FAQ

1. Why do we exist? - In reading science news over the last few years, we discovered that more and more sites that featured scientists writing to the public weren't just interested in science. Some have political agendas while others only publish articles and findings that agree with their beliefs. So we set out to accomplish the following:

We created a site where world-class scientists write articles and discuss issues without being filtered by size or editorial limitations, where there is no political litmus test and we can read great science directly from the source and maybe learn some new things.

We created a site where everyone who wants to write about science can also do it, regardless of popularity or ideology. There are other places where scientists can write but writers are lost in a sea of 70 million random blogs. Everyone is here to read about science and we have 1,800,000 articles read per month so your audience is already built in. You can just write good articles and have fun.

We created a site where you get paid to write science. We stay as financially transparent as possible by paying the bulk of the revenue generated by writers to the writers. The more you write, the larger your audience and the more you make. You can also donate it to charity. We keep a little bit to pay for the servers.

We simply could not find a science site that had everything we wanted so we decided to create it. Since this is a community, you help shape the culture also.

2. Who can write here? - Most of our writers are prominent book authors, professors and post-docs but anyone can write here. The only restriction is you have to write about science. We don't get into defining what is science and what isn't science. It's self-evident in most cases. Poems about your cat, for example, are not science but an article on information theory using cats is. If you look at the categories and can't find where your article would fit, tell us we need a new category.

3. Since a lot of the writers are well-known book authors, they will already have an audience. How do I get one? - Each new article that is published will appear on the front page for a short while. It will also appear on the Science Category pages. Well-written articles become popular and they will remain in the front of the main page or category pages. Just write good content and people will start reading you. Like anything else, it requires patience and persistence. The easiest way to get discovered is to join disussions on other articles here or in other places because that leaves a URL link to your column.

4. Do you censor any content? - No, the only content moderation of any kind will occur if someone violates the Terms of Use. We don't allow advertising or teasers that are just links to websites in the articles.

Obviously you can link to articles provided you obey copyright restrictions as spelled out in the Terms of Use.

Authors also have moderation ability over the comments in their columns so that might be considered censorship but we recognize that spam and trolling occur and allow authors to prevent that.

5. Do I retain my copyright? - Yes, when you sign up you grant us rights regarding publication but you own your work and can publish it in magazines, newspapers, books, etc.