Blogging Conference Presentations, Permission, Ethics
I've been thinking lately about ethical disagreements regarding posting notes from conference presentations. Some bloggers feel guilty or slightly uneasy about posting their notes. Some scholars, citing copyright and/or privacy concerns, might not want responses to their conference presentations online. Fair enough, and I sometimes ask permission to blog conference presentations. I don't ask bloggers for their permission though, usually; I harbor an assumption that they are more comfortable with having their ideas made public. When I do ask, though, you'd think I'd said something like: "May I have permission to give you $100.00?" or "With your permission, I'd like to give you an award for Best Scholar Ever." Point is, the response I've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. Presenters have said they'd be honored if I posted my notes on their presentations. People have said thanks in comments and over email, and -- I love this -- Shani Orgad even cited my notes on her panel on her professional homepage (under "Research Interests"). I think it's great that people can write reviews of research presented at conferences, and that scholars can, if they choose, include those reviews in dossiers. I hope Orgad will start a trend. Skeptics might argue that reviews of conference presentations on blogs are too cheerleader-y and not critical enough, and sometimes that is the case, but for my part, I wouldn't waste my time composing a blog post from my notes if I didn't think the session was good. It's like letters of recommendation.
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Some Folks Get Sensitive
A while back, I went to a CCCC panel that produced a lively discussion afterwards. I thought the presentations were engaging, but also disagreed with some of the ideas presented, and said so in my blogged account of the panel. One of the people on the panel -- a professor and non-blogger -- took it very personally, like strongly enough to send me a nasty e-mail threatening my career prospects. Which is why I try to be careful now, and why I may run the risk of being cheerleader-ey. But I think that care is a valuable thing, especially since I'd been so indoctrinated in the masculinist model of agonistic discourse and critique: before this professor's nasty-gram, I'd simply never considered that some people might take what I was constructing as reasoned critique as a personal attack.
Mike
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2 Board Alley
What bradb said. Once you've put it out there, why not let it be blogged? If you're presenting an unpublished paper, then you might not want word to get out, especially if that word is negative(but then, why present at the conference at all?). If you're job hunting, you wouldn't want everyone to read about what a lousy presentation you'd done. If you're thin-skinned (which is what Mike ran into, apparently), you would perceive any commentary as an attack.
So what? I don't have any answers, but I think that blogging is showing how tech is changing scholarship, making news and commentary about presentations instantaneous or nearly so. If what you're doing is something that you are secretive or tentative about, don't bring it to the conference.
The blogged reviews that I have read are positive are neutral in tone. Why don't we set a precedent?
Mike's situation may reflect the tech influence as played out by blogger and nonblogger as well as bloggee and blogger. Since we are using blogging as a professional tool, perhaps we ought to develop a code of ethics/behavior specific to our profession, but which could borrow from other blogging communities. Here's one for the code: we support the 24 hour rule which encourages readers to wait a day before responding to a post perceived as a personal attack. Then, in the spirit of collegiality, we will email the blogger and discuss our concerns.