A few days ago PZ Myers announced he will have some special guest bloggers on Pharyngula soon. While the first commenters were guessing Big Names, like Dawkins, my comment was: "I am hoping for your students....". A little later, PZ Myers updated his post to announce that yes, indeed, it will be his Neuroscience students who will be guest-blogging this semester.
And today, they started. They were thrown into a lions' den, but they are doing great, holding their own against the famously ruthless Pharynguloids who call them 'kids' and then slam them anyway in many, many comments (they are all among the 'most active posts' on scienceblogs.com today!). Talk about Baptism By Fire (or is it Counter-Baptism?)! It's nice that PZ Myers is protective of them (and ruthless with the commenters who cross the line), but it seems the students are doing just fine on their own so far.
Anyway, check their first posts and keep an eye on them the next few weeks or so - they are bright young people :
New kid on the block by Bright Lights
An Introduction by Blue Expo
I'll give this a shot... by Lua Yar
A Very new kid on the block! by Bright Lights
Hey folks by Mark Antimony
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I was definitely glad to see this too, and I hope that the experience will get them blogging on their own when their spot on Pharyngula is over. If nothing else it'll provide some good "data" for discussion on student blogging come January.
I think one thing is sure, the Pharyngulean horde will not loose its reputation for rudeness just yet. There was a lot of constructive criticism, but there was also a lot of plain assholeness.
I mean, I might not be the most polite commenter out there, but at least I try to keep my rudeness relevant to the subject at hand, and add some kind of constructive criticism somewhere in it.