Sci.nanotech sure seems dead. Anyone care to speculate why?
Myself I think it's because speculation posts are no longer allowed. All the fun is thus now gone.
Scott Jensen -- Got a business problem or question? Like to start a business? You can explore those problems, questions, and dreams in misc.business.consulting, misc.business.marketing.moderated misc.business.moderated, and misc.entrepreneurs.moderated
Gordon is busy and posted a message indicating there might be long delays until he got un-busy. So that may have impacted traffic within the last few days (even though I am checking daily as a backup moderator).
But you probably mean the general slow pace of postings that has been gripping the group for a while.
> Myself I think it's because speculation posts are no longer allowed. All > the fun is thus now gone.
I don't think speculative posts have been disallowed - merely discouraged. I noticed that Gordon (and Chris and Steve when they can find time) might not immediately approve a post whose science is clearly wrong, but will e-mail the poster, point out their mistakes, and ask if the poster still wishes to have the message approved, given that the moderators will point out their errors in public. That tends to discourage posts with loose thinking.
But I think perhaps the slow pace is due to there now being several other nanotechnology discussion forums on the net, such as on http://nanodot.org, Yahoo groups, and so on. Active posters haven't grown much in numbers but I think they have become diluted among a larger number of discussion forums. And it seems that Usenet itself is generally having visibility problems.
And of course sci.nanotech has been around since 1988 and a lot of stuff has been discussed in 15 years. Until the development path is clarified and the viability of some approaches are ascertained, too much speculation would be a waste of time since some will eventually be shown to be founded on unviable approaches. At least that is what I suspect is going through people's minds. Development is in deep flux and it is impossible to know if certain approaches are being worked on in stealth mode somewhere - or perhaps not at all. Speculation is difficult when it may have already been shown that your ideas are incorrect or irrelevant by research you didn't even know had already been done!
Finally, sci.nanotech has gone through slow periods in the past so perhaps this is one of those glacial periods.
In sci.nanotech, Scott T. Jensen <s...@charter.net> wrote:
> Sci.nanotech sure seems dead. Anyone care to speculate why? > Myself I think it's because speculation posts are no longer allowed. All > the fun is thus now gone.
I still read it and I still enjoy it. It doesn't seem dead to me.
That being said, I'd like to see more posts. Perhaps the moderators should consider erring on the side of inclusion for a while, until the activity picks up?
Maybe I should stop giving advice and start a few fascinating threads? :)
-- ....and I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do...
I dunno, I was thinking of various speculations to post, but I've just been rather busy. I find Dr Pusch to be a fabulous moderator, in that he eschews whimsical pie-in-the-sky fantasizing for level-headed feet-on-the-ground science. You should check out a good article at Cato.org about how the post-dotcom snakeoil salesman are rushing into the nano-business as the next big sales pitch, and you'll see the need for healthy skepticism.
I think I'm probably a prime culprit in speculative posting, but Gordon's been really tolerant and yet vigilant at the same time.
However, I myself feel skeptical at the Michael Crichton nano-bots, Fantastic-Voyage-nano-submarine stuff, and lean more towards the mundane buckyball, nanotube stuff.
Btw, I would really love some review and criticism of the "BuckyBoosted Bandgaps" series of articles I recently wrote on inspiration. But I'd rather get some substantive science arguments rather than the vague "it'll never work". I am really interested in the nuts'n bolts understanding, because that's what differentiates the art of the possible from the impossible.
> Gordon is busy and posted a message indicating there might be long > delays until he got un-busy. So that may have impacted traffic within the > last few days (even though I am checking daily as a backup moderator).
> But you probably mean the general slow pace of postings that has been > gripping the group for a while.
> > Myself I think it's because speculation posts are no longer allowed. All > > the fun is thus now gone.
> I don't think speculative posts have been disallowed - merely discouraged. > I noticed that Gordon (and Chris and Steve when they can find time) might > not immediately approve a post whose science is clearly wrong, but will > e-mail the poster, point out their mistakes, and ask if the poster still > wishes to have the message approved, given that the moderators will point > out their errors in public. That tends to discourage posts with loose > thinking.
