Just joining in with the agreement - I'm a young PUS/PEST person, of
sorts, and I do think the Psi-Com list is very valuable.
I suspect the fallow periods and the lack of 'chat' results from psi-com
being a rather artificial network (how many people are on this list?),
as people don't know who they're sending messages to, rather than any
technological obsolescence.
There are web 2.0-y solutions like Graduate Junction, Nature Networks
and LinkedIn, but a) they don't really fulfil the 'noticeboard' function
that psi-com does, and b) they have limited success anyway.
Imran
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ian Russell
Sent: 01 December 2008 10:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] Is pscicom list a dinosaur?
I think the great advantage of email forums over website-based forums is
that more people look at them and do so more often. This makes for
better
communication.
I agree with Richard. Email forum dinosaurs are alive and well and
soaring
on feathered wings.
Elsewhere, small mammals, such as the much less formal BIG-Chat email
forum
occupy a different environmental niche and seem likely to be great
underground survivors. http://www.big.uk.com/chat/index.htm Apart from
slightly different perspectives regarding science communication, it's
interesting to compare their dynamics. PSCI-COM is a much better source
of
certain kinds of information and doesn't clutter up your inbox with
trivial
chit-chat. Unlike BIG-Chat. There were more than twice as many messages
last
week on BIG-Chat compared with PSCI-COM, despite a significantly smaller
number of subscribers. But most of these messages are very informal
chat,
sometimes highly creative but sometimes deliberately silly, like any
pleasant, easy-to-enter conversation. Which really annoys folk who think
silence should be maintained until someone has something important to
say...
So I think it is important to define the rationale for any online forum.
Is
it a 'notice board forum' for important information and messages or is
it a
'coffee break forum' for more informal, creative discussion, necessarily
mingling triviality with creativity? Clearly, we don't want important
information-exchange to be spammed-up with trivia. At the same time,
there's
no better way to inhibit collaborative creativity that to tell people to
shup up unless they have something important to say. The practical way
to
prevent email forum chit-chat from filling your inbox is to set up your
email software's 'rules' to drop it into a separate folder. Maybe
instructions on this should be provided to all new email list
subscribers?
On a visit to AstraZeneca's latest labs at Alderley Edge, I saw that the
architect had carefully designed special networking 'hubs' into the
layout
of the building between the various labs, each with comfy chairs, tables
small enough to chat across, and a ready supply of coffee. In each lab
there
also seemed to be a close association between a relaxation space and a
whiteboard covered in indecipherable and presumably highly creative
scribbles.
If informal, pleasurable communication is important for scientists,
surely
it must be even more important for science communicators...
Promoting public engagement with science
through a contagious delight in phenomena
*
[log in to unmask] * http://www.interactives.co.uk
*
Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour.
Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.
*
Ian Russell
________________________________
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Richard Ellam
Sent: 01 December 2008 09:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] Is pscicom list a dinosaur?
Hello all
I think that the PSCI-Com list might be a dinosaur but then the
dinosaurs were a hugely successful and long-lived group of animals which
were only wiped out by an accident of literally Earth shattering
proportions.
PSCI-Com seems to be successful at what it does, and in Internet
terms is a long-lived, not to say venerable forum. Like the dinosaurs it
seems to be well adapted to its environment, so it should have a long
future
ahead of it, barring asteroid impacts or planet wide volcanic spasms
(take
your pick of catastrophes).
Don't knock dinosaurs!
Hope this helps
Richard Ellam
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