Anonymous economics online rumor board posters get their locations identified

[Dismal]

So far only the general locations are being discussed in a new paper to be presented today at a major economics conference. The rumors site doesn't keep the IP addresses, but does use them to create 4 digit user code names and that process was used by the researchers to work backward to find the IPs.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/diversity-equity/2023/07/20/study-says-it-found-ip-addresses-anonymous-ejmr

[Sun_Worshiper]

This site and the others like it (e.g. political science rumors) are full of racist and sexist posts as well as personal attacks against individuals, but they have also had a hand in exposing plagiarism and fraud in their fields. So, while it is a mixed bag, there is some value in having these anonymous sites and studies like this, which are stretching the boundaries of ethics by identifying users IP addresses, will probably have a chilling effect on the good as well as the bad.

[Parasaurolophus]

This site and the others like it (e.g. political science rumors) are full of racist and sexist posts as well as personal attacks against individuals, but they have also had a hand in exposing plagiarism and fraud in their fields. So, while it is a mixed bag, there is some value in having these anonymous sites and studies like this, which are stretching the boundaries of ethics by identifying users IP addresses, will probably have a chilling effect on the good as well as the bad.

PSR is one of the worst cesspools I know, although at this point there's so much spam that it's markedly better!

[Sun_Worshiper]

This site and the others like it (e.g. political science rumors) are full of racist and sexist posts as well as personal attacks against individuals, but they have also had a hand in exposing plagiarism and fraud in their fields. So, while it is a mixed bag, there is some value in having these anonymous sites and studies like this, which are stretching the boundaries of ethics by identifying users IP addresses, will probably have a chilling effect on the good as well as the bad.

PSR is one of the worst cesspools I know, although at this point there's so much spam that it's markedly better!

True. Although it also had a hand in exposing the Lacour scandal.

[Wahoo Redux]

I was reading https://www.econjobrumors.com/ earlier, and it is not really much different from any unmoderated public board except that the posters are a bit more articulate.  It is kind of hilarious.

[Parasaurolophus]

True. Although it also had a hand in exposing the Lacour scandal.

Yeah... I've gleaned a decent bit about the field of polisci from PSR over the years, but I'm not sure it was worth the scuzz I had to wade through.

We had our own version in philosophy for a while--first The Philosophy Smoker, a very lightly moderated blog. It was a useful fount of information, and generally not too horrible (though not a super friendly part of the internet). It was succeeded by the metablog, meta-metablog, etc. Those were godawful cesspools as bad as or worse than PSR. My completely unscientific sense was that these last were populated primarily by graduate students and upper-level undergrads at fancy programs, and dominated by two or three posters with a monomaniacal negative focus on women and Black people. They devolved into racial IQ stuff for a while, then died.

[dismalist]

Actually fascinating.

Here is the package of slides for their paper

EJMR

Certainly worth skimming. The last slide contains good news and bad news:

--Good news: The share of toxic posts is only about 10%.

--Bad news: The site does actually moderate. The 10% toxicity are those posts that have successfully evaded moderation, e.g. by not getting reported.

My guess is that this is pretty much how humans behave on average.

[Parasaurolophus]

Actually fascinating.

Here is the package of slides for their paper

EJMR

Certainly worth skimming.

Thanks for posting that, it was indeed an interesting skim.

The last slide contains good news and bad news:

--Good news: The share of toxic posts is only about 10%.

--Bad news: The site does actually moderate. The 10% toxicity are those posts that have successfully evaded moderation, e.g. by not getting reported.

My guess is that this is pretty much how humans behave on average.

The bad news corollary is that although 10% is not a huge proportion of posts, it's clearly enough for peoples' perception of the place to be predominantly negative. It's a good reminder that it doesn't take many rotten apples to spoil the bunch.

[Wahoo Redux]

I was a little fritzed and a little bit amused after reading the "who writes these things" slides with their incredibly juvenile racism----and thinking, "Well, some jackasses thought it would be fun to sign-in to an academic blog and post some really offensive stuff"----to find on the next slide that the posts had been written by people with IP addresses at "Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Chicago" and at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. 

I can actually hear the gasps of the audience.

I'm sure that once Fox News and friends get ahold of this they will have a field-day.

[marshwiggle]

I was a little fritzed and a little bit amused after reading the "who writes these things" slides with their incredibly juvenile racism----and thinking, "Well, some jackasses thought it would be fun to sign-in to an academic blog and post some really offensive stuff"----to find on the next slide that the posts had been written by people with IP addresses at "Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Chicago" and at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. 

I can actually hear the gasps of the audience.

I'm sure that once Fox News and friends get ahold of this they will have a field-day.

This is only "surprising" in the same way as Jeffrey Epstein's client list. In historical terms, privileged people behaving badly is about as unusual as the sun rising in the East.

[Wahoo Redux]

I was a little fritzed and a little bit amused after reading the "who writes these things" slides with their incredibly juvenile racism----and thinking, "Well, some jackasses thought it would be fun to sign-in to an academic blog and post some really offensive stuff"----to find on the next slide that the posts had been written by people with IP addresses at "Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Chicago" and at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. 

I can actually hear the gasps of the audience.

I'm sure that once Fox News and friends get ahold of this they will have a field-day.

This is only "surprising" in the same way as Jeffrey Epstein's client list. In historical terms, privileged people behaving badly is about as unusual as the sun rising in the East.

I guess so.  You are, of course, right.  I just usually associate academics with the sorts of conversations we have here, often fraught but always articulate and basically humane.  Yeah, regardless, I am surprised at some of the vitriolic, unabashedly racist and chauvinist commentary----perhaps my perception of the elite schools is too sunny, but these should be some of the best and brightest people.  One wouldn't think so reading what they wrote.

[apl68]

A college education can do many things for people, but I've not seen a whole lot of evidence over the years that it actually makes them into better people.  People are people, regardless of education level.

[marshwiggle]

A college education can do many things for people, but I've not seen a whole lot of evidence over the years that it actually makes them into better people.  People are people, regardless of education level.

Typically it just makes them able to be bad in less "coarse" ways. They'll do cocaine instead of moonshine, and hire child prostitutes in other countries rather than in some seedy area at home.

And, of course, their wealth and power means that they can get away with a lot more than the uneducated.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I was a little fritzed and a little bit amused after reading the "who writes these things" slides with their incredibly juvenile racism----and thinking, "Well, some jackasses thought it would be fun to sign-in to an academic blog and post some really offensive stuff"----to find on the next slide that the posts had been written by people with IP addresses at "Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Chicago" and at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. 

I can actually hear the gasps of the audience.

I'm sure that once Fox News and friends get ahold of this they will have a field-day.

Econ is pretty notorious for this kind of thing, but yes it is rather jarring.

[Wahoo Redux]

Econ is pretty notorious for this kind of thing, but yes it is rather jarring.

Huh.  Why does it attract these sorts?  I can't think of a more intellectually challenging or esoteric subject than economics except maybe particle physics or 20th century philosophy or something like that.