ON ANONYMOUS BLOGGING

There's a fair amount of drama going on at The Chem Blog, with chemistry graduate student and popular anonymous blogger "Kyle Finchsigmate" announcing first that he was going to retire, and then demoting (advancing?) himself to "emeritus blogger" to continue writing in his rather inimitable style. Kyle was considering retiring because his identify has been outed in his department (and consequently elsewhere) and he was not comfortable with the attention.

I enjoy reading Kyle's blog and have always done so, and I doubt how many people would have the gumption to express themselves in the way that he does and still preserve a significant amount of intellectual substance and solid information. At the same time, I do find myself cringing once in a while at his novel use of expletives. That said, at least for me, the entertainment gains from reading his blog outweigh the displeasure I may sense in myself on reading what my inner "offense-meter" thinks is a disproportionate amount of profanity or irreverence. But that's not the point. The point is that on the whole, Kyle has always been honest about what he thinks, and that is something that everybody should value.

However, being a star does have its problems and I think Kyle is suffering from typical celebrity troubles. First of all, when you write in the risque language that he does, there is going to be a relatively higher proportion of people feeling offended; it's an inevitable collateral effect. Secondly and more simply, as Kyle's celebrity status improved and hundreds of people started reading his blog, the sheer statistical number of people that could be offended went up. With Kyle's cover blown, this became a particular problem.

Anonymous blogging does have its pitfalls. The advantage of being gung-ho and writing whatever you want about whoever you want, even if done honestly, can be outweighed by the possible consequences if discovered. In this information age, I think it's hard to stay completely anonymous for long. As your blog becomes more and more popular, the chances of getting outed naturally increase (Consider the 'Fake Steve Jobs' who was actually surprised that his his outing took that long).

That's one reason I decided to have a non-anonymous blog. Right at the beginning, I decided that I would not write about other scientists, my own work or my own advisor. Of course it's not very easy because it's human nature to be constantly tempted to point fingers at others and engage in gossip, as well as put in plugs for one's own work. At the very least, it's quite easy to be full of praise for someone, but in the world of science even such an action can have unintended personal consequences. It also seems clear to me that you face a larger risk even with run-of-the-mill writing if you work for someone who is high-profile and famous. Speaking for myself, the only time I have criticised someone is in case of blatant fraud or obviously questionable work where many others have raised similar issues.

But blogging non-anonymously and responsibly and yet effectively is nevertheless possible, and is demonstrated by one of the best examples of such writing that I know- pharmaceutical scientist Derek Lowe's In The Pipeline which is one of the most widely read scientific blogs on the internet and has been a finalist for Best Science Blog. Especially being in industry, I would think that Derek carries a larger than usual burden of making sure he does not become a liability. I believe he has succeeded admirably in always writing entertainingly and quite provocatively, and yet avoided getting personal or offensive. His posts stimulate and inform without offending (at least largely; there is always going to be somebody who can get offended by anything). Harvard graduate student Paul Bracher's now sadly defunct blog was another example of provocative and yet gentle writing; it was interesting how even that gentle writing got Paul into trouble with commentators sometimes. The point is, you always have to be ready for some backlash, no matter what kind of blog you have.

In any case, that's Derek and Paul. Kyle's different, and why not? In the end blogging is a personal activity and personal choice. Even if I am writing for others, it's my blog, and I should have the freedom to express my views the way I want to. It's Kyle's choice how much risk to bear. It's inevitable that he shoulders more risk with his particular style, and in my personal opinion, he could sometimes tread a little more softly as a small price to pay for less risk. But again, it's his blog, and if he changes himself too much for the sake of propriety, then it wouldn't be Kyle Finchsigmate's blog anymore, would it?

