Introducing "Research Reports" on Patreon
It's here! I've been working on this for about two months now, and I think it's ready for prime time. We'll see. If you don't care about these ramblings and just want to see the patreon, check it out at patreon.com/researchreports.
Lately I've become increasingly thoughtful about scholarly communication. I've been reading a lot of dissatisfaction with peer review and scholarly publication, things like abusive peer reviewers sabotaging papers, the value of preprints, the need for publication forums that are not owned by iniquitously price-gouging companies, and the desire for open access publication. That put me to thinking about what a truly Christian community of healthy, scholarly communication would look like, and I'm not sure it looks like the world of peer review. Maybe that has a place, but then again, maybe not. I'm certain it doesn't look like social media, but maybe there are elements there that we could adapt.
All of that's led me to wonder about experimenting with new ways of disseminating scholarly work. This blog is very public, and I haven't always been sensitive to that. Lately, I've become more careful about what I publish here, lest I have to eat my words. But that leaves a lot more to be said, more that I think the general public would not care much about.
And to be honest, I like the idea of good conversation. I've turned off comments on all of my outlets (Here, YouTube, Human Genesis, the Core Academy website), because I find the entire comment culture to be mostly garbage. Some anonymous troll gets to leave a blasphemous obscenity on my platform? Or worse, two well-intentioned but poorly-informed people get into an argument in the comment section, creating resentments and hard feelings. I don't think so. I don't want to foster that kind of abuse.
With Patreon though, things might be different. You can't just wander into my posts there, so there's no opportunity for anonymous trolls doing a hit and run in the comments. I can have greater control over who comments and who gets to read as well, and the subscription discourages the riffraff. You would read my Patreon because you have a genuine interest in my work, or you really are a hardcore troll willing to spend money to cause trouble. And I can filter out the latter, so maybe at Patreon, things might be different. Who knows, maybe there's even a collaboration to be born from this? Or maybe I'm setting my hopes too high.
In any event, that's what I've been thinking about. As I said, I've been pondering this for a while and working on it for two months now. I've already got more than a dozen posts up there. Core Academy has the official press release on Research Reports, so you can get all the official details there. Through Patreon, you'll get notes on things I'm reading, quick research reports, maybe even a rough draft, all stuff that isn't really fit for this blog here (which will continue sporadically as it is now).
I'll just say this in close: If you're interested in my work and looking for ways to go deeper into the sorts of questions I like to explore, this Patreon might just be the thing for you. It's only $4 a month, which is less than half the cost of the typical streaming service. If you're the sort of person I hope you are, then I hope to see you there. If you're ready to go, head over to patreon.com/researchreports to sign up.
Have you read my book? You should check that out too!
