Hello,
My name is Dan Pollock, and I am responsible for nature.com, of which Nature Network is an important part. I have been reading the recent discussions about your concerns around Nature Network, both in terms of its functionality and its future direction. At this point in the discussion I think it is appropriate for me to step in to reassure you on both counts.
Before I do, I would first like to thank you all for your feedback and the interesting discussions taking place. I think you raise some important issues, both for the specific Nature Network community, and for “science and social media in general”.
The background to our efforts is that NN represents an on-going commitment to facilitate new and emerging mechanisms for scientific communication. As with any such project, it has evolved over the years, and I would first like to reassure you that we remain committed to NN, and to addressing the needs of the community it serves, both now and in the future.
As you have unfortunately experienced, the transition of your blogs from the old Nature Network system onto the Moveable Type blogging platform has been less smooth than we would have liked and for that I apologise. We understand that the tools available to bloggers have improved since we first launched the site over 3 years ago, so it became clear that we needed to offer you the sort of blogging tools (such as monitoring stats and customising blogs) you could find elsewhere. We therefore took the decision to migrate to the MT4 platform. Through this we wish to give you as much practical support as we can in providing you with your own blog, while continuing to host it within the Nature Network family, and laying a solid foundation that will take us forward. Please rest assured that we are still committed to making this happen and I hope the recent updates that Lou has shared with you about our progress on this demonstrate we are now taking positive corrective action to bring this about. I’d like to thank you for your perseverance with us while we resolve the remaining technical issues – which we are now doing – and to reassure you that things will be much improved by the Autumn.
On the question of where Nature Network fits into the bigger picture of nature.com, this is a good time to have raised this issue, as it is something we have been discussing internally in recent months. We are committed to NN’s on-going development – indeed, we believe that as our end users, it is important that you have a channel through which you can inform us of your needs and hopes for the site, so you can help shape our vision. We therefore propose to run some focus groups to canvas your input. We have yet to finalise the details, however please rest assured that this is a priority for us. If you would be interested in participating, please let Lou know (l.woodley@nature.com) and she can keep you informed as our plans unfold.
Meanwhile, I would like to thank you for your on-going support.
Regards,
Dan Pollock
Associate Director, nature.com