My fellow editor Mark Vellend just emailed me with the fruits of his research on how to formally cite blog posts. While standards are still evolving and many ecology journals have no official policy, you can find guidance here and here. (UPDATE: second link fixed)
The latter link includes advice on how to cite pseudonyms, which uses the unintentionally amusing example of citing the Dalai Lama. Mark points out that someone following the linked guidance would list the author of my posts as “oikosjeremy” rather than Jeremy Fox. Which I don’t really think is a big deal–it’s not like it’s a secret who “oikosjeremy” is. Mark suggests that I may want to stop blogging under a pseudonym, in anticipation of being cited. On the contrary, my thought is to start blogging under a different, more entertaining pseudonym. Like “Charles Darwin”. Or “thegreatestecologistintheworld”, like in the old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin signs his homework “Calvin, Boy of Destiny”. Or maybe “Author’s Name”, so that the citation would read “A. Name”. Kind of like when two British football (soccer) players a few years ago bought a couple of racehorses and named them “Some Horse” and “Another Horse” in the hopes that one day an announcer calling a horse race would be forced to say “And down the stretch they come, it’s some horse leading by a length over another horse!” 😉 (UPDATE: I’ve chickened out and changed my display name to my real name).
I know you’re going to do it anyway, so go ahead and suggest new pseudonyms for me in the comments. Indeed, I predict that top commenter Jim Bouldin is going to spend hours thinking up suggestions on this. 😉
Dynamic Ecology 
page not found error on second ‘here’ link.
Thanks, fixed.
Not hours, days.
Better yet, for a low, low $99.95 we can guarantee you a blog user name that will dramatically increase citations and make you fabulously famous. Hurry, this offer ends pretty soon.
Nah, if it’s going to cost me money, I’ll just come up with my own suggestions:
“Bruce Campbell” (because he’s a zombie slayer)
“Jeremy, Ecologist of Destiny” (but only if people say it right–you have to pause before “Destiny” and say it in a low-pitched, drawn out way. “Jeremy, Ecologist of…Dessssstinyyyyyy”)
“Jim Bouldin” (just to mess with you)
Or I could go with some unpronounceable symbol, thereby forcing people to call me “The Ecologist Formerly Known as Jeremy”. Like Prince did when he became The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. The best part of this one is that later I could start calling myself “The Ecologist”, just as Prince eventually started calling himself “The Artist”.
“…I could start calling myself “The Ecologist”, just as Prince eventually started calling himself “The Artist”.”
Too long, the public has a short attention span remember. I suggest simply “The Man”. Worked pretty well for Stan Musial. (Not to mention Stan “The Man” Unusual, aka Don Stanhouse).
Send me a check at your convenience.
Years ago, there was a funny sketch on “Mad TV” (sadly, apparently not on YouTube) called I’m The Man. It was just a white guy in a suit sitting behind a desk in an office, with two beefy bodyguards in sunglasses standing behind him. The nameplate on the desk read “The Man”. The guy at the desk started talking about how “You know how people always talk about ‘The Man’ keeping them down? Well, I’m The Man.” Which prompted first one bodyguard and then the other to go, “You the Man!” The guy just kept talking about how all the things that we blame on “The Man” are actually his doing, and every time he said, “I’m the Man” the two bodyguards would respond “You the Man!”
I’m sure it doesn’t sound funny at all to have it described this way, but just the idea that The Man really exists, that he’s literally one guy sitting at a desk somewhere, just cracked me up.
If you want to sound modest, how about “King Slow Boy”? (Note to people who didn’t run at Williams circa 1991-95: this is a reference to the speed of Jeremy’s feet, not the speed of his brain.)
I think it should’ve been clear from my own suggestions that I do NOT want to sound modest! 😉
I should’ve guessed that my friends would use this post as an excuse to embarrass me with old nicknames. I suppose I should be glad you at least provided some context for why I was once known as “King Slow Boy”, rather than just leaving it to the imagination of this blog’s many imaginative readers.
I’m now going to “get out in front of the news”, as crisis managers say, beat my other friends to the punch, and announce that my other nicknames included “Spence” and “Jem”. The former was an attempt to confer on myself a flattering nickname (former US marathon champ Steve Spence went to my high school, and so the nickname suggested that I might have somehow inherited his running prowess). The latter was conferred on me by a childhood friend, because it’s the nickname of a character named Jeremy in To Kill a Mockingbird. Not because of this.
😉
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I just heard someone say that they reviewed a paper which cited a *tweet*!
The review wasn’t positive, apparently.
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