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[atlchemist]

Where are clueless academic hopefuls supposed to turn for advice if not CHE fora? Not everyone has a helpful advisor or department.

I think you'll find that WT's posts go way beyond clueless. Taken together, they're a bit disturbing.

I'll take your word for it. I don't make a habit of paying attention to particular posters' habits.

[sagit]

Where are clueless academic hopefuls supposed to turn for advice if not CHE fora? Not everyone has a helpful advisor or department.

This is quite true.  However, what concerns me about WT's posts is that I do not see a trend towards more knowledgeable and nuanced posts that would suggest the CHE fora and all of its wisdom is making a difference in his/her understanding of academia.

[ruralguy]

I think we answered the original question of the OP though.

There probably advisers that don't really care what happens to their advisees, but I think most like to see something positive come out of the experience. Mostly we facilitate by giving good advice, and, if we are in a position to "network" to an advisees benefit, then, sure, we do it. Does it help? Probably more at the post-doc level than the TT faculty level, but I doubt it hurts.

[mleok]

Some posters are simply clueless or poorly socialized, but take an open-minded approach to the opinions and advice that they receive on the forums. The advice one receives on these forums tends to be focused on the state of academia as it stands, and forum members are less keen to to justify why it isn't the way the poster thinks it should be, since this is often results in an endless argument that is profoundly unproductive.

Others harbor deep seated resentment of the slights (real or imagined) that they have suffered, and after a number of threads, one starts to see a trend. These people tend to need professional help dealing with their hurt feelings that the forum is unequipped to provide.

[egilson]

Some posters are simply clueless or poorly socialized, but take an open-minded approach to the opinions and advice that they receive on the forums. The advice one receives on these forums tends to be focused on the state of academia as it stands, and forum members are less keen to to justify why it isn't the way the poster thinks it should be, since this is often results in an endless argument that is profoundly unproductive.

Others harbor deep seated resentment of the slights (real or imagined) that they have suffered, and after a number of threads, one starts to see a trend. These people tend to need professional help dealing with their hurt feelings that the forum is unequipped to provide.

Rather than derailing the thread, you might consider minding your own business.

[scion]

Some posters are simply clueless or poorly socialized

Yes, mleok, you have demonstrated that point quite effectively.

[mleok]

Some posters are simply clueless or poorly socialized

Yes, mleok, you have demonstrated that point quite effectively.

I think you really mean that I was advised by wolves, and just mean spirited.

I was trying to address the question of why some posters were responding to the OP in a less than positive way, but along the way, looking at the OP's series of posts took on a fascination of its own.

[mleok]

As an academic, I strongly believe that the context that frames a question matters. I often find that students are unable to fully articulate the issues that truly rest at the root of their problems, instead, they tend to focus on the symptoms. By closing examining their questions over time, one is better able to arrive at a solution that addresses the fundamentals.

[mleok]

Rather than derailing the thread, you might consider minding your own business.

This is an example of adding fuel to the fire, which only serves to further derail the discussion. If you wanted to realign the discussion back to the original topic, you might consider responding thoughtfully to the OP's question.

[egilson]

As an academic, I strongly believe that the context that frames a question matters. I often find that students are unable to fully articulate the issues that truly rest at the root of their problems, instead, they tend to focus on the symptoms. By closing examining their questions over time, one is better able to arrive at a solution that addresses the fundamentals.

And this is an excellent example of the adage that "No matter how you slice it, it's still baloney."

Seriously. There are a few posters here whom I can't stand, and certainly many more than a few who can't stand me. There are also plenty of examples here of heated argument both over issues and over personalities. What you did with your catalog, though, was to take someone's posting history, comment on it, and then present it to everyone else as authoritative analysis of that person's failing. That's far beyond the pale, and I haven't even seen the one poster with whom I've had the worst relationship do that (likely because, to her credit, she's far too straight-forward for that sort of game).

