We're being watched

[Corneconomics]

Did anyone see this post at Crooked Timber? On one hand, the student may be unpleasant, and it might be a good idea to avoid them. On the other hand, many of us use these forums to vent or (as often in my case) to make things up. I almost think it would be nice if the admin officer PM'd or contacted the person they were looking at and had a discussion with them about the post. Of course what happens here is not private in some sense, but it is ours, and it is only useful if we feel comfortable saying stupid things (which we do).

Anyway, do read that link, I don't find it scary, but if I were worried about that being me, I don't know what I'd do or how I'd feel.

[Corneconomics]

The applications committee was asking if it was ethical to take into account negative statements about the school made by the applicant (anonymously - sort of) on online forums...

Ouch, I guess it was a moot point in the case discussed in the post. From the comments:

I can reveal that, in the end, the issue was hypothetical (if that makes sense) because in the end the committee did not get as far down the list as this applicant would have been indpenendently of the information.

[dafrk3in]

any guess on who they're talking about?

[asquare]

An interesting post. The concept has been discussed here before (do adcoms or admission officers visit this forum?).

I think the bottom line is that no one should say things here that you wouldn't say to your classmates (who are your future collegues!) That covers both bad manners and bad information.

To the OP -- what do you mean by "make things up?"

[butler blue]

Hmmmm...I have my doubts as to whether this is literally about someone here in the TM econ forum. It says...

"One applicant to said department behaves on the website (under the supposed cloak of anonymity) like… well, very badly, saying malicious things about departments he has visited, raising doubts about whether he is honest and the kind of person it would be reasonable to want other students to deal with, and generally revealing himself to be utterly unpleasant."

As far as I know, the only mention on here of people visiting a department were those who visitted UC-Davis's AgEcon program. If I recall correctly, they had only good things to say about the substance of the program (maybe some bad things about being crammed into an apartment...fuzzy memories). Add in that only a couple departments seem to have made their final decisions (while the department in the post appears to be finished), I'm skeptical that this is talking about one of us.

That said, I fully expect that at least some members of adcoms peruse the forums. I doubt that this is widespread, but we can all think of at least one major counterexample to the "nobody's watching" mentality...

[dafrk3in]

Originally Posted by butler blue

That said, I fully expect that at least some members of adcoms peruse the forums. I doubt that this is widespread, but we can all think of at least one major counterexample to the "nobody's watching" mentality...

You can find the obvious one on page 74 of "Counterexample in Topology"