<p>Personally, I felt the Biology-Online editor’s remark is completely uncalled for and Biology-Online, and its partner Scientific-American all handled the matter in a horrid manner. IMO, the editor acted in an atrociously unprofessional manner and should be terminated so the online sites clearly communicate they don’t condone his behavior. Unfortunately, their actions so far actually seem to communicate they’re not only condoning the editor’s horrid behavior, but attempting to suppress criticism/discussion of this horrid incident.</p>
<p>I think the Sci Am editor’s fuller explanation is completely reasonable, and I am tired of these episodes of outrage being whipped up over very little on social media when people don’t suspend judgement for long enough to gather some facts. </p>
<p>To be clear, I think that the original insult was beyond the pale, and worthy of contempt. I am talking about reserving judgement of the Sci Am editor. I don’t think she has ANYTHING to be ashamed of. And according to her longer statement, Biology-Online is NOT a partner organization of Sci Am. Follow the link and read the response, for heaven’s sake.</p>
<p>Biology-Online is listed quite clearly as one of their partners. </p>
<p>Considering all that, that Scientific-American editor either has a definition of partner which directly contracts what’s on her organization’s website…or it’s a poor attempt at dissembling her organization’s actual links with Biology-Online.</p>
<p>I located the Scientific American editor’s response, and found it to be full of excuses. It does not take much longer to delete a blog post than it does to simultaneously send a short, two or three sentence email message to the blogger why it was taken down. Saying it was a “holiday weekend” is really just excuse making. An honest apology without excuses goes so much further.</p>
<p>She said they aren’t a “content partner.” In any case, she isn’t responsible for the rudeness of someone at another organization, even if they do have some kind of relationship to her organization. She simply hasn’t done anything worth outrage. She took down a post alleging unprofessional behavior by someone because they couldn’t verify it, and didn’t want to find themselves embroiled in a lawsuit. She didn’t say the post was inaccurate, or the author was a liar, or anything else. It doesn’t seem at all unreasonable to me that Sci Am would rather not have its blogs taken over by a flame war around the use of the word “whore.” The person who was insulted chose to post the content of a PERSONAL email. I don’t blame her for being outraged, but that is always an iffy thing. She probably should have done it on Facebook or Twitter, not in a Sci Am blog, especially since the offender was not a Sci Am employee.</p>
<p>I am heartily sick of manufactured “outrages” followed by ritual abasements. Let the jerk at Bio-Online apologize. That’s the person who did something outrageous.</p>
<p>The linchpin here is that Scientific American has some sort of lawyer-mandated procedure for removing potentially defamatory material, since at least in theory they could be held liable for permitting it to remain on their website. This story – if it turned out not to be true – would be pretty defamatory.</p>
<p>I don’t think they were covering up anything or being cavalier. I think they were taking down a post that their procedures told them was problematic, and not rushing to do the investigation that would be required to put it back up. Most of the time, when people say something outrageous about someone else on the web, and it gets deleted, everyone is perfectly happy about it, because the original angry post probably should never have been written. In this case, that doesn’t seem to apply – and, lo and behold, the old marketplace of ideas and modern technology have given this story far more dissemination and exposure than it would have gotten had Scientific American not been so quick to take down the post and so slow to investigate. So everything is fine in this best of all possible worlds.</p>
<p>Truth is an iron-clad affirmative defense in a defamatory suit. </p>
<p>Considering this is a magazine with a large following in the scientific community and its resources, it shouldn’t take them very long to authenticate the email as being real and to perform appropriate followup with the editor at their partner site. Either the Biology Editor editor sent it or not and if he did, swift consequences should follow if the online site wants to maintain any credibility as not condoning unprofessional and horrid behavior by its staff…especially editors. </p>
<p>By failing to take timely action on this, Scientific-American can be perceived by reasonable folks among their constituency as condoning actions by their partner website. And considering the reactions from many in that community, that’s accurate. </p>
