The Ivory Tower

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2:34 AM

@ff524 tagging a question social-science because it is about MLA seems odd to me. I think MLA is much more likely used in the humanities and arts.

ff524

@StrongBad It wasn't because of MLA, it was because the OP was writing about poverty and crime, which sounds like social science to me. I assumed there could be a field-specific aspect to it, too.

But I wouldn't object to anyone removing the subject-specific tag. I wasn't really sure about it.

StrongBad

2:58 AM

@ff524 that makes sense. That part has been edited out now. Tag probably should have gone with the edit.

Meta Academia

3:35 AM

Q: Is dogpiling flaggable?

This question is motivated by an interesting answer to another Academia Meta question. My question is, if I see "dogpiling" going on, i.e. more and more people are jumping on a bandwagon, ganging up on a user, may I flag the answer? If so, for what reason? Perhaps I could flag it as "not an an...

10 hours later…

scaaahu

1:44 PM

To everyone who has read the "sexually assault" question. I strongly suspect the question is a troll. I have reviewed more than 3000 first posts on this site, I never saw a foreign student who can write English this good.

Wrzlprmft

@scaaahu I beg to disagree. For most users we do not even get to know the native language. Also, I know some Indians (to take a country to which the described attitude to rape undisputedly applies) who just started their PhD and speak and write excellent English.

Even if this were not the case, this would be at best a weak indicator.

After carefully reading it, I fail to spot any incoherence that is typical for troll posts.

Of course, it is impossible to fully rule out a fabricated story, but then we never can.

scaaahu

2:12 PM

@Wrzlprmft No, I don't have solid evidence. Indians use some words other people don't use. It doesn't sound like from Indian. So far, I don't know. Just want to see other's opinions. I already have one now.

2 hours later…

StrongBad

4:05 PM

@scaaahu as a mod I have a little more information available about the user and see no evidence of trolling.

@scaaahu On a related note my wife had a meeting at a conference last week with a full professor to ask him to write her a letter for an associate professor position. Following the discussion and outlining what he would write in his letter, he promptly invited her up to his hotel room to split a bottle of wine. These things happen in the US also.

Aaron Hall

4:45 PM

@StrongBad So what did she do?

StrongBad

5:30 PM

@AaronHall She declined the wine :). Things like this are so common in her field that if she declined letters from everyone who hit on her, she wouldn't have any letters. While the move was in bad taste, since they do not work in the same place, there is not much to be done.

Aaron Hall

Everyone?

What field?

That just seems so bizarre to me. Why risk ruining your reputation and career by hitting on someone you intend to interact with professionally?

StrongBad

@AaronHall Art History. More or less everyone except the homosexual men and straight women.

Aaron Hall

I'm incredibly naive.

StrongBad

@AaronHall My old department had 30 faculty, 3 couples (6 people) within the faculty and another 3 married to people in the field at other universities. That is like 30%

People don't hook up and/or have affairs at conferences in your field?

Aaron Hall

Not to my knowledge, but I guess I leak enough of my values that I don't attract that sort of attention.

StrongBad

5:36 PM

For male dominated fields think about what percentage of women have dated someone in your field.

Aaron Hall

That or I'm actually quite unattractive.

I only do tech conferences. I'm aware of a business prof who married his student, but that was long after she was his student.

StrongBad

@AaronHall now think about the handful of women at those conferences. Any of them date people in the field?

Aaron Hall

I really just don't know.

StrongBad

@AaronHall opps, I forgot about the 2 faculty members in my old department who dated students.

Wrzlprmft

What seems somewhat bizarre to me is that splitting a bottle of wine in the hotel room is automatically a sexual thing (of course, with the given subtext, it may clearly be), but then I never understood mating rituals, let alone US ones.

Aaron Hall

5:41 PM

I never ask or talk about it, names escape me. I guess I'm socially incompetent.

In some contexts.

I'm described as a very socially apt tech guy here at work, though.

StrongBad

@Wrzlprmft when you are sitting in a hotel bar it is pretty clearly an invitation to "mating".

Aaron Hall

After I got married, I wouldn't have done it, but before, I would probably have accepted the invitation with the expectation of keeping my pants on and my body to myself.

But again, I'm somewhat naive, maybe.

StrongBad

6:04 PM

I am trying to complete some paperwork that needs to be done on my official work computer. That means using Windows and Word. What a way to wreck a day.

Aaron Hall

No libreoffice?

StrongBad

@AaronHall Work computer is on an isolated intranet. I am not allowed to, and probably cannot, remove the documents off the local network. I cannot install any software on my work machine. We only recently got access to Firefox.

Meta Academia

6:31 PM

Q: Is a question of form "What are some good universities to do a PhD in topic X?" legitimate to be asked in the site?

Sometimes, one ask what are some of the good institutes in some particular speciality that have a good staff in a particular branch of science. Is this site a good place to ask such questions? If not, where is the appropriate place and how can one get some information about this?

discussion

Meta Academia

6:42 PM

Q: What to do about posts that don't answer the rewritten question?

A controversial question was substantially rewritten, but not before a number of answers were posted and discussed at great length. Is it appropriate now to flag the existing answers that don't answer the question in its rewritten form (i.e. flag as "not an answer")? If not, what should, or cou...

support answers flagging

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