
Echo Chamber Incites Online Mob to Attack Math Profs - luu
https://andrewgelman.com/2018/09/14/echo-chamber-incites-online-mob-to-attack-math-profs/
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nkurz
It's an interesting episode. I just left a comment there on the article, but
it hasn't made it through the spam filter yet. Or perhaps he's turned off
comments already? I'll repost here so it's not lost completely.

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Andrew --

1) Your sentiment that "It should be possible to have a legitimate difference
of opinion regarding the value of that paper, without making someone into the
bad guy" is wonderful, and mostly lacking elsewhere. Thanks for this. Your
response to D Kane that the "attacks don’t retroactively justify all of
Cuddy’s earlier actions, but they do cast new light to me on the consequences
of my own actions" is equally enheartening.

2) A refrain in your comments is that "Wilkinson suggested the journal publish
a rebuttal, the journal editor instead decided to remove the paper." From what
I can tell, the evidence that she made no suggestion of removal is almost
exclusively Wilkinson's self-description. Even if this is the email that
Wilkinson intended to write, perhaps the wording didn't make it clear that she
was not suggesting removal? Is it fair to wonder why Wilkinson has not offered
that email if it's as exonerating as she describes?

3) Did you happen to notice that you are explicitly mentioned in the newly
released email from Lee Wilkinson as a suggested author of a rebuttal to
accompany the article: "And if you do decide to go with the article plus
commentaries, I would suggest that you consult with people like Donald Rubin
at Harvard or John Hartigan at Yale (emeritus) or Steven Sigler at Chicago or
Andrew Gelman at Columbia, all of whom have far more experience with the
statistical and mathematical issues underlying this hypothesis than Hill and
Tabachnik[ov]."

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hyperpape
Can you clarify point #2? Removing an accepted paper from a journal is a very
serious and relatively uncommon step. I don't know why you'd think Wilkinson
suggested it, unless someone had read the email and said "it sounds like she's
recommending the paper be pulled." Based on my reading, no one who has seen
the email has described it as such.

~~~
nkurz
To start, I don't know what the email said, nor do I have any certainty that
it said something like "pull the paper". But equally, I don't have any
certainty that it did not. I'm suggesting that without the email it is
impossible to be sure either way. Given this unprovability, and given that
Gelman is a brilliant statistician, I'm surprised that he's willing to make
this a foundation of his argument --- unless he's talked personally with
Wilkinson, or unless he's actually read the email.

1) The outcome. It's uncommon to remove a paper, but it happened. Senechal,
explaining her decision to rescind, says "I have received concerned messages
from several colleagues, warning of extremely strong reactions to the accepted
version of your paper.... Their concerns include the very real possibility
that right-wing media may pick this up and hype it internationally. There
could be a massive fallout that may harm the magazine, the publisher, the
editor(s) and, of course, the authors." Since we know that Wilkinson was one
of the colleagues that wrote her, this makes me think that Senechal considered
her a vote on the side of "do not publish".

2) In Wilkinson's Facebook messages, she says: "When I found out (a few weeks
ago), I wrote to the editor-in-chief (Marjorie Senechal) complaining, as many
others did, apparently. She ended up rescinding the acceptance (good, although
why did she accept in the first place) and revealing my identity to the
authors without my consent (bad). I received an obnoxious email from one of
the authors, which is how I found out. No apology from the editor. Shabby."
She is clearly happy that the acceptance was rescinded, and implies that this
resolves her complaint (good). She does not mention that Senechal went above
and beyond her suggestion of publishing with rebuttal.

3) Leland Wilkinson, in his email to Senechal (which he graciously allowed to
be forwarded to Hill) says "I'm afraid I have to agree with Amie that a
mathematical journal could risk harming its reputation by publishing an
article like this." By contrast, when he says "if you do decide to go with
this article plus commentaries", he does not attribute this to his daughter. I
think this makes it likely that Amie Wilkinson's preference is that the
article not be published at all, and that publishing with rebuttal would have
been her second choice.

4) The lack of a clearly exonerating email. Wilkinson made a public response,
but consciously chose not to release the actual contents of her email. If the
email made her look good, I think should would have produced it by now. I
don't mean this as a personal attack on her integrity, just an observation
about common human behavior. I thought most of the people in the released
email chains came off looking quite professional. The conspicuous absence of
this email makes me want to see how it compares, and see whether it matches
Wilkinson's self-description.

 _Based on my reading, no one who has seen the email has described it as
such._

Other than Wilkinson and Senechal, does any one else claim to have seen this
email? The only description I have seen from Senechal is that the emails (as a
group) "concerned not the substance of your article but the very real
possibility of extremely damaging fallout", without any specific commentary on
Wilkinson's email. I think everyone else is relying on Wilkinson's summary of
what it said, rather than the email itself.

If I can turn the question around, what makes you confident (if indeed you
are) that Senechal could not have interpreted Wilkinson's email as a request
that the paper should not be published?

edit: I should probably add that I have no particular problem with Wilkinson
(or others) lobbying an editor to rescind acceptance of a paper that they feel
is harmful. In this case, I think it's better to publish and discuss, but
people should act their conscience. But I would be bothered if Wilkinson was
shown to be privately lobbying against publication while publicly claiming to
have advocated only for publishing with rebuttal.

~~~
hyperpape
The other three points don't strike me as significant evidence (1 cites
"several colleagues" any of whom could have been the one, 3 strikes me as
indeterminate between someone being vague about attribution and your reading,
4 seems like guilty until proven innocent), but 2 is interesting. There is
some gap between approving of the paper being pulled, and advocating it, but
the comment makes the story more plausible.

I am inclined to believe that Wilkinson is either making a bald-faced lie or
telling the truth. I don't have grounds to accuse her of a direct lie, so I
lean towards telling the truth. Because revoking acceptance is serious, I do
not think it makes sense to suggest it was just a misunderstanding.

Analogy: I'm invited to a party, and the host discusses inviting someone I'm
not on great terms with. I'm noncommittal. They might guess that they should
not invite that person to make me happy, because that's a relatively small
step. However, it's unlikely they'll invite that person and then assault them
on my behalf, because that would be an extreme measure--merely being
noncommittal wouldn't suggest that.

I think revoking acceptance is less severe than assaulting someone, but much
much more severe than failing to invite them to a party. I believe a journal
editor would only revoke an acceptance either 1) in the face of direct
requests that they do so, or 2) as their own decision based on what they
thought was necessary.

------
bachbach
This is meta but...

The author was wondering why _this_ specific instance kicked something off
because it isn't obvious why it would when better tinder exists out there.
It's a good question.

Scott Alexander has a brilliant explanation of why this occurs, part III rings
true to me.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-
rage/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/)

