What Does Moderation Bring?

Rather than discuss the pros and cons of the moderation process on this blog, I will just note that I, personally, enjoy the environment of free form, no consequence speech. Despite this, I prefer to have some handle on the constraint towards the topics or direction this speech has on a blog. Unless, of course, that blog were about such things as being able to discuss … anything. In the last 30 days, my open [non] moderation and open thread produces very little in the way of new traffic, new comments, or new interest. Without revealing numbers, IPAs, or commenter anonyms and the emails associated with them (on occasion), the traffic has been lessened relative to regular traffic on the site. I’ve been holding at a relative steady views-per-day rate over this period, with the only spikes following my one actual post during this open moderation period. Reduced traffic may and likely is a consequence of the lack of new content, for which I cannot apologize due to personal issues. This is also why this post is two days late.

In answer then, moderation brings some “sense” and purpose towards how I can respond to my critics or those who might otherwise praise or comment for their own sake on this blog. But it can also be tyrannical. I hope that this process itself can be reviewed by my readers, and that perusers of the blog take the opportunity to weight in and voice their own interests as far as how this blog operates and its content is produced.

I will be leaving the commenting process completely open for the foreseeable future, until such a time as I feel it needs to change. Any reasoning on this change will be explained at the time. Pardon for the lack of content, and enjoy!

Can Evolution Be Recursive?

This isn’t necessarily about how stick insects have re-evolved wings in lineages in which the wings have completely disappeared … several times over. This is about how evolutionary processes work in odd ways to potentially redevelop a condition which, historically, appeared well-before the state that is currently developing into something very different.

More on Relative Evil

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a new article out (actually published Jan 22nd) by Jennifer Howard that sets out a more nuanced view of the outcry against the RWA (the Research Works Act, otherwise known as H.R. 3699) than has been presented, I think, from corners of the blogosphere that have drawn up sharply against it, such as Mike Taylor’s articles about it at SV-POW! (here, here, and here).

SOPA, the Research Works Act, and Relative Evil

This one is greatly off-topic, but of much relevance to Science in general. Skip if you do not want to read further.

Silence and SVP

I’m very eager to discuss SVP, but otherwise recent unemployment has made regularity on my blog somewhat more difficult, and so I haven’t been very active on new content, continuing older series, or generally being constant on this side of things. I’m looking forward to talking about talks (not posters) from SVP when the event is over, but until then, I will continue to delay much discussing. I can, however, say that I still plan to talk about why we shouldn’t necessarily lump all north African Spinosaurus into a single species, the cookie-cutter shark Isistius, the relationship of ornithischians and Nigersaurus to the “lips or no lips” debate, and the final element of my argument for standardization of jaw orientation when measuring. But for now … silence.