Civility and the Pareto distribution

[mahagonny]

downer, I agree with your assessment.

So should there be a "poster rating" system here for relevance and insight? Then in principle one could choose to filter our people who are low in one or both.

The "ignore" feature approximates that already, with the added benefit that members can set the "Are this person's posts worth reading?" threshold for themselves.  This precludes the likely accusations of mob rule, unfair targeting for unpopular ideas, etc. that would arise if a system like you suggest were implemented.

But even the posters who frequently make the kinds of (off-topic, repetitive, and/or boorish) posts that irk me do offer interesting perspectives and valuable insights at times, so I am hesitant to ignore/filter them altogether.

Well, you chose to be educated.

Namazu, your sense of entitlement is showing. You want other people to change what they do so you can have the fora experience you want. There are many peer reviewed publications you could be reading that might be more to your liking. But it will cost you.

[polly_mer]

One thing I notice about this incarnation of the fora is we don't have lots of threads regarding the nuts and bolts of how to teach better, how to acquire sources/materials, or anything else that is primarily mentoring on the teaching side.  Jedi Mind Tricks and Humane Course Policies are pretty low traffic.

We don't have a lot of threads on the nuts and bolts of research that is primarily mentoring on the research side.

We don't have a lot of threads that are pros and cons of specific committee and service work that is primarily mentoring on the service side.

Instead, there're a lot of threads on the general state of higher ed; jobs, jobs, and more jobs along with how the job search ought to be; and a couple specific posters who start new threads regularly regarding how unhappy they are with the quality of their students in a slightly different scenario.

Namazu, your sense of entitlement is showing. You want other people to change what they do so you can have the fora experience you want. There are many peer reviewed publications you could be reading that might be more to your liking. But it will cost you.

But many of the topics here are different from the peer-reviewed publications.  Yes, one can get the kind of research I frequently post in peer-reviewed publications, but one can't get the discussion that then follows.  There is no option to focus primarily on the specific teaching/research/service questions that individuals have. 

One reason I mentioned upfront how these fora are different from the old fora in terms of topics is focusing on teaching/research/service without encountering the job/bigger picture discussions used to be quite possible.  I remember Namazu from those days and also remember that she was less active for years right up until we started transitioning and she posted a lot regarding transition.

However, the problem that Namazu states in wanting to be somewhat shielded from certain recurring topics is almost exactly why I keep bringing those topics up in various venues.

One way to counteract the oversized influence of the Professor Sparkleponies of the world is to ensure that people reading along also get the relevant realities on the discussions of proposed academic career paths, administration as a necessary evil, athletics as more than just competition for resources with academics, and changes in student demographics that are more than anecdotes that directly affect academic jobs.

Yes, that is repetitive to those who read along and also read the relevant higher ed mass market literature that says similar things on those topics.  That's what I mean by saying specific messages "should be deafening in certain circles" because I can't see how people of good conscience who know the realities aren't putting a solid dollop of "dude, just don't".

Thus, coupling people who are still asking the very naive questions with the regularly recurring first-person pieces in "all" the mass media outlets that aspiring academics should be reading indicates that Professor Sparklepony is winning and we need still more people who will point out the realities when the question itself is so closely coupled to one of the bigger issues.

Sure, it's repetitive to those who pay attention.  Yep, I'm tired of reading it even as I write it.  And yet, people who leave academia tend to not remain in more general academic discussions and thus all the discussions will ignore those perspectives because they aren't here to contribute.  I'm loud because I'm representing that important missing viewpoint to hammer home the survivorship bias that will necessarily be part of many of these discussions.

[ciao_yall]

Bits may be unrestricted, but people's attention certainly is not.  I could certainly put the frequent offenders on "ignore", which would filter out their comments and leave the rest, but since they do also have worthwhile things to say, I am loath to do that.

Trust me, it's worth it. When 90% of someone's posts are the same garbage, the remaining 10%, if at all intelligent, is echoed somewhere else.

You can see the poster commented with the post hidden. Click on the post if you feel like showing it. Otherwise, skip over. 

[Caracal]

One way to counteract the oversized influence of the Professor Sparkleponies of the world is to ensure that people reading along also get the relevant realities on the discussions of proposed academic career paths, administration as a necessary evil, athletics as more than just competition for resources with academics, and changes in student demographics that are more than anecdotes that directly affect academic jobs.