> But I think perhaps the slow pace is due to there now being several other > nanotechnology discussion forums on the net, such as on http://nanodot.org, > Yahoo groups, and so on. Active posters haven't grown much in numbers but I > think they have become diluted among a larger number of discussion forums. > And it seems that Usenet itself is generally having visibility problems.
> And of course sci.nanotech has been around since 1988 and a lot of stuff > has been discussed in 15 years. Until the development path is clarified and > the viability of some approaches are ascertained, too much speculation > would be a waste of time since some will eventually be shown to be founded > on unviable approaches. At least that is what I suspect is going through > people's minds. Development is in deep flux and it is impossible to know > if certain approaches are being worked on in stealth mode somewhere - or > perhaps not at all. Speculation is difficult when it may have already been > shown that your ideas are incorrect or irrelevant by research you didn't even > know had already been done!
> Finally, sci.nanotech has gone through slow periods in the past so perhaps > this is one of those glacial periods.
James Logajan wrote: > "Scott T. Jensen" <s...@charter.net> wrote: >>Myself I think it's because speculation posts are no longer allowed. All >>the fun is thus now gone.
> I don't think speculative posts have been disallowed - merely discouraged. > I noticed that Gordon (and Chris and Steve when they can find time) might > not immediately approve a post whose science is clearly wrong, but will > e-mail the poster, point out their mistakes, and ask if the poster still > wishes to have the message approved, given that the moderators will point > out their errors in public. That tends to discourage posts with loose > thinking.
Speculation post have always been problematic. The reason I quit reading sci.nanotech a few years ago (and only resumed recently) was the low signal to noise ratio.
Granted, I contributed some noise myself, but I was getting flamed for making statements along the lines of "The first molecular machines won't be produced by assemblers," or, "DNA is a blueprint for proteins, and ribosomes are crude proto-assemblers." (In the former case, I think my statement was "Assemblers aren't required for nanotechnology," which may have confused a few people. Someone read the latter as, "DNA is a blueprint for organisms," and the rest, as they say, is history.)
In article <bj19vl0...@enews3.newsguy.com>, James Logajan wrote: > "Scott T. Jensen" <s...@charter.net> wrote: >> Sci.nanotech sure seems dead. > It's not dead - it's just resting!
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
For the short term, Gordon announced just last week that all Moderators would be busy until this Friday and that article approval would be slow. It happens, sometimes. I would guess it has something to do with the recent (American) holiday weekend.
For the longer term, as James points out, there are now a bunch of forums for nanotech discussion. In my opinion, none of them are as functional as this one, and some of them are downright dysfunctional. If nanodot.org is the best one out there other than sci.nanotech ,then I already know I don't need to seek them out. Nanodot.org is sporadically updated and has a smaller core constituency even than here. (Not to mention a resident crank, the likes of which I'm certain would get moderated out of here in a flash.)
Some other factors:
There's a lot of popular press about nanotechnology right now, but a great deal of it is hype, and another large portion of it is incestuous. I make a point of at least skimming the two published weeklies that appear here ("This Week in Nanotech" by Kumar and "The Nanogirl News" by Miller) and I see several trends: First, because they aim for the same niche, they contain almost exactly the same content. Second, while there are always lots of snippets and pointers, the amount of actual news is much less. For instance, if I read another article on "smart dust" or the MIT defense nanotech programs in the next twelve months, it will be too soon. Presumably, Kumar and Miller are picking these up because nanoech stories sell in the popular press right now, and some projects churn just to generate hype. Third, there's a growing amount of incestuous reporting. Lovy posts to his Nanobot blog, then posts about it here, and Kumar picks that up as a news issue and also posts it here....
Of course, this is not unique to sci.nanotech, nor even to the nanotech field. I've seen it happen to other fields, too, and I think it might have something to do with simple public enthusiasm for a new but very challenging field. There's real research being done in nanotechnology, now, but the technical literature is very challenging and there are very few products by any definition (even the nanotech stain resistant fabrics definition) to springboard from. Thus, churn.
