{"id":11519,"date":"2013-10-12T10:38:25","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T17:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=11519"},"modified":"2013-10-14T14:33:19","modified_gmt":"2013-10-14T21:33:19","slug":"dont-start-none-wont-be-none","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/12\/dont-start-none-wont-be-none\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Start None, Won’t Be None"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Final update:<\/strong> DNLee’s blog post has been reinstated<\/a> at Scientific American. I’m therefore removing it from here; traffic should go to her.]<\/p>\n

[Update:<\/strong> The original offender, “Ofek” at Biology Online, has now been fired<\/a>, and the organization has apologized. Scientific American editor Mariette DiChristina has also offered a fuller explanation<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

Something that happens every day, to me and many other people who write things: you get asked to do something for free. There’s an idea that mere “writing” isn’t actually “work,” and besides which “exposure” should be more than enough recompense. (Can I eat exposure? Can I smoke it?<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

You know, that’s okay. I’m constantly asking people to do things for less recompense than their time is worth; it’s worth a shot. For a young writer who is trying to build a career, exposure might actually be valuable. But most of the time the writer will politely say no and everyone will move on.<\/p>\n

For example, just recently an editor named “Ofek” at Biology-Online.org<\/a> asked DNLee<\/a> to provide some free content for him. She responded with:<\/p>\n

Thank you very much for your reply.
\nBut I will have to decline your offer.
\nHave a great day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s what happens less often: the person asking for free content, rather than moving on, responds by saying<\/p>\n

Because we don’t pay for blog entries?
\nAre you an urban scientist or an urban whore?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Where I grew up, when people politely turn down your request for free stuff, it’s impolite to call them a “whore.” It’s especially bad when you take into account the fact that we live in a world where women are being pushed away from science<\/a>, one where how often your papers get cited correlates strongly with your gender<\/a>, and so on. <\/p>\n

DNLee was a bit taken aback, with good reason. So she took to her blog to respond<\/a>. It was a colorful, fun, finely-crafted retort — and also very important, because this is the kind of stuff that shouldn’t happen in this day and age. Especially because the offender isn’t just some kid with a website; Biology Online is a purportedly respectable site, part of the Scientific American “Partners Network.” One would hope that SciAm would demand an apology from Ofek, or consider cutting their ties with the organization.<\/p>\n

Sadly that’s not what happened. If you click on the link in the previous paragraph, you’ll get an error. That’s because Scientific American, where DNLee’s blog is hosted, decided it wasn’t appropriate and took it down<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It’s true that this particular post was not primarily concerned with conveying substantive scientific content. Like, you know, countless other posts on the SciAm network, or most other blogs. But it wasn’t about gossip or what someone had for lunch, either; interactions between actual human beings engaged in the communication of scientific results actually is a crucial part of the science\/culture\/community ecosystem. DNLee’s post was written in a jocular style, but it wasn’t only on-topic, it was extremely important. Taking it down was exactly the wrong decision.<\/p>\n

I have enormous respect for Scientific American as an institution, so I’m going to hope that this is a temporary mistake, and after contemplating a bit they decide to do the right thing, restoring DNLee’s post and censuring the guy who called her a whore. But meanwhile, I’m joining others<\/a> by copying<\/a> the original post here. Ultimately it’s going to get way more publicity than it would have otherwise. Maybe someday people will learn how the internet works.<\/p>\n

Here is DNLee<\/a>. (Words cannot express how much I love the final picture.)<\/p>\n

——————————————————–<\/p>\n

(This is where I used to mirror the original blog post, which has now been restored<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Final update: DNLee’s blog post has been reinstated at Scientific American. I’m therefore removing it from here; traffic should go to her.] [Update: The original offender, “Ofek” at Biology Online, has now been fired, and the organization has apologized. Scientific American editor Mariette DiChristina has also offered a fuller explanation.] Something that happens every day, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,30,31,51,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanity","category-science-and-society","category-science-and-the-media","category-women-in-science","category-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11519"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11540,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11519\/revisions\/11540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}