Why the Garden is Great, Why is the Garden Great?

This was a post I started to write before the announcement that the blog is 3 years old and the comments that followed, so apologies for some of the redundancy. I guess some of these thoughts are in the air right now.

This past week (now, almost two weeks ago) I was struck by the vitality and energy of the free will-focused part of the online philosophy world. First, there was the OPC2. I didn’t monitor the comments with anything like mathematical precision, but my sense is that comments on the free will papers outpaced all the other comments, and maybe even all the other comments combined. Then, there is the fact of the GFP itself. Blog activity seems to outpace many comparable blogs in fields that are ostensibly bigger (ethics, epistemology) and in some cases where there isn’t any comparative group, topical blog out there (political philosophy anyone?).

To be sure, we’ve had dry spells. But, overall we seem to have successfully made the transition to a middle-aged philosophy blog (relative to the lifespan of blogs, anyway).

I take it that it won’t be particularly tough to sell this crowd on the thought that we are mighty bloggers. What I’m really interested in is why we seem to be so active in the blogophere.

Several possible answers occurred to me:

1. We have Kip and Mark, who jointly out-comment the rest of the blogosphere :-)
2. Our subjects are just way more interesting
3. We don't have enough to do (or have to much to do) and spend way too much time blogging and not enough publishing (this strikes me as not likely- we've got some heavy publishers at the GFP not the least of which if JMF)
4. We're one of the first group blogs on a specific topic or field in philosophy so we've got the longest-running opportunity to get comfortable (this doesn’t seem particularly convincing as an explanation)
5. We don’t have enough avenues to discuss our work. Lots of subfields have their own journals and groups that meet, and there seems to be less of this in free will/phil action. (Although Phil Explorations and Jnl of Ethics can't be faulted for their promotion of agency and free will things), Again, though, this doesn’t seem particularly compelling because there is no shortage of publications on free will-related things throughout general philosophy journals.
6. Free will is, Like, Totally Hot! (both in philosophy but more perhaps more generally in the scientific and “intellectual” parts of our culture— perhaps partly because of the outrageous claims that neuroscience folks have been making).
7. There are lots of young people working on free will, and young ‘uns blog (is this more true here than any other field?)
8. We were mentioned in Newsweek way back when. (This just confirms our greatness, and is not a cause of it, I think.).

I dunno what the answer is. I do think the blog has been a wonderful forum (thanks John, Neal, and Gustavo, as well as everyone else). And, I think some of it is just a function of the personalities involved and the generally gracious demeanor of at least most of the field. But why this should translate into the World’s Best Topical Philosophy Blogging Community, I'm not sure.

Any ideas?

Comments

[Neil]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and it ain't broke. Nevertheless, I want to propose some innovations that will make the garden more useful (to me, anyways). I would like to see reading groups, and paper exchanges. The papers on agency blog has never taken off. One way to stimulate interest in it might be to have folk regularly upload drafts of their work in progress to it, for people's perusal and comments. This would be regularise and democratise the feature we had recently with the grande fromages posting papers for discussion. The papers blog shouldn't supplant that, it should be a space for petite fromages to be heard (as well).

Second, I'd like to see reading groups. There's a nice new book just out which would be perfect - Sour news on free will, I think it's called.

[john a]

As an outsider I am going to offer three reasons for your success:
1) you really do discuss the issues being presented in depth and worry about the strength of the various arguments.
2) you make 'outsiders' feel welcome when they comment.
3) free-will is probably the most 'human' of all the great metaphysical issues and appeals to many people of diverse backgrounds.

[Mark]

One day I may even graduate to full fledged posting =)

[Anibal]

I endorse the reasons added by John A.
One more reason is that you have capitalize fantastically the many advantages that the techological tools offer to do philosophy in the 21st century, giving the opportunity to make hear voices ussually hide.
Thanks for made me part of your great endevaour.

[Kip Werking]

I'll just say that:

1. The GFP is my favorite website. I was delighted when Tom Clark introduced me to it, a few years ago. It fills, for me, a sorely felt need.

2. I recognize that I post/comment quite a bit, and I'm always quite nervous about doing it. Studies show that the internet has a disinhibiting effect, and I often wonder whether any of this will come back to haunt me:

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/02/22/the-law-and-emotions-of-e-mail/

But, for every post and comment I write, there are five I imagine but refrain from posting.

[Tamler Sommers]

I don’t want to rain on this parade, but I’ve heard rumors about a less flattering explanation for the blog’s success: performance enhancing drugs.

From yesterday’s Drudge Report: “Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in three weeks and he had ample supply of Benzedrine to help him. Have Gardeners been taking a little something extra to blog so energetically about a 2500 year-old problem?”

Obviously, this is an unfounded accusation, probably spread by some PEA Soup people. But as a resident of San Francisco, Manuel should know as well as anyone how the cloud of suspicion can taint blogging (and athletic) achievement.

[David Hunter]

Its all about numbers... Surely what gives the Garden the advantage is that you have a relatively small sub field (Sorry guys don't throw things) and you can correctly claim to have many of the cutting edge scholars in that area involved and blogging here. If we take something like Peasoup, the subject area is huge and their number of experts is thus relatively small (Again, peasoupers please don't throw things). So the Garden has become a must read for those of us working in the area of action theory, and for those like me whose work tangentially impinge upon it.

Sociologically it might also be said that there is a reason for group formation and identification in this area and that is that there is a general feeling (warranted or not) that the area as a whole is neglected and undervalued by philosophy in general. Again this contrasts with blogs like Peasoup since their subject area is clearly not neglected!

Cheers
David

[Gustavo Llarull]

Re: Neil's comment. It ain't broke, but a little navel-gazing every once in a while isn't bad, so I welcome Manuel's hilarious post. On the other hand, suggestions are always welcome, and, coincidentally, Neal and I were talking about ways to shake up the Papers Blog. So we'll give it another shot, Neil!

[Manuel Vargas]

Thanks to all who commented. I do think we have a nice mix of folks participating, and I look forward to more posts and comments from everyone. And, yeah, David I think you are right about the numbers part and how that plays out in making the blog a "must read."

Tamler: I feel called upon to speak on behalf of Baydestrians- it 'taint a taint if everyone is tainted.