{"id":1644,"date":"2008-05-15T19:48:36","date_gmt":"2008-05-15T19:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/05\/15\/blobligations\/"},"modified":"2008-05-15T19:48:36","modified_gmt":"2008-05-15T19:48:36","slug":"blobligations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/05\/15\/blobligations\/","title":{"rendered":"Blobligations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do bloggers in general, and those of us who write about current scientific research in particular, have an obligation to our readers?
\nThe obligation to accurately describe and interpret the results at hand is a given. But do we also have a duty to continue to engage with our readers? To answer the same questions over and over again, even when it’s clear that it won’t make the slightest bit of difference to the commenter’s beliefs?
\nEven when it’s been almost a year and we’re heartily sick of it?
\nYes, I’m talking about a specific blog post. And yes, I’m hoping that your comments will help me to justify not<\/em> spending hours and hours answering more questions. But I am truly ambivalent about this issue and would like your honest opinions!<\/p>\n


\nWay back in June 2007, I wrote a post on my other blog describing my postdoctoral research on endogenous retroviruses<\/a>, and specifically why a creationist website was wrong to list one of my papers as evidence for intelligent design \/ creationism (but right to eventually take it down!<\/a> Yay me!).
\nThe post attracted a lot<\/em> of attention, and also a smattering of creationist commenters. My early exchanges with these people were surprisingly civil and respectful, and I initially enjoyed answering their questions. But eventually I realised that all my hard work (literally hours and hours of writing and rewriting responses, looking up references etc.) didn’t seem to make the slightest bit of difference. And then more creationists found me (it’s consistently been my most-Googled post), and the questions just kept on coming.
\nI have a couple of unanswered questions \/ comments waiting for me on the original post. (Hey, I promise to respond to all comments, but I don’t specify a timeframe). This bugs me – I hate the lack of resolution. But each question would take hours, and probably a blog post each, to answer satisfactorily. And each post would probably spawn more questions.
\nDoes there come a point when I can stop playing this game? Just tell them that I’ve spent far too much time on this already, it’s been a year, please move on? Or, having started the damn conversation, do I have an obligation to continue it until everyone’s satisfied?
\nDoes the answer change if I’d already started thinking of ways to turn the same subject matter into articles that I might be able to exchange for genuine cash money?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do bloggers in general, and those of us who write about current scientific research in particular, have an obligation to our readers? The obligation to accurately describe and interpret the results at hand is a given. But do we also … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}