Sunday, April 19, 2015

April Showers

17 comments:

  1. Anonymous in Leiter's thread says:

    "The Appointments pages on PhilJobs are embarrassingly empty, with many reports (e.g. at Philosophy Smoker) that people are afraid of posting their own hires for fear of getting trolled. Does this actually happen?"

    and another anon replies:

    "Most people have not posted their appointments, I think. Especially since grad students were attacked/ridiculed/raked over the coals in the blogosphere when their appointments were publicized. I highly doubt that it is a reasonable representative sample."

    Is this true? Is the listing of "appointments" at PhilJobs now unreliable? And if so, why? Have individuals indeed been raked over the coals for getting a job? Leiter gestures at PMMB as a possible place where this may have occurred, but I don't remember this happening with any names (though there may have been attacks on unnamed job-getters).

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  2. I can see women choosing not to post their appointments because then the blogosphere will start talking about how women get all the jobs and how much easier it is for women to get hired. And I can see dudes not posting their hires because that would undermine the proposition that women get all the jobs, which is a fun rhetorical device.

    But, on the other hand, I can't see DGS's at the Ph.D. programs not posting the hires, because those hires legitimize and promote the programs. Or the hiring committees from not posting them because those hires legitimize the schools that are progressive enough to still be hiring in philosophy.

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    1. Right! Departments have a strong interesting in publicizing the success of their graduates, which makes the apparent holes in the PhilJobs appointments data even more puzzling.

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    2. A DGS might reasonably ask permission from a graduate student to post the fact that s/he has been offered a job, and a graduate student might reasonably decline. Alternatively, a graduate student might reasonably approach the DGS and ask that her/his successful candidacy not be published on any blog.

      It is quite reasonable for a new junior Philosophy professor not to want everyone being all up in her business.

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    3. Can't the problem be mitigated by removing one's CV from the web? I don't see why someone would publicly post their info and then cry foul when people see that info and render opinions about them online. If you're that ashamed of your own record or that worried that people will cast aspersions on your ability as a philosopher and teacher, take your CV down. Or, you know, stand by your record, even if people want to denigrate you

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    4. Yeah, all these people being subjected to absurdly overblown internet mob criticism should have just removed all traces about their professional life from the web. They're bringing it on themselves.

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  3. Help! Help! I've been mansplained at! What do I do? Does it matter that the perpetrator is trans?

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    1. Calm down 3:04 and explain yourself. Has Rhys been at it again?

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    2. Never tell a woman to calm down, 4:06!

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  4. Colin McGinn again: http://www.colinmcginn.net/stalins-fallacy/

    "Death solves all problems. No man, no problem." is an oft misattributed quote from a novel: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Misattributed . The man really can't be bothered research.

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  5. http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/is-it-ok-for-a-um-professor-to-burden-a-student-with-sexual-advances-7581424

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  6. Why is there a new article about the McGinn thing from two years ago...? I guess someone finally got her to talk, but just seems like that's so 2000-and-late.

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  7. So this is how it ends.

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    1. The revelation that pmmb was storing ip addresses disinclined me from posting here. I suspect I'm not the only one.

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    2. Indeed, 3:11. I'll use a VPN to post here in the future, if I have anything controversial to say.

      Additionally, I will post regularly here again if, and only if, moderation policies at other blogs become again sufficiently censorious. Right now LR and DN seem chastened by the availability of open forums outside of their purview, and in fact are in competition to be hosting open threads of wide interest. They've even been letting my comments through from time to time. That's good. If they ever fail in that task, though, I imagine many old PMMB regulars will return here.

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    3. "The revelation that pmmb was storing ip addresses disinclined me from posting here. I suspect I'm not the only one."

      Same here. It's too bad, because (despite its excesses) the MMB played a valuable role. We need a place where people can anonymously discuss the sacred cows of the discipline. It's a shame that the proprietors here and at M3 felt the need to ruin that.

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  8. It ends this way in part because the topics and controversies that led people here have been mined out. Not that consensus has been reached, but rather that all relevant positions have been staked out and the conversation has gotten boring.

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