For the record, I am happy with how things are being run. I think we should have an avenue to discuss new bloggers privately. A private forum would be nice ... I tend to forget about GoogleDocs, but I'm open to either and will try to adjust my habits correspondingly.

Sounds good to me

For the record, I am a little peeved about many (perhaps all?) of the same things that were bothering Tideliar et al. I'm sorry that I haven't been so outspoken, but when he and Dr. Becca  would always point out these things so I felt like I didn't really need to. That was lazy of me, I admit. I'm glad that you separated "living LabSpaces" from your personal blog, I think that is a step in the right direction. I would like to suggest that we, as a group, institute a No Censoring policy as well. I didn't even realize that some comments had been deleted (I have a day job and all).

As for the new bloggers, I was lead to believe that the current writers would all have a chance to have a say about who was contacted, etc. I took this to mean that there would be an attempt at a "vote" of some sort BEFORE new bloggers were contacted. Just adding a name to the spreadsheet doesn't really seem like gathering opinions from the writers so much as just telling me what is going to happen. I have a similar view about "guest blogs". I like the idea in principle. It seems to be catching on (I believe Occam's Typewriter has a "guest" spot). But, again, I think that we should have a chance to express opinions about who may be invited to write one. It seems there are already a lot of folks lined up on the spreadsheet. I don't even know who half of them are. Is Brian the one sending out the invites? Or can anyone? If this is actually a conversation with (and not at) the writers, then I wish we could slow down a bit and have a chance to have a discussion.

Brian sent out an email a while ago with a long list of names of people - people that were referred to him or people he thought were interesting. I went through the entire list, clicked each link, read an article on every blog, then sent him the names of the blogs I thought were really different and interesting.

Some of them have since become writers on the site.

Brian has communicated with all of us about new bloggers- maybe not as often as people would like. Maybe he should have sent everyone a second narrowed list of writers that made the first cut so people have a chance to respond or add to it. I still don't understand the overwhelming need for people to "approve" new science bloggers. What is the worry?  

 I am fine with any and all bloggers on this site. I don't care if you write once a week, once a month or once every 6 months. I don't feel that another writer's opinions or blogging reflects on me at all. This is simply a community for scientists who like to write and we have our own little labspace where we get to experiment with writing topics and styles and have some fun in our spare time.

I would enjoy reading any guest bloggers contributions as well. I've been trying to entice a few people to try out blogging because I think they have experiences that others could learn from. So maybe I can bring in some new talent and give them the writing bug through LabSpaces. But don't worry- I'll let you all know first.

The guest blog is just an incubator.  If someone puts a name on the list on the google docs sheet, I'll invite the vetted person to write a post.  I didn't think this was going to be a problem since anyone can put a name on the list.  You all are also open to use your own blogs to invite people to give guest posts.  I've done this twice with my blog, and GR did this to promote Thomas Joseph.  If we like what the person blogs about, we can talk further in the private forum about them and have a real discussion and a vote if that's necessary.  It's totally informal.  I don't see any harm inviting unknowns or people who have never blogged to post on the guest blog.  It's a space for experimentation.  I think more scientists would blog if they realized how easy and enriching the process was.  Of course, we'll be inviting established bloggers to post too, but I'd like to see them use different media forms or write on a topic outside of their comfort zone, again, another experiment.  I don't think the goal of the guest blog should be to only highlight already great bloggers who are well established.  That only helps us and doesn't open the door to other people.

I will always censor trolls on my blog posts if they have nothing to say and only coerce arguments. Trolling has no place on the internet.  It's cancer. I will not tolerate personal attacks on me or anyone else.  If people don't have constructive comments and only comment to disparage me or the website, their comments will be deleted.  This is one of the few things I will not compromise on.  Everyone is welcome to control their comments however they see fit.  I can count the number of posts I have deleted on one hand, and half of those were made by the same person.

I didn't have time this weekend to code the private forum.  I'll try to get to it one night this week!

BTW, no oen on the list currently is auditioning.  They're just guest posts, but if someone stands out we can talk about sending an invite if everyone agrees!  So Gerty, Everyone gets a say in who they would like to guest post, and they also get a vote on if someone new can join (if we're interested in bringing it to a discussion).

I'm with G-Z on this. Frankly, I would very much prefer that there be no censorship. I believe our readers are smart enough to be able to figure out who's trolling. But if you insist on some form of censorship it should be clearly laid out and uniformly applied. No exceptions.

I also believe that, as a collective, the writings of eacher blogger do reflect somewhat on all of us. Indeed, the reputation of LabSpaces as a whole effects our blogging reps. I seriously thought about leaving when GR and Tideliar trolled the science cheerleaders thread.

Agreed with Gerty and Odyssey on the trolling/censorship, and I especially wondered why the comments by GR and Tideliar on that thread weren't removed when others were. It's a hard balance to walk when removing comments, so a solid, consistent policy should be put in place if it's going to be the way of things. I've always had issues with trolling by certain readers, but I think everyone knows who those people are and what they're like - and their comments are often taken with a grain of salt. I think we also need to be careful about remembering that some of those commenters had genuine points, even if they went to extreme measures to make them. We're all in the game of grabbing attention with our writing - some of the commenters/bloggers in our 'sphere tend to take it a little (or lot) further. I don't want LabSpaces to get the reputation of being thin-skinned, which is what seemed to happen when some of those harsher comments were being made.