4 ms·

The Russell Group is a group of 24 universities, and this is attributed to Russell Group School of Informatics 'internal documents' of which there's not even a

by mst 5y ago

The Russell Group is a group of 24 universities, and this is attributed to Russell Group School of Informatics 'internal documents' of which there's not even a hint extant on the wider internet that I can find (the other articles are straight up re-rolls of the telegraph one). Do I find it plausible that a group of activists at the Russell Group bureaucracy level have written this bit of silliness into a set of guidelines? Sure. Do I think that "Edinburgh’s computer scientists banned" is an accurate reflection of the current situation? It's certainly a possibility, but not one I'd give much weight to without rather more definitive information than this.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> this is attributed to Russell Group School of Informatics 'internal documents' of which there's not even a hint extant on the wider internet I’m having trouble finding any indication of an entity called the “Russell Group School of Informatics”; individual universities in the Group seem to have such schools, but it sounds like there are major errors in the attribution reporting or, even worse, basic fact-checking of the documents.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  > major errors in the attribution reporting or, even worse, basic fact-checking of the documents No. There are major errors in your and GP's reading comprehension. The article is absolutely clear it is talking about Edinburgh's school of informatics. Immediately after spelling out the university's full name in the preceding sentence, the article says "The top-flight Russell Group university’s school of informatics claims there are 'problematic issues related to computing terminology'" That is the only mention of the Russell Group. Reasonable people may disagree, I suppose, as to whether the University of Edinburgh deserves an epithet like "the top-flight Russell Group university," but no reasonable person can disagree that that is exactly what the authors did.
  - mst 5y ago
    "Russell Group School of Informatics" was literally a copy-paste from the article. My reading comprehension is just fine. So is my clipboard. It is, in fact, possible to be anti-wokescold and also care about criticising one's opponents precisely. I wish more people on the same side of the argument as me would remember that.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      Stop. Lying. That text does not appear on that page and hasn't appeared on that page, even going back to yesterday when it was first posted. https://web.archive.org/web/20210904202955/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/04/woke-wars-edinburghs-computer-scientists-banned-using-alice/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210904202955/https://www.teleg... You clearly skipped over the word "university's" and now you're lying about using copy-paste to cover it up because you're too proud to admit the original minor mistake.
- mst 5y ago
  Fundamentally, until we get to see the full text of the document and find out definitively where it lies on the scale from 'some batshit activists wrote a manifesto' to 'this has now been adopted as mandatory departmental policy' I'm going to treat it as "rumour, plausible, all else unknown".

by mst 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago

> this is attributed to Russell Group School of Informatics 'internal documents' of which there's not even a hint extant on the wider internet I’m having trouble finding any indication of an entity called the “Russell Group School of Informatics”; individual universities in the Group seem to have such schools, but it sounds like there are major errors in the attribution reporting or, even worse, basic fact-checking of the documents.

torstenvl 5y ago
> major errors in the attribution reporting or, even worse, basic fact-checking of the documents No. There are major errors in your and GP's reading comprehension. The article is absolutely clear it is talking about Edinburgh's school of informatics. Immediately after spelling out the university's full name in the preceding sentence, the article says "The top-flight Russell Group university’s school of informatics claims there are 'problematic issues related to computing terminology'" That is the only mention of the Russell Group. Reasonable people may disagree, I suppose, as to whether the University of Edinburgh deserves an epithet like "the top-flight Russell Group university," but no reasonable person can disagree that that is exactly what the authors did.
- mst 5y ago
  "Russell Group School of Informatics" was literally a copy-paste from the article. My reading comprehension is just fine. So is my clipboard. It is, in fact, possible to be anti-wokescold and also care about criticising one's opponents precisely. I wish more people on the same side of the argument as me would remember that.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Stop. Lying. That text does not appear on that page and hasn't appeared on that page, even going back to yesterday when it was first posted. https://web.archive.org/web/20210904202955/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/04/woke-wars-edinburghs-computer-scientists-banned-using-alice/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210904202955/https://www.teleg... You clearly skipped over the word "university's" and now you're lying about using copy-paste to cover it up because you're too proud to admit the original minor mistake.
mst 5y ago
Fundamentally, until we get to see the full text of the document and find out definitively where it lies on the scale from 'some batshit activists wrote a manifesto' to 'this has now been adopted as mandatory departmental policy' I'm going to treat it as "rumour, plausible, all else unknown".