And on that note, there *is* a significant amount of research being done in the field, now, even if we don't all have exactly the same definitions. It's hard to to go two or three weeks reading, say, Science, without seeing an applicable article. I'm sure Nature is the same, but they're annoyingly expensive and none of my institutions have subscriptions. There are also dedicated journals, such as the IEEE Transactions on Nanotech quarterly, which I make a point of reading cover to cover, if at all possible. When I want real information, I turn to those sources.
And finally, speaking strictly for myself, I've just been busy. It's not just sci.nanotech I haven't participated in; I haven't participated in any nanotech forum. I got me a full time engineering job, a full time computer science grad student career, and rudimentary attempts at a social life.
I've considered posting about or reviewing some of the journal articles I read, but:
1) That can be more time consuming than it seems, 2) I'm not sure how much use it would be, 3) My journal readings fall outside nanotech as often as they're within it; I read a lot on bio- and social- inspired computation as well, which I would like to apply to nanotechnology, but often isn't directly applied (and thus off-topic here), and 4) I'd be much more inclined to do something like that, were I not alone in the pursuit. The following site caught my eye as a template, especially were it to e implemented in some friendlier fashion, like a modern blog:
No, my dear, I wasn't sleeping. I was simply resting my eyes. ;-)
> > Anyone care to speculate why?
> Gordon is busy and posted a message indicating there > might be long delays until he got un-busy. So that may > have impacted traffic within the last few days (even > though I am checking daily as a backup moderator).
As it appears that the three voted to become co-moderators are at best now just one, we really should replace the two who are deadwood. It was nice of them to volunteer but they're non-existant. One of the ideas behind having co-moderation is how it makes replacing deadwood moderators that much easier. This should be done now.
> But you probably mean the general slow pace of postings > that has been gripping the group for a while.
That and the vanishing moderators.
> > Myself I think it's because speculation posts are no longer > > allowed. All the fun is thus now gone.
> I don't think speculative posts have been disallowed - merely > discouraged.
I think it goes beyond "discourage".
> I noticed that Gordon (and Chris and Steve when they can > find time) might not immediately approve a post whose > science is clearly wrong, but will e-mail the poster, point out > their mistakes...
This is wrong. Plain and simple. Let the post go through. Let's have a discussion. Perhaps Gordon is wrong in his assessment. Others here will point that out. Perhaps others have the same idea but simply never post it. Let the post through and they too can learn.
> ...and ask if the poster still wishes to have the message > approved, given that the moderators will point out their > errors in public. That tends to discourage posts with loose > thinking.
That can easily be taken as a threat and thus no wonder they don't request it to be posted anyway.
> But I think perhaps the slow pace is due to there now being > several other nanotechnology discussion forums on the net, > such as on http://nanodot.org, Yahoo groups, and so on. > Active posters haven't grown much in numbers but I think > they have become diluted among a larger number of > discussion forums. And it seems that Usenet itself is > generally having visibility problems.
The above sounds more like a poor excuse. This group used to be quite lively and that was when speculation posts were allowed and not browbeated away.
> And of course sci.nanotech has been around since 1988 and > a lot of stuff has been discussed in 15 years. Until the > development path is clarified and the viability of some > approaches are ascertained, too much speculation would be > a waste of time since some will eventually be shown to be > founded on unviable approaches. At least that is what I > suspect is going through people's minds.
When not browbeated to not post such to the newsgroup. And so what if the speculations don't pan out? This is a DISCUSSION newgroups. Let the discussion take place. If someone doesn't like such discussions, they need not read those threads. No one is forced to read all threads.
> Development is in deep flux and it is impossible to know > if certain approaches are being worked on in stealth mode > somewhere - or perhaps not at all. Speculation is difficult > when it may have already been shown that your ideas are > incorrect or irrelevant by research you didn't even know > had already been done!
