Tangled Bank #54
There's a new Tangled Bank up a Coturnix. Good stuff, go read.
In a related note, since Coturnix mentions his upcoming move, I'll also mention that "Good Math, Bad Math" will also be making the jump to ScienceBlogs in early June. The misery of coping with Blogger will soon come to an end!
In a related note, since Coturnix mentions his upcoming move, I'll also mention that "Good Math, Bad Math" will also be making the jump to ScienceBlogs in early June. The misery of coping with Blogger will soon come to an end!
posted by MarkCC at
8:24 AM
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4 Comments:
Too bad... I've been disappointed in ScienceBlogs since FrinkTank was forced out...
By
Anonymous, at 7:25 PM
anonymous:
I was also disappointed about the FrinkTank mess; but I'm also somewhat sympathetic towards SB. I work for a large corporation, and one of the things that I've learned from that is just what a big issue liability is. Considering the kinds of things we often say on our blogs, the ability of the company owning SB to state legally who is responsible for content is pretty important; in general, it's probably not worth anyone's time to sue *me* for what I say on my blog; but it might be worth it to go after a publisher. Having a clear contract where the parties know each other, and where responsibility is clearly assigned is pretty much necessary for any commercial operation.
The FrinkTank mess was a sad episode caused by that - SB wasn't willing to take legal responsibility for FT; and FT wasn't willing to give up enough anonymity for SB to be able to assign legal responsibility to them. Sad, but understandable on both sides, so I don't hold it against SB.
On the other hand, SB is willing to provide reliable hosting with unlimited bandwidth, file space for things like diagrams, software for blog management, better control over the blog - it's a really good deal for a blog author. I'm spending a fair bit of money on books for the stuff I write on the blogs; my wife would kill probably me if I were to pay for blog hosting and a movable type license. SB gives me that for free.
If SB had ever censored any of the bloggers that they host, that would be completely unacceptable, and I wouldn't have had anything to do with them.
By
MarkCC, at 10:54 AM
The decision by SB to later decide they didn't want FrinkTank isn't the obnoxious part (as disappointed as I was); it's the way SB handled it. One day, FrinkTank was there; the next, gone. And, according to FT, they never got their entries back from SB.
I hope your experience is better, but as a reader, it really soured me for the whole site. I thought FT was one of the best features, but clearly SB did not. I used to read SB daily--heck, it's how I found this blog when it began--but now I barely read SB. Might not end up reading this blog as much after the move, either.
By
Anonymous, at 4:53 PM
I hope you'll keep reading; I'd hate to lose readers over who's hosting the blog.
I also think SB is doing something really good and valuable. The reason that I agreed to move over is because as a reader, I think that SB is a great, central location for finding really good science and skeptic writing.
My take, based on my experience with SB this far, is that the screwup with FT was more likely due to inexperience rather than malice.
The SB folks seem to really have good intentions; they really seem to think that they're doing something valuable and important, not just doing something to make some $$$. But they don't seem to have quite figured out how to do everything right, or even what they need to do. I've seen a couple of low-level screwups caused by poor communication among the various folks at SB, and it just seems to come down to inexperience.
By
MarkCC, at 9:40 PM
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