Dan MacArthur of Genetics Future is at the center of a minor controversy because of his blogging The Biology of Genomes conference. Realistically it seems updating pre-internet protocols is just a band-aid solution. And the issues aren't particular to blogging conferences, they're general to the ease and fluidity with which information can flow today.
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Jacques Distler asks the question that every blog-reader has asked at some point:
Did all of this exist before the Web? Or have people just gotten a whole lot weirder in the past 15 years?
I don't post much on contemporary politics, mostly because I don't have much value-add, but also because so much of it from the blogosphere is simply a critique of the mainstream press. In fact I think the mainstream press is essential and invaluable in many domains.
I am going to start a category for the random, stupid things people believe you can get addicted to. Here is a good one: internet dating.
I've found myself in a similar situation but it never got the attention of Science or other publications. I dont see what Dan did was wrong, especially since bloggers do not get treated like press nor have the buddy-buddy relations most press have with other publications.
Either way, to have embargos and what not is a worthless rule to enforce. In this day and age of rapid communication, I forsee there will always be one person on Twitter or mo-blogging that slips under the cracks.
Kambiz