Corpus 2

[TokyoBouncyBall]

A summary would be good and I might do one later but Aston, data scraping, astonishing lack of contrition…

Hopefully it wasn’t written by ChatGPT.

Hmm. Tim Grant is stepping down as Director of the Institute of Forensic Linguistics.

Nicci Macleod is taking over.

'I've neither been pushed nor jumped, I made a choice about a year ago, when I told the University my plans, and I've been working towards this since then. '

https://x.com/timgrant123/status/1818697523273273745

Looking forward to seeing how Dr MacLeod manages to further cement the reputation of the esteemed Aston Institute.

'and I would have got away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling women'

untenable in its original form

you're kidding, no way, etc

Let me check this... so the person who oversaw the research project that was so woeful and unethical (that it resulted in new guidelines being produced) is now in charge of everything including implementing those new guidelines?

The same person whose possible response to the woeful and unethical research project being discovered by the subjects of that project (Mumsnetters) was to change their picture on social media to one that could be interpreted as a huge 'eff you' to the subjects of that project? Maybe. I mean it could have been a huge coincidence, I guess.

What could go wrong?

Let’s just take a moment to remember that this is the man whose team (and indeed he) created a culture where they thought they could scrape an entire talk forum of mostly women talking about often quite sensitive subjects, create a ‘sandbox to play in’ from it, let other researchers access this sandbox, and quote from sensitive threads without any consideration of identification or consent. That is before we get to letting a student start on an ethically and methodologically unsound PhD.

[Edited to add: this can all be verified by what is on this and previous threads]

I'm reading that as Krzysz is Director and Nikki the deputy.

Not that this makes much difference to the levels of competence we might predict.

Ah, you're quite right. Thanks.

https://x.com/AstonPress/status/1826902172493082898

Interesting choice of emojis.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ethics_and_data_protection_for_t

Hope that second link works. Dr Kredens created the 'sandbox' using MN data, iirc.

Thanks for the clarification, so the MN 'sandbox' creator is now in charge and the person who oversaw the MN research project that was so woeful and unethical is now deputy?

I'm not sure why, but I don't feel reassured.

Correct. Kredens is the person who bounced around gleefully presenting about the sandbox in the presentation which got laughs out of women talking about infertility.

Well, at least there is no protective shield over the two staff members most closely associated with this shitshow now!

When the legal shit hits the fan Prof Tim will be Long gone (pun intended).

I guess Prof Tim saw which way the wind was blowing and escaped while he could, or it's another coinkydink.

@ArabellaScott Those emojis. Yet further proof that the grownups are still not entirely in charge.

I say this as someone whose job includes running the social media for a third sector organisation. No handclap emojis for thanks on my watch, we respond like the professionals we are... [yes, hill I will die on, yes I am middle aged]

I remember him boasting about how unregulated this forensic linguistics was compared to forensic speech analysis in the webinar.

It was the rocket that made me 😶

'My sandbox brings all the ICOs to the yard'

"I can scrape you, but I'll have to charge"

😂

La la la la la
The lawyers are waiting

Me too. Up here being called a rocket is not a compliment.

Isn't language and how it's used fascinating.