ScienceBlogs

ScienceBlogs was an invitation-only blog network and virtual community that operated initially for 11 years, from 2006 to 2017. It was created by Seed Media Group to enhance public understanding of science. Each blog had its own theme, specialty and author(s) and was not subject to editorial control. Authors included active scientists working in industry, universities and medical schools as well as college professors, physicians, professional writers, graduate students, and post-docs. On 24 January 2015, 19 of the blogs had seen posting in the past month. Eleven of these had been on ScienceBlogs since 2006. ScienceBlogs shut down at the end of October 2017. In late August 2018, the website's front page displayed a notice suggesting it was about to become active once again.

ScienceBlogs was an invitation-only blog network and virtual community that operated initially for 11 years, from 2006 to 2017. It was created by Seed Media Group to enhance public understanding of science. Each blog had its own theme, specialty and author(s) and was not subject to editorial control. Authors included active scientists working in industry, universities and medical schools as well as college professors, physicians, professional writers, graduate students, and post-docs. On 24 January 2015, 19 of the blogs had seen posting in the past month. Eleven of these had been on ScienceBlogs since 2006. ScienceBlogs shut down at the end of October 2017. In late August 2018, the website's front page displayed a notice suggesting it was about to become active once again.

"PepsiGate"

In June 2010, ScienceBlogs started a blog which was sponsored by PepsiCo and was to be written by their employees. This led to backlash by many of the bloggers on ScienceBlogs who considered this to be an unethical mix of advertising and journalism, and the PepsiCo blog was withdrawn from ScienceBlogs. This affair was informally named "PepsiGate". By the middle of July approximately a quarter of the bloggers had left ScienceBlogs. Subsequently, some bloggers such as PZ Myers of Pharyngula announced they were going on strike as part of a general feeling that the people running Seed had failed to respond to concerns surrounding the incident. Seed Media responded by killing off Food Frontiers, the Pepsico sponsored blog, but that didn't stop the defections. According to PZ Myers, "The ship is sinking". A writer at the New York Times Magazine reviewed the incident and commented, "ScienceBlogs has become Fox News for the religion-baiting, peak-oil crowd." Some other science blogging networks were launched, including scientopia.org, scienceseeker.org and one hosted by The Guardian. In early 2015, however, eleven of the network's 2006 founding-generation blogs were still active, including Myers's.

Demise

On 14 October 2017, astrophysics blogger Steinn Sigurðsson publicly revealed that ScienceBlogs was due to be shut down, and David Gorski, author of the "Respectful Insolence" blog under his pseudonym Orac, stated that ScienceBlogs had "barely existed as an entity for a few years". Astrophysics blogger Ethan Siegel reported on 22 October 2017 that ScienceBlogs had informed bloggers it "no longer had the funds to keep the site operational, and so they would be shutting down".

Revival

In late August 2018, a note appeared on the home page which said that ScienceBlogs was now owned by "Science 2.0", a science media nonprofit, and that plans were in place to make the site active once again.

Awards

2012: IQ Award

External links

ScienceBlogs website

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1376219914 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.