The Future of the Garden

Hi Gardeners,

When John, Neal, and Gustavo started the Garden of Forking Paths several years ago, they did so with the intention of fostering an on-going discussion of free will, moral responsibility, and the philosophy of action more generally.  At various times throughout its history, the Garden has succeeded in its mission to a great extent.  Unfortunately, things have become quite stagnant in the last year or so, and those of us who are concerned with seeing the Garden flourish are not quite sure why the frequency and quality of participation have floundered.  Simultaneously, things have got quite busy for John, Neal, and me.  In light of these two considerations, we've decided to close the Garden indefinitely.  So for the foreseeable future, there will be no new posts, nor any new comments.  Rest assured, while the blog is in hiatus, we will be busy trying to determine what things we can do to better ensure that the Garden succeeds in its mission.  We'll probably be getting in touch with many of you to see if you have any input on how we can better operate the Garden.  But until we have a clear picture of how the Garden can (1) maintain a vibrant community and (2) maintain a high level of philosophical rigor and sophistication, we will be taking a break. If (1) and (2) aren't sustainable, then we will close the Garden for good.

I realize that this is fairly drastic, but for those of you who are really concerned with the health of the blog, I think you'll understand.  It is our view (i.e., the view of John, Neal, and me) that we would rather close the Garden than see it in its current state. 

I hope that no one is unduly put off by this decision (we're actually very appreciative of the help and support that everyone has offered over the past six years), but no one wants the Garden to succeed more than the three of us, and we are convinced that this is the best way to begin to move forward.  I will leave the comments to this (and other threads) open for the next few days, and you can feel free to voice your opinions, offer suggestions, berate me, etc.

Thanks,
Justin

Comments

[Andrew]

I understand the decision. For what it's worth: Although I seldom post, I've enjoyed and learned a lot from the Garden over the past six years. Thanks for making that possible. =)

[Neil Levy]

I share the concern with the state of the garden. I think it has run its course. We might try something innovative... I would like to know what people would think of its rebirth as a form for the discussion of new papers. We would each commit to providing one draft paper (say) every 6 months; then comments would be open. Perhaps we could referee unsolicited papers. The garden would then be something new: a cross between a blog and a journal.

FWIW; I hereby commit to providing a draft paper and to refereeing 2 papers wiithin 7 days of receiving them.

[Al Mele]

I check out the garden several times each week. It's very nice with early morning coffee, for example. I think many of the threads have been interesting and productive. I'll definitely miss it. In my opinion, you guys did a great job.

BTW, I was planning to post a call for free will grant proposals here when I get everything in order. I'll probably do that on Brian Leiter's blog in a few weeks. We don't always have to work on free will for free.

[Dan Speak]

Yep. Understandable. It's been a good run, people. Thanks for all the hard work with this.

I think Neil's idea is worth pursuing. But how does he have the time for all of this while also publishing a paper every other week?! I gotta get me an energy drink... after my nap, of course.

[Justin Capes]

Like Al (and many others, I suspect) I check the garden frequently each week, and have benefited much from the discussion here. I hereby register my sincere hope that after a bit of revamping, the garden will return with vigor.

[Allan McCay]

I very much hope the Garden returns. Perhaps Neil's suggestion might work.

[John Fischer]

Thanks a million to Al Mele and to all of you for your kind remarks. We really do appreciate all the great contributions by so many folks over the past six years.

I want especially to thank Neal Tognazzini and Justin Coates for your hard work. I really appreciate what you have done for the "free will world".

To me, philosophy is all about community and friendship, working together on shared interests, and sharing passions. We've had a really good run, and its been a lot of fun.

I know I'll see many of you in the paths we'll take together in the future.

[Arjan Haring]

I just found the garden... If there is anything I can do I would love to help. Is a conference on the topic an idea to get interested and qualified people together?

[Andrei A. Buckareff]

This is a bummer, but it's understandable. I like Neil's idea.

[Neil]

Dan, I'll let me in to the secret of my success (such as it is). Follow these simple rules. (1) Give up all teaching. (2) Give up having a life. (3) Adopt as your motto 'near enough is good enough'. Mediocrity can be yours!

