UPDATE: Luboš Motl finds some interesting tidbits about the state of science at Sb, see below the “Continue reading” line.
UPDATE2: PZ Myers ends his “strike” and flames me, see response in Update2 below.
Many WUWT readers are familiar with some blogs that reside at Sb. For example there’s Wikipedia edit master, William Connolley’s “Stoat-taking Science by the throat“, Tim Lambert’s “Deltoid“, and some others like the well known Pharyngula by the ever grouchy PZ. Myers. It’s all good fun to read.
But, now there’s quite an exodus occurring at the scienceblogs.com conglomerate. Just look at the front page for today and the list of bloggers leaving or expressing concerns:
What’s happened? Well it all started with the parent company, SEED, allowing the Pepsi Company to start a blog on nutrition. Some bloggers went ballistic, perceiving that SEED caved to the almighty dollar and let some evil corporation into the sacred science temple.
Newsflash: SEED is a business. The Guardian did a story on the Sb blogger anger, and Sb was faced with a mass revolt. The SEED management didn’t handle it well enough or fast enough for some bloggers tastes, even though they removed the Pepsi Food Frontiers blog. The result: 15 Sb bloggers upped and quit in protest. Here’s the content they are protesting.
As PZ Myers writes at Pharyngula, it is getting worse, more bloggers are leaving, and he’s on strike with a list of demands for the Sb management.
Meyers writes:
It’s come to this. We’ve been facing a steady erosion of talent here at Scienceblogs, with the loss of good people like Carl Zimmer and Ed Yong a while back, and with the very abrupt departure of 15 bloggers after the recent PepsiCo debacle — an event that damaged the reputation of this place. And now just yesterday we lost PalMD and Bora. Something is going rotten here. What could it be?
…
Just in the time it took me to write this up this morning, Superbug, Zuska, and Speakeasy Science have all announced their departures, and Casaubon’s Book is considering it. We really are having a serious crisis of confidence, and Seed has to wake up and take action.
Add Mike Dunford to the list of departures.
Sb is crumbling fast. It seems to be the season for things crumbling. I wonder though, how many of those indignant bloggers that couldn’t handle a PepsiCo sponsored nutrition blog actually consume many of PepsiCo’s brands and don’t know it? There’s a lot of brands, Doritos and Mountain Dew for example. What blogger can do without those?
And PepsiCo has a lot of green brands, like Ethos Water that helps children get clean water worldwide.
And who could argue with the greenness and innovation of PepsiCo stuff like this?
Point is that the bloggers who resigned in protest over a nutrition blog probably consume some of these things and don’t even know who makes it.
But what is really funny is how the new Food Frontiers blog was presented by SEED management in the first place:
As part of this partnership, we’ll hear from a wide range of experts on how the company is developing products rooted in rigorous, science-based nutrition standards to offer consumers more wholesome and enjoyable foods and beverages. The focus will be on innovations in science, nutrition and health policy. In addition to learning more about the transformation of PepsiCo’s product portfolio, we’ll be seeing some of the innovative ways it is planning to reduce its use of energy, water and packaging.
Oh the humanity! Lots of tolerance over there at Sb.
I’ll give this piece of advice we always used to give in the TV Newsroom to people calling in that demanded we remove/edit/censure certain news stories, TV shows, or advertisements:
I understand your concerns, thank you, there’s no need to yell. Respectfully, if you don’t like the content, change the channel, we don’t force you to watch.
I find the whole Sb revolt thing hilarious. It’s a tempest in a pop can. Of course, PepsiCo could have defused this whole thing simply by making an announcement to stop putting deadly earth killing CO2 in their sodas, and instead sequestering it out back, underground. Then they’d be heroes, right?
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UPDATE: Luboš Motl finds some interesting tidbits about the state of science at Sb:
To demonstrate that scienceblogs.com has almost nothing to do with science these days, let us look at the five most active articles on their server, according to the main page of scienceblogs.com:
1. Episode LXXXII: Is this the thread for the tea party?… P.Z. Myers just included a would-be funny video that attacks the tea party movement
2. Monckton vs The House of Lords… Tim Lambert wrote a short text discussing purely the form, not the content, of some exchanges of Lord Monckton with the deputies
3. What fresh torment can we perpetrate on young girls?… P.Z. Myers discusses breast ironing in Cameroon and argues it occurs because the inhabitants are Catholics
4. Boyd Haley finally does the right thing, but is it for the wrong reasons?… Orac celebrates that the ScienceBlogs surrendered to the commies like him in PepsiGate; it’s discussed that evil companies are adding drugs to food
5. GOP Talking Points Even GOP Doesn’t Believe… Ed Brayton about Bush tax cuts. Doesn’t even pretend to be science
As you can see, science is virtually non-existent over there and everything is biased left-wing politics. But they still have the breathtaking arrogance to attack PepsiCo’s scientific blog on nutrition as insufficiently scientific for them.
