Ethics: January 2004 Archive Page

A few questions spring out from this. It is generally accepted that giving credit for creation is important; is it the same for ?link discovery credit?? Will (should) the practice of linking to sources of links come to be taken very seriously by bloggers, out of a shared concern to keep things fair and transparent, in a similar manner to standards of citation in academia? Should one link to the immediate source or make an effort to trace links back to the original source? (Is it always clear which is ?the? original source?) --Sebastian Paquet --Link Propagation and 'Discovery Credit' (Many-To-Many)

I don't credit metasites like Google News or Blogdex when I find stories there.

If journalist A publishes a quote from a source, journalist B can try to contact the source directly and get him or her to repeat the statement; if the source cooperates, journalist B doesn't have to cite journalist A as the source.

Obsessing too much about link discovery is something like wanting to give credit to the taxi driver who took you to the library where you found the source you were looking for.

Still, as Jill Walker notes, "The economy of links is not product oriented. It is service oriented, and the service is the link." (Seb's article links to Jill's "Links and Power," a wonderful theoretical piece that was well worth a revisit.)

There are times when I first see link A on site X, but I'm not motivated to blog anything about A until I see commentary on site Y. In that case, site Y is being more than a taxi driver -- blogger Y deserves the credit on my blog, even if blogger X had the link first. Or link A might point to a website where articles soon disappear behind a paid subscription wall; in those cases, I'll often Google up a different link on the same subject.

I will say that a link to the original article/document being discussed is vital... it's not sufficient simply to link to the blog that quotes some off-site document. That blog may go offline one day, or the quote may turn out to be inaccurate or taken out of context.

(Suggested in a comment posted by Susan, who credits J-walk.)

Scientists at MIT's Advanced Machine Cognizance Project announced Tuesday that, after seeing the final installment of the Matrix trilogy, they will cease all further work in the field of artificial intelligence.... "I saw Revolutions with my 12-year-old son Eric," Markovitch said. "He saw the look of worry on my face and said, 'Dad, don't be scared. It's only make-believe.' I had to tell him, 'No, son, it's what your father does for a living.'" --Scientists Abandon AI Project After Seeing The Matrix (The Onion)

It's very amusing reading the scientists quoted in the story referring to pop culture such as The Matrix, the Terminator series and Rage Against the Machine. It reminds me of the class discussion that ensues when nobody has done the assigned readings, but plenty of people have recently seen a movie that has some vague connection to the theme the class is supposed to be exploring. (I haven't had one of those classes recently, but when it does happen, the memory sticks around...)

Do not use profanity. Be very careful when discussing financial or business affairs. Avoid any mention of your private parts. Do not offer any guarantees, or refer to checks that may or may not be in the mail. | Refrain from describing anything or anybody as "free." Abstain from the exuberant use of punctuation marks. Shun simple salutations like "Hello," and opt instead to craft a detailed, personalized subject line. --Michelle Delio --Spam Filters Grab Good With Bad  (Wired)

Spam is evil.

The above article lists some of the new rules of e-mail. I have my e-mail spam filter set to block any message with more than two exclamation marks or the word "sex" in the subject line. (The only person who might ever want to talk to me about sex is my wife, and she doesn't need to use e-mail to get my attention.)

I've stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, adding anti-spam protection to our SHU installation of MoveableType. There were scores of links to viagra, digital camera, and gambling websites tucked away in older blog entries. (The spammers want Google to find links to their sites, thus artificially raising their rankings.)

I've also read that we can expect to start seeing full-screen advertisements that load stealthily in the background while we are surfing a site, and that play after we click away from a website.

I have four different ad-blocking tools installed on the computer I'm using now: Webwasher (which not only blocks ads but closes up the space on the screen where the ad used to be; I sometimes have to shut off because it interferes with my webmail), Google's Toolbar (great for stopping popups; hold down ctrl when clicking if you know you want a popup this time; or, click a button to permanently allow popups on the domain -- very useful), NoFlash (which kills Macromedia Flash ads; I can easily turn it back on if I know I want the flash thingy), and a few minutes ago I just added the unimaginatively-named Mike Skallas's Ad Blocking Host File (a list of ad-serving hosts that your browser will ignore, registering only errors where the ads are supposed to be... not pretty, but effective).

A student at McGill University has won the right to have his assignments marked without first submitting them to an American, anti-plagiarism website.

--McGill student wins fight over anti-cheating website  (CBC)

As a former resident of Canada, I couldn't repress a smirk at the CBC's need to identify the website as "American" in the lead. (The site is TurnitIn.com.)

The very premise of an online game is that it is uncontrollable - indeed, even the banned players have found ways to sneak back in various disguises. | That, in turn, presents a thorny set of philosophical problems. How do you seek to curb the baser instincts of a community of autonomous players? Is repression the answer? Or do you have to give people incentives to behave better all by themselves? --Andrew Gumbel --Blood on the Virtual Carpet (Independent)

I filed this under "Journalism" because it features a virtual newspaper reporting on the unsavory activities of the virtual residents of a in The Sims.

On this day in 1984, after a year of deliberation, the US supreme court ruled in favour of Sony (makers of the Betamax video-recorder) and against Universal Studios and Disney, who had claimed that viewers recording television programmes were stealing copyrighted material. The counter-argument was that home-tapers were "time-shifting": rescheduling programmes through convenience rather than greed. The acceptance of that argument was decided on a 5-4 vote, meaning that if one justice had been a little crustier, television viewers might now be confined to their homes on the nights of their favourite shows. --Mark Lawson --Going for the Record (Guardian)

I'm sure that many of the record company executives who complain about people stealing music by downloading it have no ethical qualms about videotaping TV shows for their own personal libraries (and I'll be they fast-forward through the commercials, too). Of course, the media titans are also going after TiVo and other tools with commercial-zapping goodies inside them.

