I'm thinking about what the future of scientific communication might be. One idea I really like is that we should be collaboratively editing a living document. But what would that be like? Not like Wikipedia because that's about establishing a single authoritative version, unlike research. So what?

Not like Scholarpedia which is more or less just a journal in practice. Something without top down control by senior scientists because again it has to be about supporting new ideas and opening things up.

It also has to have the ability to highlight both areas of agreement and disagreement. Highlight trends and also new ideas that don't fit a trend, etc. Ideally it should serve as both a textbook for people new to the field, and something like a journal focusing on new ideas and commentary.

Is this a desirable vision? If not, what are the issues? What technology could we use? Modified Wikipedia? What social issues would we need to tackle?

Inside Rümeysa Öztürk’s Journey From Scholar to Trump Target in Louisiana Cell
—

“So horrifying and so heartbreaking”: Öztürk’s close friend provides an intimate look into one of the hundreds of foreign students who have had their visas revoked — and in dozens of instances have been detained without criminal charges.

https://www.propublica.org/article/rumeysa-ozturk-best-friend-inside-story-tufts-trump-louisiana-ice?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News #ICE #Palestine #Trump #Boston #Students #Phd #Immigration

Several months ago, I wrote to the Communications Minister to suggest that there were more productive uses of the Government's time than purporting to regulate Telegram, an organization owned by Russian oligarchs which operates entirely outside Australian jurisdiction.

Today I received a reply to my letter which includes this gem.

The government has acknowledged that when eSafety fines an overseas company, the fine isn't enforceable, doesn't create a debt, and doesn't impose any obligation to actually pay.

Unsurprisingly, Telegram has chosen to ignore the fine.

It's just vibes-based virtue signalling from Julie Inmam-Grant.

So that's how eSafety fines work: Big headlines informed by eSafety press releases about record fines, which are never collected, and that's completely okay. All eSafety needs to do is make shit up, that's how the Government of Australia keeps everyone safe online.

ping @stilgherrian

Big Journalism is still doing stenography instead of showing the reality of the Trump regime's headlong race into fascism.

At TechDirt, @mmasnick shows how journalism could work if it located a spine.

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/14/trump-bukele-plot-us-citizen-detention-in-salvadoran-torture-camps-while-defying-supreme-court-via-gibberish-responses-to-reporters/

Key quote: "If you don’t see all of this as one of the darkest days in American history, in which the President is openly embracing disappearing people without due process in the name of 'liberty,' you are a part of the problem. Fascism has risen in America..."

Yet another wrong guy swept up in an #ICE snatch and disappear.

#MApoli we need to do something, this is egregious.

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/video/video-shows-ice-agent-smash-car-window-to-detain-man-in-massachusetts/