1. Why do we exist? -  In reading science on the Internet over the last few years, we discovered some interesting things - scientists don't think much of the accuracy of science journalism and the audience doesn't think much about the objective nature of mass media when it comes to science, believing some sites claiming to be about science have political agendas while others only publish articles and findings that present one side of complex issues.  So we decided to create an open science writing network that tackles both problems - a place where researchers could dive into direct science outreach and 'be journalists' and make science writing as accurate as they would like and the audience can get information directly from the source, without any editorial or corporate bias. In creating Science 2.0 we hope to accomplish the following: 

• Create a place where world-class scientists write articles and discuss issues without being filtered by size or editorial limitations, where there are no political or cultural agendas, and the audience can read great science directly from the sources and maybe learn some new things.
• We created a place where everyone who wants to write about science can write to a large potential audience, regardless of popularity.  There are other places where scientists can write but writers are lost in a sea of 170 million random blogs.   Everyone in the audience is here to read about science and we have 1,800,000 articles read per month so your audience is already here.   You can just write good articles and have fun and engage people.
• Unlike media companies that want to use the generous nature of academics doing outreach to make their corporations wealthier, here the money from ads is paid to the writers.    This isn't another magazine seeing user-generated content as a new way to fatten their bottom line or promote their publication.   Instead, we stay as financially transparent as possible by paying the bulk of the revenue generated by the writers to the writers.   We keep a little bit to pay for the servers. If you don't want money, you can shut off the ads for your columns.

We simply could not find a science site that had everything we wanted in a communications tool plus the social and collaborative features that define what we termed Science 2.0®, so we decided to create it.  Since this is a science community, you help shape the culture also.   As a part of the community, you can blog and eventually write feature articles syndicated worldwide, chat with friends and much more.   We have incorporated virtually everything in social media we could find.

3. Since a lot of the writers are well-known book authors, they will already have an audience.  How do I get one? - Each new blog that is  published will appear on the front page for a short while.  It will also appear on the Science Category pages.  Well-written pieces become popular and they will remain in the front of the main page or category pages.  Just write good content and people will start reading you but anyone who got a big audience from scratch did a lot of work to get it.  Like anything else, it requires patience and persistence.  The easiest way to get discovered is to join discussions on other articles here or in other places because that leave a URL link to your column.  We also have links to all the other social media sites on each published piece so readers can spread the word for you.

4. Do you censor any content? - No, the only content moderation of any kind will occur if  someone violates the Terms of Use. We're not interested in conspiracy tales or if you think the word 'theory' means something you just made up.  We don't allow advertising, including other sites you write on, in the articles, or teasers that are just links to other websites in the articles.  Of course, you can link to other sites you write at or to books you have written in your bio and your bio appears on everything you write 

 Obviously you can link to articles provided you obey copyright restrictions as spelled out in the Terms of Use.   

 Authors also have moderation ability over the comments in their columns so that might be considered censorship but we recognize that spam and trolling occur and allow authors to prevent that.

5. Do I retain my copyright?   - Yes, you grant us rights regarding publication but you own your work.

6. Getting started.

Related Articles on Science 2.0