Editorial: The '05 Living Architeuthis Photos

[tonmo]

All:

It's been quite a while since I've contributed any of my own articles to TONMO.com, with all the great content submitted by staff and others. But, I was inspired enough to put together enough words to justify me putting up the following editorial as a link on our Science sub-page (and will be marked as an editorial!)... so for what it's worth, thanks for reading my brain-dump on the event!

Editorial: The '05 Living Architeuthis Photos

 

[erich orser]

Very nice essay Tony. It would be nice to see a living Architeuthis without having to traumatize it in order to do so.

 

[corw314]

Carol

 

[Phil]

Very good article there Tony, and nicely put.

 

[sorseress]

Terrific, Tony.

 

[Architeuthoceras]

Thanks Tony, great editorial

 

[tonmo]

Thanks for reading!

 

[Jean]

Nice essay Tony and a great summation of the ethics involved!

J

 

[CapnNemo]

An excellent piece of 'taking stock' of where we are, nice one Tony.

And also:

Happy Birthday.

 

[joel_ang]

Thanks for taking the time to write it Tony, t'was a nice read

 

[Melissa]

That's great, Tony. I'm especially pleaed to read the comments on research ethics. I'm currently following new developments in ethical standards for research on people. Ethical considerations with animals gives me another way of looking at this.

Melissa

 

[reneepatton]

Continuity Error?

Tony, I couldn't agree with you more about the ethical implications surrounding the method by which the first live Architeuthis specimen was photographed.

That said, I take issue with one of your sponsor links: swordfishingcentral.com. Sport fishing is cruel, in my opinion, and seems out of sync with your philisophy. I clicked on the link to see photos of a giant squid before I realized what the link was...and, while I didn't see the photos they claimed were there, I did see the severed head of a hammerhead shark being proudly held up by a smiling fisherman. Ick.

 

[erich orser]

Reneepatton,

I believe that those are links that google robots attach to the top of the page based on words uttered below, often with almost no real connection to anything being discussed other than an out-of-context phrase. I've seen some pretty bizarre links up in that section since it's been there.

 

[erich orser]

Yeah, right now it's for teeen depression and troubled teens (don't know how any of that could be applicable). I think I'd better go back and have a gander...

 

[tonmo]

Tony, I couldn't agree with you more about the ethical implications surrounding the method by which the first live Architeuthis specimen was photographed.

That said, I take issue with one of your sponsor links: swordfishingcentral.com. Sport fishing is cruel, in my opinion, and seems out of sync with your philisophy. I clicked on the link to see photos of a giant squid before I realized what the link was...and, while I didn't see the photos they claimed were there, I did see the severed head of a hammerhead shark being proudly held up by a smiling fisherman. Ick.

Thanks for the input Renee. I am indeed evaluating our advertising and sponsorship model on the site and do expect some changes. I'll look at the particular ad in question and will look into addressing, but at the same time I don't expect I can please all the people all the time. As Erich notes, these are contextual-based ads. i.e., they try to divine what type of ad to show based on what text appears on the page (so that it's relevant). Erich, the Teen Depression links are either a) due to the overall popularity of our octopus suicide article, and perhaps that is applied overall to the site, or b) public service ads, which are displayed when ad inventory is low.

Again, I'm looking into all of our programs and expect some change by end of year... in fact I'm finalizing a new sponsorship program which I hope to implement soon; and this may replace some of the other spots we have today. Thanks again!