Live data from Hacker News

No Comments

alxdavids.xyz

11–20 of 24 posts

Re: No Comments

#11

I don't work in academia, but at my current workplace, we've removed the "Neutral" rating in our interview feedback system. You're required to pick a side, and you need to back up your position. If you really can't form a recommendation, the candidate has to do another interview (I haven't personally seen this happen). That said, we also are able to set a maximum # of interviews per week that we will accept, and our…

> It's one of the worst feelings for me when I give a talk or present a paper, get to the Q&A portion, and I'm met with crickets.

If you know anyone in the crowd, it's a good idea to 'seed' the crowd with prepared questions or ask friends to kick off the q&a portion with a question of their own. We do this when we have guest speakers and it greatly improves the moral of the speakers and everyone goes home happier.

Re: No Comments

#12
post #5

The author's expanded definition of "weak accept" is perfect. I'm in a different area of CS. I've had reviews where the reviewer clearly skimmed over the math details. Still, the totally blank reviews in this article would not be accepted by program chairs in my area. They would find a new reviewer or ask the original reviewer to try again.

Peer reviewing is considered duty to the academy but isn't tracked, publicized, or taken into account in e.g. lateral transfers, summer grants, or other things professors might want, right? Is it harder to get a paper published in a given journal if you've blown off requests from them to peer review or done a crap job?

Suppose postdoc X submits a terrible review to a conference. Conference committee member Y requested the review from X, and thus learns that X is a bad reviewer. Later on, Y's colleague Z is considering hiring X for a faculty position and asks Y about X. Y tells the story about the terrible review. X doesn't get the job.

Re: No Comments

#13

I don't work in academia, but at my current workplace, we've removed the "Neutral" rating in our interview feedback system. You're required to pick a side, and you need to back up your position. If you really can't form a recommendation, the candidate has to do another interview (I haven't personally seen this happen). That said, we also are able to set a maximum # of interviews per week that we will accept, and our…

> That said, we also are able to set a maximum # of interviews per week that we will accept, and our time is respected. Perhaps the same cannot be said for peer review in academia.

It absolutely isn't. Until you get tenure, you have to remove the word "no" from your vocabulary.

Of course, lots of public academics will say exactly the opposite, that you have to carefully and strategically choose what you say yes to, and give only one or two efforts your all. The hypocrisy! No one in modern academia can afford to do this! Look at the track record of the people that give you this advice - they all spread themselves paper-thin across eight or ten institutional collaborations, doing exactly just enough to get their name on something and then moving on.

That's the game, because that's what you get rewarded for, because that's what the system measures. Don't hate the player.

Re: No Comments

#14
post #7

This is great: "This is no ordinary adversary that you would expect to face in an academic review. This person sits in the chaotic neutral section of the d&d morality compass."

Though it's expecting the audience to know what that means. I would expect that a greater number of them would understand it than in the general population but I would think there'd be plenty who don't.

FWIW, I'm quite aware of what d&d is but I don't know what "chaotic neutral" means.

Re: No Comments

#16
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peer reviewing is considered duty to the academy but isn't tracked, publicized, or taken into account in e.g. lateral transfers, summer grants, or other things professors might want, right? Is it harder to get a paper published in a given journal if you've blown off requests from them to peer review or done a crap job?

Suppose postdoc X submits a terrible review to a conference. Conference committee member Y requested the review from X, and thus learns that X is a bad reviewer. Later on, Y's colleague Z is considering hiring X for a faculty position and asks Y about X. Y tells the story about the terrible review. X doesn't get the job.

In my experience, reviews are typically anonymous.

Re: No Comments

#17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose postdoc X submits a terrible review to a conference. Conference committee member Y requested the review from X, and thus learns that X is a bad reviewer. Later on, Y's colleague Z is considering hiring X for a faculty position and asks Y about X. Y tells the story about the terrible review. X doesn't get the job.

In my experience, reviews are typically anonymous.

In my experience with CS conferences, reviewers are rarely anonymous to anyone involved except the authors.

Re: No Comments

#18
post #7

This is great: "This is no ordinary adversary that you would expect to face in an academic review. This person sits in the chaotic neutral section of the d&d morality compass."

Though it's expecting the audience to know what that means. I would expect that a greater number of them would understand it than in the general population but I would think there'd be plenty who don't. FWIW, I'm quite aware of what d&d is but I don't know what "chaotic neutral" means.

I didn't know it either, so ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(Dungeons_%26_Dragon...

A chaotic neutral character is an individualist who follows their own heart and generally shirks rules and traditions. Although chaotic neutral characters promote the ideals of freedom, it is their own freedom that comes first; good and evil come second to their need to be free.

Re: No Comments

#19
post #7

This is great: "This is no ordinary adversary that you would expect to face in an academic review. This person sits in the chaotic neutral section of the d&d morality compass."

Though it's expecting the audience to know what that means. I would expect that a greater number of them would understand it than in the general population but I would think there'd be plenty who don't. FWIW, I'm quite aware of what d&d is but I don't know what "chaotic neutral" means.

Its the morality (alignment) system of dnd; lawful nuetral and chaotic on the x, good nuetral and evil on the y.

The y represents what you trend towards (good v evil decisions) and the y represents the degree by which you do so.

So chaotic nuetral implies that you're generally nuetral, but its unpredictable when you'll make a good or evil decision (ie the reviewer somewhat arbitrarily lets you go on a non-critical mistake)

Re: No Comments

#20
post #7

This is great: "This is no ordinary adversary that you would expect to face in an academic review. This person sits in the chaotic neutral section of the d&d morality compass."

[deleted]
Post reply on HN