Bookraft

The May 2008 issue of Scientific American has a compelling article on the nature of so-called Science 2. This is where some scientist take advantage of the Web, blogs, and other social websites to discuss their ongoing experiments with the community. Now this raises a number of moral and ethical questions well beyond those incurred when students use Wikipedia, Google and other sites to shortcut the learning curve. The publication Nature has also taken note of the Science 2 phenomenon - so expect a fairly fast movement to agreed upon limits and constraints on participation.

However, the gist of the Scientific American article is that Science 2 Science is :
"... although their efforts are too scattered to be called a movement; yet their experiences to date suggest that this kind of Web-based 'Science 2.0' is not only more collegial than traditional science but considerably more productive"

There are distinct trade-offs, but read the story to get the full picture.