So the best thing someone can do is remain silent?! "Sorry, dear, but please don't speculate about anything because you MIGHT not have all the facts. After all, dear, if you did post such a thing, someone might ... horrors of horrors ... inform you of research you weren't aware of. Now we cannot allow that in this newsgroup, can we? That might actually educate people. That might actually cause an lively discussion and possibly even further input about other related research. After all, this newsgroup is only for those that already know all the answers or only have the courage to post what they're absolutely positively sure of."
> Finally, sci.nanotech has gone through slow periods in the past > so perhaps this is one of those glacial periods.
Perhaps. Perhaps it has simply been summer when it is nicer outside doing fun activities than inside posting to newsgroups.
Scott Jensen -- Got a business problem or question? Like to start a business? You can explore those problems, questions, and dreams in misc.business.consulting, misc.business.marketing.moderated misc.business.moderated, and misc.entrepreneurs.moderated
> "James Logajan" <Jam...@lugoj.com> wrote: >> Gordon is busy and posted a message indicating there >> might be long delays until he got un-busy. So that may >> have impacted traffic within the last few days (even >> though I am checking daily as a backup moderator).
> As it appears that the three voted to become co-moderators are at best > now just one, we really should replace the two who are deadwood.
Deadwood implies that there is some impediment to moderation when co- moderators become busy - a nonsense concept. I think it is implicitly and needlessly insulting to volunteers who have, as you should well know, sacrificed their time to dealing with sometimes difficult decisions.
The point of having co-moderators on a low traffic newsgroup is twofold: to have someone on hand who is familiar with current policy and experience who can step in when one or more co-moderators become unavailable, and to have second opinions available for handling the inevitable borderline posts.
> It was nice of them to volunteer but they're non-existant.
I'm afraid I made a mistake in an earlier statement - Chris Phoenix is also helping when he can find time. Steve Lenhert is neck deep in pursuing his doctorate and a few other projects.
> One of the > ideas behind having co-moderation is how it makes replacing deadwood > moderators that much easier. This should be done now.
That would be up to the current co-moderators (which definitely does not include myself - which is as I prefer).
>> But you probably mean the general slow pace of postings >> that has been gripping the group for a while.
> That and the vanishing moderators.
To the extent that they actually contribute posts and replies, their input would be appreciated, but if their missing contribution has that much impact then it would only be masking a deeper problem.
>> > Myself I think it's because speculation posts are no longer >> > allowed. All the fun is thus now gone.
>> I don't think speculative posts have been disallowed - merely >> discouraged.
> I think it goes beyond "discourage".
Posts that are "not even wrong" or crack-pot are going to be rejected - the rest that are topical are let through.
>> I noticed that Gordon (and Chris and Steve when they can >> find time) might not immediately approve a post whose >> science is clearly wrong, but will e-mail the poster, point out >> their mistakes...
> This is wrong. Plain and simple. Let the post go through. Let's > have a discussion. Perhaps Gordon is wrong in his assessment. Others > here will point that out. Perhaps others have the same idea but > simply never post it. Let the post through and they too can learn.
I think if you check Google you will see that posts that contain erroneous content are approved. The intent, when there is time to offer it, is meant as a courtesy to the poster to give them a chance to revise their post. I know I did that in the past. But honestly, I haven't seen it done lately, so the issue is academic.
>> ...and ask if the poster still wishes to have the message >> approved, given that the moderators will point out their >> errors in public. That tends to discourage posts with loose >> thinking.
> That can easily be taken as a threat and thus no wonder they don't > request it to be posted anyway.
Um, no. When I've seen the wording on some of those courtesy e-mails they have been anything but threatening.
>> But I think perhaps the slow pace is due to there now being >> several other nanotechnology discussion forums on the net, >> such as on http://nanodot.org, Yahoo groups, and so on. >> Active posters haven't grown much in numbers but I think >> they have become diluted among a larger number of >> discussion forums. And it seems that Usenet itself is >> generally having visibility problems.
> The above sounds more like a poor excuse. This group used to be quite > lively and that was when speculation posts were allowed and not > browbeated away.
