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Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
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1:02p - Voter Fraud and Internet Popularity in 140 Characters or Less
The Shorty Awards is a contest to select the best of Twitter in certain topics... by encouraging folks to tweet (or post their votes via Twitter) their votes, where the top five will go on to judging. Yeah, you can tell this will end well. One of the awards is for Health (or #health -- the hashtags on Twitter let you search for certain topics).
Anyway, this seems to be shaping up into a wankstorm. Not really because of the health issues themselves, though that plays a part, but mostly the standard of 'cheating, vote solicitation, and conspiracies'. The nominal issue is whether the Science-Based Medicine (SBM) or the Alternative Medicine (alt-med) should take the Shorty, but... well, it stops being about the medicine and more about which side wins.
The Cast
Science-Based Medicine/Skeptic Movement
Dr. Rachael Dunlop/@DrRachie -- Skeptical podcaster and heart-disease researcher on Twitter.
Orac -- Cancer surgeon, vaccination advocate, and medical blogger.
PZ Myers -- Skeptic, atheist and biologist, known for 'pharyngulizing' internet polls, which basically means posting links to informal internet polls on religion, science and so on, with the intent that his readers will push them in unexpected directions.
Tim Farley -- Vaccine advocate and blog commenter.
Alternative Medicine
Joseph Mercola/@mercola -- Osteopath and webmaster of a natural health site.
Mike Adams/@HealthRanger -- Webmaster of NaturalNews.com, an alt-med news site with a bit of a reputation for conspiracy-mongering.
Going to apologize - I follow Orac's blog, so most of my commentary is from there.
( Twitter Awards are Serious Business )
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