Yes, that is repetitive to those who read along and also read the relevant higher ed mass market literature that says similar things on those topics.  That's what I mean by saying specific messages "should be deafening in certain circles" because I can't see how people of good conscience who know the realities aren't putting a solid dollop of "dude, just don't".

Thus, coupling people who are still asking the very naive questions with the regularly recurring first-person pieces in "all" the mass media outlets that aspiring academics should be reading indicates that Professor Sparklepony is winning and we need still more people who will point out the realities when the question itself is so closely coupled to one of the bigger issues.

Ok, but this illustrates part of the problem. "Dude, just don't" isn't actually helpful advice and it doesn't generate interesting conversations. I have no doubt that you and others who repeat the "don't go to grad school" genuinely mean well. For all kinds of perfectly legitimate reasons, you believe that deciding to enter academia in many fields is a bad choice so you think that you have a responsibility to keep yelling loudly at people who are considering it. The problem is, that it isn't effective. When people come seeking advice they are looking for information and perspective to help them make decisions. They aren't looking to be told there is only one reasonable choice and that if they don't make it, they are a fool. Most of us tend to discount advice like that.

Look, if some random person came up to me in the street and said "hey, I did really well in college and am very interested in [random humanities field], decide for me whether I should go to grad school, whatever you choose I'll do" I'd choose no. My reasoning would basically be the same as yours. It takes forever to get a degree, you'll think you can do it in five years, but almost nobody does. A lot of people are miserable in grad school and then when you finish the job market is brutal. Even if you do get a tenure track job, lots of those jobs may not be what you imagine etc etc etc.

But I don't get to make those decisions, so I think the thing I can do is try to make sure that whatever decision someone makes, they know what they are doing. A lot of that involves making suggestions about things people should think about and information they need to gather for themselves. All of that can lead to some useful advice for the person asking the questions and some interesting discussions. But, what ends up happening is you take anything that isn't just yelling "NO!" at people as irresponsible rhetoric. People who suggest more nuanced ways of thinking about things are evildoers. They need demeaning names and you have to show everyone that they are bad people who shouldn't be taken seriously. The threads tend to go off the rails from there...

[Caracal]

Bits may be unrestricted, but people's attention certainly is not.  I could certainly put the frequent offenders on "ignore", which would filter out their comments and leave the rest, but since they do also have worthwhile things to say, I am loath to do that.

Trust me, it's worth it. When 90% of someone's posts are the same garbage, the remaining 10%, if at all intelligent, is echoed somewhere else.

You can see the poster commented with the post hidden. Click on the post if you feel like showing it. Otherwise, skip over.

Possibly I should just start doing that rather than arguing with angry brick walls.

[marshwiggle]

One thing I notice about this incarnation of the fora is we don't have lots of threads regarding the nuts and bolts of how to teach better, how to acquire sources/materials, or anything else that is primarily mentoring on the teaching side.  Jedi Mind Tricks and Humane Course Policies are pretty low traffic.

We don't have a lot of threads on the nuts and bolts of research that is primarily mentoring on the research side.

We don't have a lot of threads that are pros and cons of specific committee and service work that is primarily mentoring on the service side.

Instead, there're a lot of threads on the general state of higher ed; jobs, jobs, and more jobs along with how the job search ought to be; and a couple specific posters who start new threads regularly regarding how unhappy they are with the quality of their students in a slightly different scenario.

One of the things I thought when I started this thread was that it would be good to see a "Pareto synopsis" of the threads on here. I'm not sure there's as easy a way to do that as looking at member posting.

I've noted the same points above; if you take out the threads with lots of heated discussion, you'll have a tiny fraction of the postings. It may be very "civil", but you won't need to check it more than every few weeks because nothing will have changed.

[mahagonny]

Bits may be unrestricted, but people's attention certainly is not.  I could certainly put the frequent offenders on "ignore", which would filter out their comments and leave the rest, but since they do also have worthwhile things to say, I am loath to do that.

Trust me, it's worth it. When 90% of someone's posts are the same garbage, the remaining 10%, if at all intelligent, is echoed somewhere else.

Or what we call, in faculty meetings, getting to take credit for woman's observation by repeating it because you're a man.

I've seen this. Something that I will post will be alluded to, acknowledged in a post the follows, without identifying the source. That way the discussion advances and the right people are seen as the most valuable.