5 ms·

seems extreme. one unethical researcher blocks work for others just because they happen to work at the same employer? they might not even know the author of the

• hn8788 6y ago
  The university reviewed the "study" and said it was acceptable. From the email chain, it looks like they've already complained to the university multiple times, and have apparently been ignored. Banning anyone at the university from contributing seems like the only way to handle it since they can't trust the institution to ensure its students are doing unethical experiments.
  • rob74 6y ago
    Plus, it sets a precedent: if your university condones this kind of "research", you will have to face the consequences too...
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• vesinisa 6y ago
  Well, the decision can always be reversed, but on the outset I would say banning the entire university and publicly naming them is a good start. I don't think this kind of "research" is ethical, and the issue needs to be raised. Banning them is a good opener to engage the instiution in a dialogue.
  • soneil 6y ago
    It seems fair enough to me. They were curious to see what happens, this happens. Giving them a free pass because they're a university would be artificially skewing the results of the research. Low trust and negative trust should be fairly obvious costs to messing with a trust model - you could easily argue this is working as intended.
• op00to 6y ago
  The University approved this research. How can one trust anything from that university now?
  • JBorrow 6y ago
    That's not really how it works. Nobody's out there 'approving' research (well, not seemingly small projects like this), especially at the university level. Professors (all the way down to PhD students!) are usually left to do what they like, unless there are specific ethical concerns that should be put before a review panel. I suppose you could argue that this work should have been brought before the ethics committee, but it probably wasn't, and in CS there isn't a stringent process like there is in e.g. psychology or biology.
    • chromatin 6y ago
      Wrong! If you read the research paper linked in the lkml post, the authors at UMN state that they submitted their research plan to the University of Minnesota Institutional Research Board and received a human subjects exempt waiver.
      • gbrown 6y ago
        A human subjects determination isn’t really an approval, just a note that the research isn’t HSR, which it sounds like this wasn’t.
        • bluGill 6y ago
          Well it was, but not the type of thing that HSR would normally worry about.
        • op00to 6y ago
          It absolutely was human subject research. Try for yourself! Here's the NIH's rubric: https://grants.nih.gov/policy/humansubjects/hs-decision.htm https://grants.nih.gov/policy/humansubjects/hs-decision.htm for q1, the study collects data like observations of behavior, so we must answer yes. for q2, none of the exemptions apply - it's not an educational setting, they're not sending a survey, it's not an observation of the public - they're interacting, and it's clear that these interactions are not benign - they have clear impact on the community. None of these exemptions apply. Based on this flow, it's clear the study involves "human research".
• wongarsu 6y ago
  They reported unethical behavior to the university and the university failed to prevent it from happening again.
• jnxx 6y ago
  Well, shit happens. Imaging doctors working in organ transplants, and one of them damages trust of people by selling access to organs to rich patients. Of course that damages the field for everyone. And to deal with such issues, doctors have some ethics code, and in many countries associations which will sanction bad eggs. Perhaps scientists need something like that, too?
• yxhuvud 6y ago
  It is an extreme response to an extreme problem. If the other researchers don't like the situation? They are free to raise the problem to the university and have the university clean up the mess they obviously have.