ABOUT US
PanSci-the Science Citizen Network in Taiwan-aims to encourage netizens to talk about science and science related social and political issues. We invite researchers, science bloggers, science students, teachers, publishers, and netizens who are interested in science to join this network. We make science communication cool, fun, and entertaining, while still delivering the best and the most rigorous science content contributed by volunteer authors.
Since its launch in Oct 2010, right now PanSci has grown to be the most popular online science media/website/community in Taiwan and among Traditional Chinese users around the world.
We have already more than 60 volunteer authors/contributors who contribute more than 120 science articles/translation/videos each month. Part-time and volunteer editors use multiple social media channels-facebook, twitter, plurk, googleplus- to engage broader audiences online. PanSci on FB has more fans-around 90,000-than any other FB fan page of science topic, even the official fan page of Scientific American Taiwan edition. PanSci is also listed as a credible news source by Google News and many other media and portal websites.
We are still rapidly growing, with more and more authors expressing their willingness to join this network, and more and more media want to republish our articles. We are bridging the public with accurate and traceable science news and reasoned deliberation on science-related issues.
As a non profit and non governmental project, PanSci utilizes UGC(user-generated content) and crowd-sourcing strategy to sustain its content, but the lack of sponsorship and income is hindering it from expansion.
PanSci was launched as a simple blog in Oct, 2010. We want to do it because in Taiwan the science news/information is terribly poor in both quantity and quality, which directly influence the public’s ability to see and discuss any issues in scientific way.
Misleading information and fabricated stories make people panic and ignorant, scientists are not trusted by the public because of political bias and media manipulation, while important issues that should be examined by the public in scientific method become sensational gossips. This is the situation in Taiwan, and it seems that no one can do anything about it. We decided to change this on our own with the power of internet and good-will netizens.
We started by inviting existing science blogger in Taiwan to join. There were not many of them, so we approached university students and teachers and to invite them to start blogging about science. We also invited science magazine publishers to share some of their best content, including BBC Knowledge (Taiwan edition), Robotcon (Taiwan edition), and Make (Taiwan edition). Many myths and misleading news are debunked by PanSci’s authors. These articles along with others boost PanSci’s popularity online.
PanSci engage with netizen community on social networks. We encourage people to see things in scientific way and ignite meaningful discussions which usually turn into another great article featured on PanSci. We are also distributing our content through media partners including PNN-the Public TV News Network, Business Weekly-the most read business magazine in Taiwan, Engadget Chinese-the most popular 3C blog, and Liphao-the best quality newspaper focusing on education and social movement.
PanSci’s ultimate goal is to change people’s attitude toward science and let the public be able to see and discuss social issues and controversies in scientific way. We try to achieve this goal by bringing together the best science content to netizens and create a solid, organic, and critical community.
PanSci is run by its community. We have around 150,000 fans on FB, 100,000 on G+, and 1,400 on Twitter. There are more than 60 volunteer authors who constantly contribute. Two part-time editors and three volunteer community editors co-manage the main website and its other social network accounts. It is magnificent to be a part of this network. All the content are free to everyone. Some authors adopted CC-License, some do not. More than 4,500 rigorous but also interesting articles are published until now.
PanSci listen and learn from its community, and it is what really worked. We learned that people do care about social issues that are related to science, but they just do not have a place to go. We learned that there are actually a lot of people who can and are willing to contribute their science knowledge but they just have no place to go. We gain trust not only because we do our best to provide rigorous content, but because we always correct ourselves immediately and are willing to search for truth and speak out. PanSci is a way to change one of the fundamental weakness of Taiwan society and take the public to a higher level of democracy as long as we gain more influence.
This introduction is updated on 8/6, 2014