Compare the above postings to the Food Frontiers blog now at PepsiCo’s website.
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UPDATE2: Predictably, the always angry PZ Myers goes zerkers over this post. He thinks I don’t understand the issue of “ethics of keeping advertising separate from content”. Um Newsflash there PZ. I spent 25 years in a TV and radio newsrooms, don’t lecture me about keeping infomercials off the news. I’ve fought that battle. But as I pointed out and PZ missed, if people don’t like infomericals, they can turn off the TV or switch the channel. The organized rant that forced SEED to remove the PepsiCo Food Frontiers blog denies readers their right to choose. That’s so uncool but typical for people like PZ that think people shouldn’t be allowed to choose for themselves. Just look at his religious hatreds he posts regularly. No science there, just hate.
Also, without citing a single sentence he claims I have particular take, that the reason for the exodus is that people don’t like PepsiCo products. Well noooooo, if you’d read it rather than engage your typical hateful knee jerk keyboard pounding reaction, you see it was a question.
I wonder though, how many of those indignant bloggers that couldn’t handle a PepsiCo sponsored nutrition blog actually consume many of PepsiCo’s brands and don’t know it?
It seems he’s ended his “strike” (he’s been posting the last couple of days), now he’s busy spiting me for noticing him at all. Next time I’ll just ignore him.
Some class act that PZ. He is the face of Sb today, so sad that science is co-marketed with anger and hate there.
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UPDATE3: see my detailed comment below
I think Doug must be some sort of bizarre metric about the culture of banning at Pharyngula. They have quite a ritual about the Dungeon, and apparently Doug thinks that since the ritual was not observed in my case then I can’t have been banned. Note that the ritual and the end result are what’s important in Doug’s mind, not what PZ said.
I’ll be amused when Doug finally finds the quote from PZ. Or maybe not. More interesting would be the number of commenters who called for my banning before PZ did it.
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Well, dammit, Doug has provoked me to search the archives. He has a point; here is the quote from PZ Myers: ‘I’m about to give you the old heave-ho’. I then thanked the host for the bandwidth and the commenters for being gracious and never tried to post again. In my world, I’m banned from the site. In Doug’s world I’m on the precipice. Functionally, for me, there is no difference in this distinction.
For the curious, it is the Green UMM thread from 11/13/07. Quote on the 14th near the end of the thread.
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Also, Stan Palmer, not Stan Peterson. Deepest apologies, Stan.
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It’s science blogs engine … not “mine” and it doesn’t even show a “Stan Peterson thread”. Not wound up about it. I just want to determine if you’re a liar or not. If so, you wouldn’t be the first to try and gain notoriety by falsely claiming you’ve been banned from a site.
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Adding a name to a list is a ritual? Go figure.
Man, you must of been real insipid to get them all worked up. Too bad I can’t find the thread, it sounds entertaining.
Smokey,
That was a nice piece of imaginative thinking, but you should try reading sometime:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/still_alive.php
Well, besides not reading my last two posts here, Doug also has a problem. He’s looking to call me a liar.
Doug, please read the thread in which PZ Myers banned me. He invited me to leave and threatened to give me the heave ho if I didn’t. In any sane or courteous world, that is banning, and I’ve taken PZ Myers at his word.
Doug, your problem from the get go is that you have boxed yourself in by the belief that only residence in the Dungeon constitutes ‘banning’ in your mind. This is your problem, not mine, but it doesn’t justify you insinuating that I am lying. You are particularly out of line since you apparently haven’t read the thread to which I directed you. That part is simple negligence, but you have an intellectual and cognitive problem, too, which makes you tell untruths. Untruths like ‘If you’re not in the Dungeon, you’re not banned. I’m not calling that a lie; to do so would require knowledge of your motives to which I’m not privy.
By the way, what is your motive?
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Heh, more ironies for my museum. Your motive appears to be enforcement of the purity of the Ritual of Banning and Dungeon Flinging. Say it ain’t so, Doug.
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[Snip. Invalid email address. ~db stealey, mod.]
Yeah, so I find it highly amusing that you call PZ Myers “angry”, while YOU are in fact dedicating MAJOR parts of your own blog post on him, whereas he merely mentioned you in passing.
FAIL.
(Reposting due to censorship.)
