My fear has been that some marketing organization with a failing social network and a lot of venture debt had somehow duped AAAS into sharing its mailing list with some sort of revenue sharing deal. site 
Since you have included me in your trial group I am happy to share my observations. I am a longtime member of AAAS and have found Science in particular singularly valuable to me as a human being. I am also the creator of wiki and an advisor to the Wikimedia foundation that seems to have steered a unique course in the history of the web.
I'm having trouble understanding how AAAS could operate a scientifically significant social network without substantial budget and concentrated expertise. Most people I know consider google+ a flop in spite of fabulous investments in their technology.
If your entire community is on all day every day working with deep content then your provisioning costs alone would demand proportional revenue through some means, probably advertising but possibly up-sale of services. In a down quarter would you just throw stuff away? Or are you intending to be an occasional site that doesn't really matter to your community? That is to have failed already.
Let's say you are successful in 2017 due to large number of smart developers and lucky days. Then you face 2019 where the expectations of a social network have evolved substantially. Will you forever have large numbers of smart developers and lucky days?
A more sinister scenario is that you eventually own every working scientist's social network and can thereby demand escalating fees for access to each other's peers. This happens, of course, and it is the venture capitalists' unicorn dream. I would be broken hearted because I am on the periphery of science and have no budget to pay the fees.
You have no need to defend AAAS decisions to me. However, if you think you might. If you think I am expressing concerns that also worry you, I'm happy to correspond further. I would recommend devoting a thoughtful hour to Cory Doctorow's recent address at the Internet Archive first.
How to protect the future web from its founders' own frailty. Keynote by Cory Doctorow. Video and transcript online.
post
.
See AAAS Transformation Initiative Moves Full Steam Ahead. post
Trellis is a new scientific communication & collaboration platform from @AAAS. twitter
Member Services representative by phone at: 202-326-6417 or e-mail at membership@aaas.org. page
See Medium's Durability as a publication of record.