Brand New -- Comment Blog at Nature

There is a brand new experiment over at Nature.com. Called the Nature Newsblog, it is a blog corresponding with news@nature.com, allowing readers to comment on Nature news stories as they are posted.

Hitch is, all comments are reviewed by an editor before being published. Is this ethical? Does this break an unspoken rule of the blogosphere? What are the chances of publishing a comment if your views are contrary to what the editor wants?

At any rate, I tried my hand and commented on the ice core story, asking how ice core age dates are obtained, which the original news story didn't clarify. We'll see.

Update on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 at 09:39PM by

Daniel James Devine

Oliver Morton, News and Features Editor of Nature, has commented on this post to assure me (and everyone else) that comments will only be filtered for spam, obscenity, and lousy attitudes; so if you post a comment on a story, chances are you'll be published. My comment was published, and was even graciously responded to by the Nature Newsblog editor, Mark Peplow.

Thanks, Oliver and Mark.

Posted on Monday, January 23, 2006 at 09:05PM by

Daniel James Devine in Research & Technology |

1 Comment

View Printer Friendly Version

Email Article to Friend

Reader Comments (1)

Just to say that holding comments for approval is far from rare -- it's a straightforward facility offered by Moveable Type. We're using it on the Newsblog at Nature to screen out obscenity, excessive vituperativeness and spam. We have no intention of editing out legitimate comments of any sort.

Oliver Morton, Nature

January 24, 2006 |

Oliver Morton

Post a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

Author:

Author Email (optional):

Author URL (optional):

Post:

↓ | ↑

Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>