit the critical ones to make them look silly) and although the Blogger approach to trackbacks seems better than the standard approach to me, the incompatibility is a little tedious. OTOH I could have got that by moving to wordpress.com and I never bothered (in fact I never even bothered to check that I really could have got that, I'm just guessing).

Any advice (especially from those who have been there and done that) is welcome.

5 comments:

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Tim Lambert said...

Well, if Seed wasn't to assimiliate you, then by definition what you write does count as a scienceblog.

James Annan said...

Yeah, but they are just journalists, so what do they know?

C W Magee said...

If you want an informed opinion, dash off an email to Dr. Vranes...

James Annan said...

I had noted his departure, and anyway I've made my decision for the foreseeable future at least. The prominence of the "religion wars" (particularly vitriolic recently) have done nothing to change my mind, that's for sure. Not that I wish them any harm over there, it just isn't really something I particularly want to be part of.