Rather than derail a tedious but harmless thread with such armchair pseudo-psychoanalysis, why didn't you start a separate thread that collected that person's postings and your commentary under the rubric of "Here's what's wrong with PosterIDon'tLike?" I'm guessing that you wouldn't, and didn't, do that because you realize that it would be too blatant a personal attack and would likely provoke a moderator's response. That you chose to find a more "subtle" way of doing it instead is, if anything, more odious, and it's far more dishonest.

I could ignore this foolishness myself, and almost certainly will on another day. Today, though, you get to push my buttons enough that I'll call you out on acting like a particularly smug and self-justifying version of a garden-variety Internet jerk. I guess that means you won.

[username2]

I apologize for being mean, for my part.

However, to your point, eligson, in this day and age of decreasing online privacy, I do not think it is a good idea to think of the forum as a haven in which to develop your digital persona. Academia is a small world and we are too easily recognizable at times. Being too recognizable makes it impossible to ask those dumb and sensitive questions without a sock puppet, and these days, everything online is much more easily searchable than it was in the past.

I actually wish there were mechanisms on the forum that would help to nudge people in the direction of not investing in this or that username, such as timing out after 200 posts or something. It is convenient to have that continuing identity, but in my book, the risks outweigh the benefits, and there is that problem of feeling emotional attachment and pride at a username where you have accumulated 5000 posts and status points. The issue here is that some of the questions and sentiments raised, if identified to the specific person, could have negative career consequences.

Which I suppose is another derail, but hey, you started this one.

[leobloom]

The take-home message for me from here is that a combo of mleok (who provides valuable "clues" for the benefit of less-well mentored forumites) as adviser and walkingtree (clueless as hu might be, some of us have sometimes islands, or even continents, of cluelessness, which are covered in answers to their inquiries; moreover, to some extent some of us partially identify with their plight and at the same time we find points of departure from their approaches) as postdoc would be a nonstarter. For one, this combination, true to walkingtree's story, has already led to the current fallout.

It's a glorious day. The daffodils in my garden are gorgeous, harbingers of the spring that's just around the corner.

[mleok]

Okay, fair enough, as morbidly fascinating as it was for me to look over the OP's entire history of thread starters, egilson is right that it crossed the line to post all of it for the world to see.

[polly_mer]

I actually wish there were mechanisms on the forum that would help to nudge people in the direction of not investing in this or that username, such as timing out after 200 posts or something. It is convenient to have that continuing identity, but in my book, the risks outweigh the benefits, and there is that problem of feeling emotional attachment and pride at a username where you have accumulated 5000 posts and status points. The issue here is that some of the questions and sentiments raised, if identified to the specific person, could have negative career consequences.

You see the negative.  As someone with status and an emotional investment, I will list the positive.

People send me things based on what they know of my interests.  For example, just this week, a frequent reader who seldom posts sent me a fabulous article out of the blue related to the science for teachers classes.  If we were practically anonymous, then people wouldn't do that.

I have lost track of how many people here know my legal name.  We have shared materials, met at conferences, met as travelers, and other things that colleagues do.  That loss of anonymity means I don't share as many things I don't want public as I used to, but in return for being a known person, I have trusted colleagues and even mentors that I wouldn't have if everyone were forced to be anonymous.

In addition, unless you set that bar on moniker-time-out-time extremely low (like under 20 posts), people still will build personas.  If you haven't met The Chameleon*, then you should investigate what has happened as people did change monikers, but sound the same and have the same interests.  Changing the monikers only works to unclue readers who aren't here very often and actually need to look at the monikers to know who wrote what.  For those of us who are here nearly daily, the monikers and associated post count are irrelevant.  The people are the same and status is gained only loosely through post count.  One must post enough that people can form an opinion to have any status, but some people with solid post counts do not have very high status.  I, for example, am not in the top five of status, despite having a top five post count.

* I can't remember what moniker he was last using, but he was a series of Daves, Dannyboy, and a host of others to rack up probably 10 000 posts, but no moniker had more than 1000.

[southerntransplant]

I think from within the crazy space of grad school it can be easy to perceive your advisor as a parental figure and consequently to think of him/her as having a vested emotional interest in you as a person. But that really isn't their role. It's a professional relationship.

Oh God yes. Do a search for "MFGS" on the Venting Thread.