>> And of course sci.nanotech has been around since 1988 and >> a lot of stuff has been discussed in 15 years. Until the >> development path is clarified and the viability of some >> approaches are ascertained, too much speculation would be >> a waste of time since some will eventually be shown to be >> founded on unviable approaches. At least that is what I >> suspect is going through people's minds.
> When not browbeated to not post such to the newsgroup. And so what if > the speculations don't pan out? This is a DISCUSSION newgroups. Let > the discussion take place. If someone doesn't like such discussions, > they need not read those threads. No one is forced to read all > threads.
You can always post to alt.sci.nanotech after all. No moderators to brow- beat you there! Perhaps you can explain the lack of posts to the unmoderated group? If not then I think your thesis that the lack of volume is all the fault of the moderators is way off base.
>> Development is in deep flux and it is impossible to know >> if certain approaches are being worked on in stealth mode >> somewhere - or perhaps not at all. Speculation is difficult >> when it may have already been shown that your ideas are >> incorrect or irrelevant by research you didn't even know >> had already been done!
> So the best thing someone can do is remain silent?! "Sorry, dear, but > please don't speculate about anything because you MIGHT not have all > the facts. After all, dear, if you did post such a thing, someone > might ... horrors of horrors ... inform you of research you weren't > aware of. Now we cannot allow that in this newsgroup, can we? That > might actually educate people. That might actually cause an lively > discussion and possibly even further input about other related > research. After all, this newsgroup is only for those that already > know all the answers or only have the courage to post what they're > absolutely positively sure of."
You asked for why there appeared to be so few posts - so I speculated on some possibilities. I'm not sure I understand the nature of your complaint, unless it is to complain.
>> Finally, sci.nanotech has gone through slow periods in the past >> so perhaps this is one of those glacial periods.
> Perhaps. Perhaps it has simply been summer when it is nicer outside > doing fun activities than inside posting to newsgroups.
Actually posting volume has traditionally gone down over the summer and again over winter holidays. So I agree with your last sentence at least!
John Larkin <jjlar...@highlandSNIPtechTHISnologyPLEASE.com> wrote:
> On 2 Sep 2003 05:10:47 GMT, "Scott T. Jensen" <s...@charter.net> wrote:
>>Sci.nanotech sure seems dead. Anyone care to speculate why?
> Because the moderators like it quiet?
No doubt less work to do. Except for all that spam you don't see, or the 6000 e-mails dumped on the sci.nanotech submission address by an irate poster whose off-topic posting was rejected but who had been advised on another more topical group to direct their posting. The deluge managed to take down not just sci.nanotech for a half day but several moderated business groups hosted by my home system.
But if you want to see even an even quieter group, check out alt.sci.nanotech. It is not moderated. But then there are no volunteer moderators there to complain about low posting volume or to abuse.
>> On 2 Sep 2003 05:10:47 GMT, "Scott T. Jensen" <s...@charter.net> wrote:
>>>Sci.nanotech sure seems dead. Anyone care to speculate why?
>> Because the moderators like it quiet?
>No doubt less work to do. Except for all that spam you don't see, or the >6000 e-mails dumped on the sci.nanotech submission address by an irate >poster whose off-topic posting was rejected but who had been advised on >another more topical group to direct their posting. The deluge managed to >take down not just sci.nanotech for a half day but several moderated >business groups hosted by my home system.
>But if you want to see even an even quieter group, check out >alt.sci.nanotech. It is not moderated. But then there are no volunteer >moderators there to complain about low posting volume or to abuse.
But several of my posts have been not only squashed, but the moderators had time to email me, explaining why my posts were rejected. Reasons included "one liner" (which, in truth, was all it took) and "taken as a comment to moderators" (as if the other subscribers had no right to see such.)
Irony: I do quite serious work in nanotechnology - 3D atomic structure imaging, for example - but am often not allowed to post to a nanotechnology group.