[reply] I don’t know what happened to the first message, but accusing the mods of censorship isn’t called for. WordPress software, like much else in this world, isn’t perfect.
[update] No valid email address on first post. Please aplogise to the mods before posting again.RT-mod
There’s a nice irony here. Scienceblogs is failing and Watts Up is not. Maybe there’s more interest in pursuing the truth at Watts Up. I see at least three blogs at SB that are strongly into denial of climate realism.
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I didn’t see your next two posts prior to posting my reply. (I didn’t refresh) I posted this, this morning … I thought.
Ahhhh, no wonder. Insipid indeed. (G&T? Oh my!)
But your ban is self-imposed, no matter how you parse it.
All the dungeon is, is a list of all banned posters. Are your “favorite” blogs as honest about who is and isn’t allowed to post and why? I doubt it. And I didn’t call you a liar. PZ would have banned you had you posted again and not corrected your poor behavior. That is correct.
Slea Z. Lyers just loves to “ban” people, but anyone with an IQ above the single digits can figure out in about 10 seconds how to get past his “dungeon”. For a narcissist like SZL, it’s all about his ego, all the time.
So, tell me. Why would I have posted more? And sorry, my behaviour was not poor. PZ and all his crew are in denial about climate realism and me telling them so is not poor behaviour. What you did see was a lot of poor behaviour on the part of his gang of commenters.
If you can’t read PZ Myers words as plainly a banning, then you have problems I can’t help you with. I realize that you would not interpret those words as a banning, but I considered myself a guest who was no longer welcome. That’s banning.
But, rest assured, I have found places I’m better appreciated, as well as plenty of other places I’ve been banned. Like you can see on the Green UMM thread, I get banned when I’m making a fool of the regular posters.
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Kim,
I saw them repeatedly ask you to support your arguments and you repeatedly refused to do so – except for “read a link”. That’s poor behavior. If you don’t know the subject well enough to argue in your own words, you shouldn’t be trying to debate it.
And I’ve seen PZ ban enough folks to know what he means.
Good luck to you.
Global Warming is a Scam,
I dare say more people have been censored here and at CA than have ever been on PZ’s blog. One really has to screw up repeatedly to get censored, much less banned by PZ.
REPLY: that may be true, but it also may be true that PZ demonstrates no scruples against boorish behavior. As we’ve seen that he practices it daily, and so do many commenters there. We try to maintain a modicum of decorum, and all of the details on that are in the WUWT policy page. – Anthony
Anthony,
Your house, your rules. One man’s “decorum” is another man’s tyranny.
Sorry Doug, you’ve badly mischaracterized my writing over there. I never say ‘read a link’, almost never make a link, and almost always make my argument in my own words.
You’re a liar. Or else you read the wrong kim.
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REPLY: I can back up Kim on the link thing, can’t recall that I’ve ever seen one. She has a distinctive style of short, direct, and often entertaining posts. But I think you should both stop calling each other liars. Maybe PZ did, maybe PZ didn’t, I don’t know, and don’t care. The banning habits of one PZ Myers is not something I care to follow. You want to fight about it take it elsewhere. – Anthony
@Kim
“There’s a nice irony here. Scienceblogs is failing and Watts Up is not.”
The comparison is completely nuts. Scienceblogs is a blog host, like WordPress. Watts Up is a blog, like Pharyngula.
Of course, Watts fails miserably when he calls PZ Myers “angry”, while Watts himself is in fact dedicating MAJOR parts of his own blog post to raging over PZ Myers, whereas PZ Myers only mentioned him in passing.
“Maybe there’s more interest in pursuing the truth at Watts Up.”
Clearly not, considering the history of this blog.
You seem to have an issue with dealing with facts and truthful information…
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/11/hello_stan_palmer.php
Reasonable request:
Rude and dismissive answer:
Refuse to answer and a “read the link/article” and insult right out of the gate – second post by my count.
The link is referenced many more times in the thread. Kim, you were saying?
Creationists and others who don’t understand science come to Pharyngula and pull this crap all of the time. All they know is they have a philosophical/political position against the science, but can’t support it and try and get the posters to argue with unspecified points in a link/paper.
There, fixed that for ya Dougie. Don’t mention it.
Global Warming is a Scam,
Then prove it. Show us the threads where someone was banned for “merely”disagreeing w/PZ. Time to put up, or shut up.
Note: Spamming the thread with links and repeatedly refusing to support one’s argument (see below) is not “merely” disagreeing.
This post commentary has devolved to he said/she said, which is a waste of my time to moderate. It is off the main page, so I’m closing it to further comments. Be as upset about it as you wish.