Academic code has always been a mess (from the standpoint of professional software developers). Anyone who has ever worked with code from academia knows this. I

Academic code has always been a mess (from the standpoint of professional software developers). Anyone who has ever worked with code from academia knows this. If you think this code is messy, check out any random Matlab simulation strung together by any random series of grad students who aren't professional developers in any random lab. People in industry don't always do better, either. Look at the notebook code shared on Github by Kevin Systrom for the rt.live site. It's just as messy. But the point is that he shared it and that helps everyone see what is going on and lets anyone improve on the work. Publicly sharing model code on Github is a recent development and is amazing for everyone. It gets the work out faster, allows for feedback on methodology and coding style and generally lets everyone get smarter over time. We shouldn't discourage this. Posting retraction demands in Github issues based on coding style is not helpful and shows a lack of communication skills. What is helpful is providing useful, specific bug reports, submitting improvements, or sharing your own, improved model. If you want to demand a retraction, do it via alternate means. Remember, this crisis appeared suddenly on the world stage and whoever had a model sitting around got thrust into the forefront of public discussion. But scientists don't make policy. Policy makers make policy. A github issue is not the place to blame someone for a policy you disagree with. That only discourages people from sharing their work which would be a loss for everyone.