Conjecture: Those that can, do; those that can't, moderate.
been away over the weekend and just realised i emailed this to james instead of posting it to the newsgroups (damm relpy group and reply buttons soo close to each other in OE):
> Development is in deep flux and it is impossible to know
> if certain approaches are being worked on in stealth mode somewhere - or > perhaps not at all. Speculation is difficult when it may have already been > shown that your ideas are incorrect or irrelevant by research you didn't > even > know had already been done!
with nanotechnology in all it's form's is becomming a more commercial possibility there is going to be a lot more "cloak and dagger" approach. Companies don't want to tell you much about there new products until there ready to put them on the market to keep the product as viable as possible. I persoanlly am working with my local goverment on getting some funding for an initial prototype of a solar panel which uses nanotechnology which will have increased efficency and lower cost compared to current ones, with the hope of getting funding to start producing them early in 2004. I also have a patent being published in september which is about printing devices using nanotechnology (which i'm not going to go into much detail about) which should become a viable manufacturing technique late 2004/early 2005 (the company i will form when i get funding will be producing and selling this equipment). Not only is it a lot cheaper than current meathods but has the capability of producing gate width's of 10nm or less so you can see i'm not really wanting to splash all the details about it in every journal i can.
The biggest problem with nanotechnology in a whole is the lack of information, it is out there if you look but i don't really want to go through ten's of thousands of search results to find out certain stuff (and thats with a well defined search pattern, it's easy to get millions of search results if you put in the wrong pattern).
For nanotechnology to really start becomming a real viable solution to all sectors there are several things that need to be done: 1) 1 good, large source of information, with as many concept's as possible described, organised to find what you want easily 2) more universities providing nanotechnology courses, supplimentary courses like msc in nanotecnology which people can do after they get there main degree would be the best way as it is such a big subject, with the possibility of having an initial moudule in the normal beng/meng EE degree 3) more awareness, talk to a normal person and they think nanotechnology will be viable in 10 to 20 years, whereas there are already products on the market which use it. Also most think it would only be applicable to computers or biology, whereas it can be applied to nearly everything, from tough glass windows, to toys, to cosmetics, to computers. If companies think they can improve there products using nanotecnology there more likly to set aside some research funds, increasing the total research being done.
Last but not least, most engineer's like complicated things, they take every inch they can but sometimes it's better to take the KISS approach (keep it simple stupid)
On Tue, 2 Sep 2003, James Logajan wrote: > I don't think speculative posts have been disallowed - merely > discouraged. I noticed that Gordon (and Chris and Steve when they can > find time) might not immediately approve a post whose science is > clearly wrong, but will e-mail the poster, point out their mistakes, > and ask if the poster still wishes to have the message approved, given > that the moderators will point out their errors in public. That tends > to discourage posts with loose thinking.
Why would you want to "discourage loose thinking" in a group that MUST be highly speculative ?
Engines of Creation is highly speculative. We're not aware of any physical law which would prevent what is described therein, but on the other hand, if it happens, it'll be the biggest revolution since the wheel or fire or something.
I also strongly dislike the idea of inserting the moderators arguments inside other peoples posts.
Doing so puts your arguments in a special position, and strongly discourages (like you admit) anything the moderators would be likely to disagree with.
I think it'd be better if the moderators restrained themselves to either allow or reject a posting, based on if it's on-topic for the group or not. If they want to contribute to the thread, by all means do so: the same way everyone else does, by posting a follow-up.
> But I think perhaps the slow pace is due to there now being several other > nanotechnology discussion forums on the net, such as on http://nanodot.org, > Yahoo groups, and so on.
If you're loosing out to other forums, maybe you should be asking yourself why ?
> And of course sci.nanotech has been around since 1988 and a lot of > stuff has been discussed in 15 years. Until the development path is > clarified and the viability of some approaches are ascertained, too > much speculation would be a waste of time since some will eventually > be shown to be founded on unviable approaches.
This PRECISE attitude is the problem. Discussing development-paths that ultimately turn out to be unviable is NOT, in my opinion a waste of time. I like a moderated group. I want moderators to reject "Enlarge your penis now." I want them to reject religious rants cross-posted to 15 groups. I do *NOT* want them to discourage a lively discussion around loose ideas in nanotech, even if some of those ideas are, ultimately, unviable.