<p>And like it or not, by partnering up with other websites, Scientific-American is partially responsible as they are effectively endorsing those partner websites with the Scientific-American brand. By doing that, they implicitly provide endorsement and credibility to those partner websites. By failing to perform timely followup and worse, censoring the scientist who placed the email online, the image they are projecting is one of attempting to cover up the entire issue and to sweep the issue under the rug and hope it doesn’t go away…and the reactions from Scientific-American’s readers/constituents bears that out.</p>
<p>So what? Total non sequitur…unless you are replying to a deleted post.</p>
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<p>No, not by the reasonable ones. Only by those ■■■■■■■■ for the latest outrage. It’s just so satisfying to get all pumped up and start demanding apologies, isn’t it? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Why didn’t they just fire the blog editor and be done with it?</p>
<p>If Dr. Lee had not been female, you think the editor would have called him the same thing?</p>
<p>(no nonsequitur - Dr. Lee was being asked to provide her writing gratis, and then was insulted when she politely declined; Ms. DiChristina gets paid very well indeed by the same organization for, among other things, “scientific writing”.</p>
<p>What blog editor? Is there a blog editor who reviews everything before it is posted? If there is, and this person made a single error in judgement, you are saying they should be fired? Nice. </p>
<p>Ms. DiChristina is not the one who insulted Dr. Lee; moreover, are you saying you have personal knowledge of her salary? Are you saying that she is not entitled to be compensated for her skills?</p>
<p>And you know what, do NOT DARE to tell me how to be a feminist and imply that ANY of the women OR men here think it is okay to call a woman a “whore.”</p>
<p>And I worked in the IT department of several firms and was involved in authenticating whether emails were sent by those affiliated with the firm for investigative purposes by law enforcement/regulatory agencies or mandated judicial discovery from opposing parties involved in litigation against my employers. All done, of course, with guidance from the firm’s legal counsel. </p>
<p>Unless the corporation/institution is engaged in exceedingly shoddy IT management or engaging in a coverup, it shouldn’t be that difficult for the institution to quickly authenticate such emails. In fact, being so shoddy in IT management alone is grounds for serious legal/regulatory sanctions considering the regulatory regimes those firms were subjected to due to the industry they were in.</p>
<p>Oh, THAT editor. Yes, well if it turns out that it is true–and I have little doubt that it is–that person should be fired.</p>
<p>I would point out that the article to which Cobrat originally linked states that all of this had unfolded over 36 HOURS and was posted at 6:50PM on SATURDAY. I would think that people could at least wait for an actual work day to pass before they decide to string the SciAm editor up on the nearest tree. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Cobrat – yes, it shouldn’t take very long to authenticate the e-mail, but doing that with little or no staff on a Friday night isn’t as easy as it sounds. And what do you think the standards are for “authenticating” an e-mail? My guess is that it would take multiple communications with both parties. And most of the time, no one bothers.</p></li>
<li><p>“They” may very well get around to firing the guy who wrote the offensive e-mail . . . if there is any more “they” there than him. My guess is that Scientific American is going to decide that his blog won’t be a “partner” of theirs anymore, or will go on some sort of probation. But come on, it’s exactly two non-business days since the whole thing blew up. People don’t get fired on the weekend because other people are writing blog posts about an offensive e-mail.</p></li>
<li><p>For what it’s worth, most of the organizations I have been a part of are overwhelmingly male, and the word “whore” gets used all the time by men to describe men, sometimes semi-lovingly, sometimes not. Once a senior partner and mentor of mine was at a financial printer working on the last stages of a deal, where he was stepping in to help a deal that had been going on for a long time get over the finish line. He read, for the first time, a description of a legal opinion I had authored in connection with the deal, and immediately called me up, fairly late in the evening. When I answered the phone, the first thing I heard from him was “You whore!” </p></li>
</ol>
<p>We had a strong enough relationship that I knew he loved me regardless, but there was no question he disagreed strongly with the opinion I had written, and he believed I had compromised my integrity by giving it for an important client. I told him he was ignorant and offensive, and he shouldn’t be calling me a whore without looking at my research and my reasoning. He agreed with that, and went back to what he had been doing. We both knew he was more or less right, and that he was relieved I had taken the heat for doing that opinion without involving him.</p>
<p>That’s not comparable to what happened here, which I don’t mean to defend.</p>