Comments on: Blogs I Read: The Haystack Blog

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:10:55 +0000

Leslie, thanks! And your blog looks promising–I encourage you to get back to it!

By: Leslie Barrett

Leslie Barrett — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:25:44 +0000

Hi Daniel !
First, congrats on the new job…..I am sorry we did not get to chat more these last few months. Second, I wonder if, since you are a fan of faceted search, you have ever had a look at my fledgling blog on search technology in the Newssift site. I will likely be starting up again in the next months or so. Cheers!

Leslie

By: Human-Computer Information Retrieval in Layman’s Terms | The Noisy Channel

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:12:04 +0000

[...] of the great benefits of practicing, as Daniel Lemire calls it, open scholarship is that I have many opportunities to see how ideas translate across the research / practice divide. [...]

By: Daniel Lemire

Daniel Lemire — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:02:37 +0000

As someone who’s spent the past decade in industry rather than academia, I suppose I may be overestimating the reputation reward for academics.

I honestly have no idea whether blogging helps an academic (or even industry) career. I feel it made me a better scientist… but who knows?

However, objectively, many famous people are now blogging. So, having a well-known blog ought to count.

In any case, my colleagues don’t roll their eyes when I refer to my blog. It is not frowned upon as it once were.

There is another issue though. I feel that if I ever want to go back to industry it will be easier as a blogger.

(Not that I plan to resign my tenure, but I have always kept my options open.)

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:21:09 +0000

Daniel, that’s a good point. Blogging is a perhaps the most productive way to channel a big ego–and the belief that sharing my ideas will make the world a better place is surely the symptom of an inflated ego. Moreover, I only enjoy writing when I know people will read what I write–and blogging offer instant gratification.

As someone who’s spent the past decade in industry rather than academia, I suppose I may be overestimating the reputation reward for academics. Still, I think it’s a way for people who would otherwise be lost in a crowd to make their mark. At the very least, it’s a way to interact with and influence people outside the narrow confines of niche research communities.

By: Daniel Lemire

Daniel Lemire — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:02:15 +0000

Thanks for the link and the great post.

I think a deeper and more noble issue is Open Scholarship. If I only ran my blog to build up a reputation, I would have stopped some time ago. After all, writing research papers is far more rewarded.

In a very small way, I have at least the illusion that I help make the world a better place. A large chunk of my motivation is altruistic. (Yes, I also have a big ego. But all researchers do.)

This is also what makes wikipedia run:

Motivations of contributors to Wikipedia
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1215942.1215943

Who knew? It turns out that human beings are not fundamentally evil.

I think we are wired to share our knowledge. This drive is stronger in some of us, but it should be particularly strong within academia.