"How do you get skeptics involved?"

You don't.

Trying to get someone to like social networking is like trying to get someone to like a sport. If I were to try to convince someone that, say, Australian rules football was a fantastic game and they should like it, too, I'm going to have a crummy success rate.

I cannot make someone like Aussie rules football. This is particularly true in North America, because there's no context for the sport, no environment or common reference points. I can't really convey what it's like to ride the trams in Melbourne on a wintery Saturday afternoon and know who's playing at the MCG because of the scarves people are wearing, any more than I can convey how I find leads to interesting ideas on teaching or research by Twitter or blogging.

Another problem is that a skeptic has the unassailable critique: "Waste of time." And it's unassailable because it's almost true. Social networking is incredibly inefficient. You have to trudge through a lot of rubbish to find the good stuff, and to develop a reputation as someone worth listening to.

The only thing you can do is lead by example.

P.S. - I am a hypocrite, because I wrote an article in the last International Society for Neuroethology newsletter titled, "Neuroethology needs bloggers."

"Are departments/universities really so hard up for money that they can't cover three more months salary for a grad student?"

Yes.

The undergrad enrollment in our department went up over 50% in the last decade, but our department got a 0% budget increase in that time. We have insane difficulties trying to support a small fraction of our master's students.

Although this article makes them seem ubiquitous, not all graduate programs have rotations.

Anyone have any data on the proportion of graduate programs with rotations versus without?