CHEMISTRY BLOG vs REGULAR BLOG

For two years or so now, I have been keeping a chemistry blog, although I have started regularly updating it only in the last year or so. I was lucky to discover a profusion of other chemistry blogs after that, and it's been my great pleasure to keep in touch with the fine folks who write them, comment on their musings, and be inspired to write my own posts partly because of their posts. There is a wide smattering of the scientific populace among them. This involves graduate students and postdocs both from Ivy League schools as well as other fine ones, experienced industry scientists mainly from pharmaceutical industries but also from other industries, and in general people from a dozen different countries around the world. Probably the most famous chemistry blog, which probably started the chemistry blogging phenomenon and now has attained a cult status, was Tenderbutton, a blog by Dylan Stiles, a graduate student at Stanford. His posts were a mixture of technical chemistry, chemistry gossip (which chemists enjoy as much as anyone else, or probably even more), and completely wacky posts (like the time when he analysed the earwax from his ear using chemical methods)

These chemistry blogs often serve as morale boosters. The thing is, inspite of how exciting science is, the everyday life of a scientist and especially a graduate student can get quite routine. Although there's always something unexpected at the end, a lot of science is no different from routine, if important, clerical work, although scientists don't always like admitting this. Even though being a scientist is one of those few careers that never involve falling into the danger of becoming a 9-to-5 job, doing everyday science can and does get boring sometimes. It is at times that you need to be reminded that science is a lot of fun. You also need to be reminded that you are not alone, that there is an entire community out there from every country that faces exactly the same things you do. And you need to be reminded why you chose to do science in the first place, about the pleasure of finding things out, and the satisfaction and security of seeking and finding rationality among madness. These chemistry bogs have occassionally served all these functions for me and they have given me a sense of community, as I am sure they have many others.

The chemistry blog has also of course enabled me to keep in touch with what's "hot" and current in the field. It's largely due to these blogs that I have gotten a taste of the practical aspects of science, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Some of the blogs out there are great distillers of the gist of published papers, and one can get the highlights from them without slogging through 20-page technical papers, dozens of relevant ones of which are published every day. Some relate mainly to the cultural and social aspects of chemistry and science. Others are consistently and wickedly funny and outrageous. One blog is obssesed with compiling "Top ten" lists of chemists, including everything from "Top ten chemist moustaches" to "Top ten musical connotations for chemistry". Because of my interest in history, I particularly enjoy this one. Many blogs spare no pretense in gossiping about chemists; admittedly many of these are rightly anonymous. Once again, you get to know what's new, and that keeps you interested. The blog has also enabled me to make some professional connections with scientists in academia and industry, and it's always a pleasure to hear from them. Given my interests, I myself try to maintain a mixture of different aspects of chemistry on the blog; technical, cultural, and historical.

A couple of points of difference between my general and chemistry blogs, especially with respect to the comments. On the whole, I got the feeling right at the beginning that the comments on my chemistry blog were much more critical than ones on my general blog. And why not! Unlike my general blog, many people who read my chemistry blogs care less about my writing skills, and more about the points that I am making. Scientists by nature should be skeptical, and skepticism is one of the bedrocks of science. This skepticism which shone through the comments galled me at first, but then made me realise how much more valuable it was, rather than comments which simply appreciated my posts. Of course, it's the same for my general blog too, and only skepticism can fuel debate, but it's even more important in science, and skeptical commenters (some overtly more so than others!) have always kept me extra-careful about the words I use, and scratching my head about ambiguous (or wrong!) statements that I might have made. So I highly appreciate all these skeptical commenters. Naturally, I also appreciate the appreciative ones, and I would miss them if they totally disappeared!
In fact, it's more for the comments than the posts that chemistry blogging (and all blogging) is exciting. The dialogue is mostly civil if testy, but sometimes things can get a little out of hand. On the other hand, I always muse about the instant and worldwide publicity that unfortunate controversial chemists (and students) get on blogs; make one mistake in your paper and you are bound to end up on hundreds of chemistry blogs within a few days. Sometimes I wonder if such notoriety is deserved, but then that's the burden we have to carry in the age of the internet.

All in all, it is a pleasure and a continuing educational experience to "chemblog". For some reason, I have not noticed as many blogs on the other sciences out there. I would surely like to see that happen (I would like to think that it's because chemists are more social than many other scientists, but not only does this thought unnecessarily sound self-important, but I am pretty sure it's wrong; neuroscientists, rocket scientists, and nanotechnologists would likely be much more social than chemists!)