In my haste to suggest a way to keep the garden blooming, I entirely overlooked what should be most important (rule 3 in action). Let me belatedly thank Neal, Justin and John for everything they have achieved with the blog. Its the high standards they set in the past which make the current inactivity of the garden a real shame.

[Eddy Nahmias]

Well, my homepage when I open the internet is the Garden, so I will certainly miss it. My own view is that it would be worth keeping the name and blog set up to run a paper-sharing blog as Neil suggests. Anyway, thanks to John, Neal, and Justin for running the Garden, and thanks to all the contributors for making it a great place to hang out without feeling too guilty for not doing real work.

[Tamler Sommers]

My thanks also to John, Neal, and Justin. I love the Garden--I've sorted out a lot of ideas here that later went into published work. When writing my book, I would frequently go back through the comments to my posts and even cite them once in a while. I feel some desert-entailing responsibility for this, since I haven't posted anything substantive in a while. I've had some ideas lately that I just never had time to write up.

Is it possible for this to be a wake-up call to give the slackers one more chance? Paper sharing is great, but one of the real benefits of the garden was the opportunity to float ideas in the pre-essay stage.

[Andrei A. Buckareff]

I neglected to thank John, Justin, and Neal for their work.

If I may echo Tamler's suggestion, I do think that the GFP has a great deal of value that will be lost. Moreover, the lacuna left will not be easily filled by a paper-sharing blog. That said, I'm one of the culprits guilty of not contributing posts to the blog. Of course, some of that is because I'm most interested in issues that very few people find exciting (anyone for discussing basic causal deviance?).

[Fritz Warfield]

Causal deviance? A neglected and poorly understood topic Andrei --- you'd get more action on that topic than you seem to think.

[John Fischer]

Hey, we've had enough deviants (or was it deviance?) at the Garden!!!

Seriously, we're glad that so many of you will miss (aspects of) the GFP. But, although a certain amount of fertilizer is certainly to be expected in any garden, a garden can become overrun with weeds...

[Daniel Cohen]

I also check the garden every other day and would be very sad to see it disappear. I like Neil's suggestion, but I don't see why it entails shutting down the blog as we know it. Why can't we have a regular scheduled discussion group together with the familiar ad hoc discussions prompted by informal postings?

[Neil]

On mature reflection, I agree that it would be a shame to lose gfp as a forum for ideas as well as papers. As Daniel suggests, regular paper discussions could serve to guarantee that the garden is well tended, with informal postings in-between. It might also be worth trying to add to our roster and in the process doing something about the awful gender imbalance. If one or more of Laura Ekstrom, Helen Steward, Helen Beebee and Meghan Griffith could be persuaded to contribute the occasional post, the garden could flourish again.

My guess is that part of the reason that the garden has been less healthy lately is that some of the more regular posters have moved from being being grad students to busy profs. Solution: new grad students. I don't the contacts to find such people, since they will be largely US.... and that's precisely why I want the garden to thrive.

[Thomas Nadelhoffer]

John, Justin, and Neal,

First, thanks for all the work you have put into making this blog a success--even during lean times. I, for one, know all too well what a pain in the ass running a blog can be from time to time--especially when there is a dearth of posts/comments. That being said, I am nevertheless perplexed by your decision to suspend the blog. As I see it, it is still a useful tool even when there is a dearth of high-powered philosophical action on the blog since it gives folks who may not know about free will a place to surf around. Just for that reason alone, I think it should continue. Here is what we know for sure:

1. GFP is one of the original philosophy blogs. As such, it is has a solid list of contributors and some fairly active comment threads even when posts are somewhat sparse.
2. FW/MW is an especially hot topic right now--especially given the interdisciplinary work by Baumeister, Vohs, Schooler, on the psychology side and the experimental philosophers on the philosophical side.
3. With Mele's mega-FW grant, researchers will need a place like GFP to discuss their work.

So, why shut it down? Here are the two reasons that have been offered thus far:

1. Stagnation--far fewer top junior and senior philosophers have been posting on GFP during the past few years.
2. Time--John, Justin, and Neal are understandably busy--so, running/moderating the blog takes away from time they should be spending doing other things.

