Where are Scholarly Conversations?
On the forum website, Reddit, there is a science thread (r/science) where scholars can discuss topics based on research uploaded onto the forum. Scholars can upload their research, and then others can comment to evaluate and ask questions about the research/findings. Evaluation can be anything from clarification of information to outright disproval of certain findings to questions, asking about information the researcher may have left out. Information can be trusted based on who posted it. Accounts that are ‘verified’ can be trusted as reliable sources, and have social authority over other users. The accounts are recognized for their reliableness by the website Reddit. Reddit admins can ban users from the thread if they consistently post false information or harass other users.
Anybody can post information, but r/science is a large thread, it also has a large amount of admins that will delete joke information. Not all false information will be deleted because that would inhibit discussion. Popular posts garnering a lot of attention are posted at the top of the thread. I believe that this forum is an efficient way of sharing information to the public for free. It’s possible, however, for information to get lost if posted by new/small users.
