Merged Arday life and death

[theprestige]

It is amazing how many people think that the only way to hold someone accountable, is for a journalist to interview them.

It's one of several valid and pro-social ways to hold someone accountable. In many cases, such as institutional corruption, the free press functions as an accountability of last resort.

That's what was happening here. Cambridge wasn't holding him accountable - the opposite. Without a free press to notice the fraud, and the institutional failure behind it, there would have been no accountability for Arday, nor for Cambridge.

Arday didn't kill himself because the free press wouldn't let him choose his own path to accountability. He killed himself because the free press - unlike Cambridge - wouldn't let him choose not to be accountable.

 

[Rolfe]

Carole Cadwallader has lost her mind on this one.

 

[theprestige]

We cannot know if it was being caught out, the stress of the media interest or the social media pile on, or combination thereof, that caused him to take his own life.

This is what I'm talking about. You say you're not denying that he's responsible for causing his own death, but then you turn around and say the cause must have been something else.

So make up your mind. Who is responsible for causing Arday to take his own life?

• Arday is responsible for causing himself to take his own life.
• The person who caught Arday out is responsible.
• The people who showed media interest are responsible.
• The people in social media who piled on are responsible.

 

[theprestige]

Let's be clear: this is no alleged murderer, rapist or paedophile, just someone considered as kind and gentle by his colleagues.

Well he's an alleged murderer now.

 

[Elaedith]

An article by another academic about how Arday’s work actually had an apparently high impact factor which he says would have influenced his appointment more than dubious claims of posts.
He further suggests that the plagiarism may have been more apparent than real - ie of words rather than ideas. Via Carole Cadwalladr

It sure looks like Jason Arday was horrifically wronged (based on citation data)

The media’s profound ignorance of academia is a problem

jasonstanleyantifascist.substack.com

'And as far as I can tell from the media coverage, Arday has been targeted by this kind of novel AI “overlap of sentences” method and has not been accused of stealing of ideas and research programs (which are of course serious charges).'

The plagiarism in his thesis was not determined by AI, but by Turnitin. Stanley presents zero evidence that any of the other alleged plagiarism was based on AI, and the accusations lead to corrections being made in some of his published work.

 

[Vixen]

Nathan Cofnas under investigation.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2090370959567970551

Cofnas is a postdoctoral researcher not a 'Professor', as wrongly described by a broadcaster.

 

[theprestige]

He further suggests that the plagiarism may have been more apparent than real - ie of words rather than ideas.

I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around this one.

I thought copying someone's words verbatim was the essence of the sin of plargiarism. Parroting someone else's ideas is just being unoriginal and lame.

I also can't figure out how you'd be copying someone else's words without copying their ideas. Isn't that what their words are?

Too, if he's copying the words but not the ideas, doesn't that mean he's not even thinking about the subject? Isn't that even worse, especially for an academic?

 

[theprestige]

Nathan Cofnas under investigation.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2090370959567970551

Cofnas is a postdoctoral researcher not a 'Professor', as wrongly described by a broadcaster.

Cofnas is going to get a more thorough and intrusive investigation from Ghent than Arday ever got from Cambridge.

They should be very careful they don't hound him to death. Maybe he should have the police tell them he's emotionally fragile, or threaten a lawsuit if they don't cancel the investigation.

 

[Vixen]

What goes round comes round. Cofnas believes he'll now be fired...from Ghent uni where it's not a fixed tenure anyway.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2090416033072861245

 

[Vixen]

Cofnas is going to get a more thorough and intrusive investigation from Ghent than Arday ever got from Cambridge.

They should be very careful they don't hound him to death. Maybe he should have the police tell them he's emotionally fragile, or threaten a lawsuit if they don't cancel the investigation.

He's a nobody. He doesn't have far to fall for anyone to care.

His behaviour was tantamount to blackmail and harassment.

 

[Nessie]

This is what I'm talking about. You say you're not denying that he's responsible for causing his own death, but then you turn around and say the cause must have been something else.

...

I started off by suggesting a potential cause was the pile on. I then argued that when he asked not to be contacted, that is a right and it should have been respected by all, especially since he went to the police and a lawyers, right from the start.

So make up your mind. Who is responsible for causing Arday to take his own life?

• Arday is responsible for causing himself to take his own life.
• The person who caught Arday out is responsible.
• The people who showed media interest are responsible.
• The people in social media who piled on are responsible.

All of the above. To what extent each one counted, and did one of the above act as the final straw, we will never know.

 

[d4m10n]

it’s culture war bull crap.

The implication that any given issue doesn't matter just because it has become a battleground in the culture wars is b.s.

 

[dirtywick]

The implication that any given issue doesn't matter just because it has become a battleground in the culture wars is b.s.

not any given issue. this particular one. as explained by the source you provided

 

[d4m10n]

as explained by the source you provided

The source provided takes academic integrity and accountability fairly seriously.

 

[dirtywick]

yeah but you guys don’t, that’s the culture war bull crap part.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

This is what I'm talking about. You say you're not denying that he's responsible for causing his own death, but then you turn around and say the cause must have been something else.

So make up your mind. Who is responsible for causing Arday to take his own life?

• Arday is responsible for causing himself to take his own life.
• The person who caught Arday out is responsible.
• The people who showed media interest are responsible.
• The people in social media who piled on are responsible.

It's a tough call, but I'll vote E: the uni that set him up for utter abject failure if it served their virtue-signalling PR needs.

 

[d4m10n]

yeah but you guys don’t, that’s the culture war bull crap part.

Constantly in awe at how often self-identified skeptics mistake personal attacks for decisive arguments.

 

[Ziggurat]

He's a nobody. He doesn't have far to fall for anyone to care.

His behaviour was tantamount to blackmail and harassment.

How was it blackmail? Do you know what that word even means? Given your hangup about the definition of fraud (you were wrong about that, BTW), it's rather ironic that you get blackmail completely wrong.

As for harassment, did he ever contact Arday? I didn't hear that he did. My understanding is that he just exposed Arday's plagiarism. And it seems to me that if academia wants to make it a fireable offense to expose academic misbehavior, they're basically destroying the self-policing mechanism that society has been assuming that academia operates under. That's suicidal in the long run.

 

[theprestige]

I started off by suggesting a potential cause was the pile on. I then argued that when he asked not to be contacted, that is a right and it should have been respected by all, especially since he went to the police and a lawyers, right from the start.


All of the above. To what extent each one counted, and did one of the above act as the final straw, we will never know.

I was just thinking, another page of this nonsense and I'm going into 'yea and' mode.

So here we are.

The media hounded Arday to his death, you say?

Okay, sure. Good for them. He had it coming. My only regret is that they didn't catch any of the other goblins of Oxbridge in the blast radius.

 

[Wudang]

I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around this one.

I thought copying someone's words verbatim was the essence of the sin of plargiarism. Parroting someone else's ideas is just being unoriginal and lame.

I also can't figure out how you'd be copying someone else's words without copying their ideas. Isn't that what their words are?

Too, if he's copying the words but not the ideas, doesn't that mean he's not even thinking about the subject? Isn't that even worse, especially for an academic?

I’m a computer programmer. I constantly copy other people’s writing/code but the ideas or problems addressed are mine.
Similar ideas have been expressed in music where certain chord sequences reoccur but the time is new.