I also suspect that the following two are playing at least a minor role as well:

3. Cost--the fee to have a pro Typepad account is $150 per year. If John is not enjoying reading the blog and participating in discussions, it is hard to see why he should continue forking out money for a dysfunctional blog.
4. Reputation--when the posts and comment threads do not contain first rate philosophy, this could be taken to reflect poorly on John, Justin, Neal, UCR, etc--since they are identified as the folks responsible for the blog.

Does that cover all the bases? If so, I still see no reason to suspend the blog. Instead, we should adopt the following strategy:

1. If John and company will set up a "donate" widget, I am confident that people will contribute to cover the annual Typepad subscription. I hereby officially pledge five dollars. This should address the COST issue.

2. To keep running the blog from eating into John and company's time, GFP should switch entirely to moderated comments. I recently did the same thing over at the X-Phi blog to cut down on SPAM. It has worked great. It also has the positive side effect of slowing down and improving discussions, since it takes a while for comments to appear--which gives tempers time to subside! By switching to moderated comments, the author of an individual blog post is responsible for all of the comments in his or her thread. If nothing else, this would address the TIME issue.

3. I think we should certainly take Neil's advice with respect to recruiting some new contributors--especially if by doing so we could address the gender imbalance Neil rightly highlights. I have found that recruiting new "blood" over at the x-phi blog has been an important way of keeping people reading the blog. This would go some way towards addressing the STAGNATION issue.

4. I also think we could organize more of the sort of on-line reading groups Neil mentioned as well. These have worked pretty well in the past.

Of course, even if we did all of these things, it would not address the aforementioned problem of reputation. After all, John's name is attached to this blog, so if he thinks the philosophizing that is occurring on GFP is not meeting minimal standards of rigor and professionalism, then even if we take all four of these steps, that may not be enough to convince John and company to keep the blog up and running.

However, I would like to mention the following possibility: When you purchase a pro Typeppad account, you get three blog spaces. As such, I presently have some extra blog space as part of the X-Phi blog. So, in the event that (a) John and company understandably still want to close shop, and (b) readers and contributors to GFP think it is important for our field to have a blog, I would be willing to set up an interim free will blog while we wait on the return of the Garden. At this point, I have already set up several blogs, so it wouldn't take much effort. So, I could have something up and running in a few weeks. Of course, if we went this route, it would be under the assumption that if and when John and company want to restart GFP, I would simply close the other alternative free will blog at that time. Just a thought really...but since (a) I am already paying for the blog space, and (b) I think the garden fulfills an important function even when the philosophy is sub-par, I am willing and able to move the free will ship into another cyber-harbor until John and Company decide to let the Garden flourish again.

Thoughts?

[Neil]

I meet Thomas's $5 and raise him $20...

I would be glad to contribute (papers and ideas to an alternative fw blog) if John gives it his blessing. That is, I would so in order to reassure him that the garden can bloom again.

[John Fischer]

In a garden, you have to nip some things in the bud. Let me be explicit: I won't be collecting money or taking money from anyone for this purpose.

Thanks VERY much to Tom, Neil, and everyone who has made suggestions and expressed their sadness about our decision. We appreciate it very much.

I think we are entitled to make a decision and that we should stick with it: the GFP will go on indefinite hiatus. In a cool hour, Justin, Neal and I will think about what, if anything, to do in the future. All of your suggestions will be considered, and, again, are greatly appreciated. Just speaking for myself, perhaps the GFP will have been a catalyst for the emergence of something even better--not necessarily organized by us!

[Mike Robertson]

I thank everyone who has kept this blog going over the years. I've gotten a lot from it.

Here's my suggestion: an online forum/bulletin board would work better than a blog for the purposes of fostering discussion and community.

[Justin Coates]

I appreciate the support. I also appreciate the financial support provided by John and the wonderful coordination provided by Neal and Gustavo. And thanks to everyone else who contributed to the Garden's many successes.

I'm turning off the comments now, but if you have further thoughts, contact me at the address provided in the About section of the blog.