Back then, it was technology maker vs. Hollywood. Now, Sony is one of the big media companies (owning both the technological platforms and the creative content for movies, TV, music, and videogames). Sony tried to stem the tide of file-sharing by selling audio gadgets that had security features to prevent Sony from losing money on the files, but users didn't like paying for a clunky gadget that didn't let them do what they really wanted to do with files (namely, get them for free).

I neither buy nor "share" music files, but then I don't buy CDs either, other than occasionally grabbing one out of a $5 bargain bin (and I can't even remember the last time I did that).

Crucially, Mr Medjahdi said he could see no photographers anyway near the car, despite initial police suspicions that they might have distracted the driver. "I got a complete picture from my side and rear-view mirrors of what was happening beside me. There was no other vehicle in my field of vision. I saw no cars with the Mercedes, no photographers on motorbikes around the car. There was no one," he said. --Diana crash witness speaks (ThisIsLondon.com)

I had occasionally caught myself wondering... if the princess's car were being pursued by paparazzi, where are the photos of the crash? Either they were lousy paparazzi, or the driver had already eluded them. How did the "pursued by paparazzi" meme get started, if the only eyewitness to the crash reports that there were none? It appears simply to be the opinion of Mohamed al-Fayed, father of Dodi Fayed, the princess's companion who was also killed in the crash:

Early eye-witness accounts broadcast on radio and television around the world portrayed a sickening scene in the Alma Tunnel, with paparazzi swarming around the wreck of the Mercedes, taking pictures moments after the crash, giving no thought to calling the emergency services and obstructing people who had come to give help to those inside the car.

A little googling shows me a news CNN report from 1999 that concludes, "there was no evidence they [photographers] were close to the car when the accident occurred, the report found". I confess I'm not that interested in royal politics, but I'm surprised that I didn't know about this alternate story, which isn't as powerful as the "pursued by photographers on motorbikes" meme.

The Kelley controversy comes at a time of growing public mistrust of the mainstream media. In the past year, critics have questioned: Fox's Geraldo Rivera and NBC's Peter Arnett over their reporting on the Iraq war; The Washington Post for reporting that Jessica Lynch had been shot and stabbed and not correcting the account for 21/2 months; CNN executive Eason Jordan for saying he suppressed stories of Iraqi brutality out of concern for people's safety; Salt Lake Tribune Editor James Shelledy, who resigned after two reporters sold information on the Elizabeth Smart case to the National Enquirer; and CBS's use of a music special to leverage a Michael Jackson interview. --Reporter 'Panicked' In Probe  (Washington Post (will expire))

This article updates the resignation of USA Today reporter Jack Kelley, the latest high-profile reporter whose credibily has come under fire.

"If they are allowed to experiment and do things on the computers that the teachers have not specifically given them permission to do, we would never get any computer education accomplished." Beverly Sweeney, middle school teacher involved in the suspension of a student who used a DOS command to send the word "Hey!" to 80 computer stations. --Hey! Where's the problem? (Star-Telegram)

Because, as we all know, proper computer use, and education in general, does not require curiosity, trial-and-error, or innovation.

Having said that, I'd like to look more closely at something Dave Lieber wrote.

But more troubling is the notion that Sweeney does not believe that the rest of us have any right to question the decisions made by public educators.

Ok, fair enough. Lieber continues:

Remember, we pay the salaries of the teachers and staff. We buy the computers.

He's right on both counts, but think about it -- the school has 80 computers that still run DOS? if that's the case, then "we" aren't doing a very good job -- either in supplying funds to purchase good equipment or (apparently) in coming up with salaries that will attract skilled teachers.

The fact that Sweeney's web site includes an animated picture of a caveman smashing a computer with a club, as well as a Java applet that features globes and lights whirling around a distorted portrait, lead one of the MetaFilter posters to ask, in all honesty, whether her page had been hacked.

Several university students said Thursday that they fabricated survey results factored into in a judge's decision to move Scott Peterson's capital murder trial out of Modesto.... [T]hey made up every answer on all the surveys they submitted because they found it difficult to gather legitimate data.

They did it, they said, because they were short on time and money. They were required to participate in the survey for 20 percent of their grade and were given no money for dozens of lengthy long-distance phone calls, they said. --Stapley and Cote --Allegations arise in Peterson trial survey (Modesto Bee)

I'm blogging this as another in a long series of reasons why my students shouldn't trust the results of every survey they encounter. The poll, a student project due last month, has not been identified as having been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Instead, it was submitted to the court by the professor who assigned the poll. The lawyers who objected to its legitimacy had sufficient reason to be suspicious.

Stephen Schoenthaler received an "outstanding professor" award from California State University, Stanislaus in 2002. According to that press release (praising "research as well as teaching accomplishments"), the U.S. Congress had recently appropriated half a million dollars for a large-scale test of his research supporting a link between crime and diet.

Schoenthaler announced the poll assignment two days before Thanksgiving break, which obviously ticked off some of the students; maybe they were even further annoyed when they saw him in the media, taking credit for their work. Schoenthaler doesn't seem to have a curricular web page, so I wasn't able to find the syllabus or a response from Schoenthaler (other than his telling the Bee reporter he was shocked).

According to this article, Schoenthaler "has said he hoped to provide a public service and perhaps save taxpayer money." That's a very noble goal, but requiring his own students to pay for it? Not so noble. Still, these are apparently senior criminal justice students; they should know that two wrongs don't make a right.

In a statement released yesterday, the CSU-Stanislaus president wrote, “This is a very serious matter. We have immediately initiated an inquiry to examine these allegations according to our policies and procedures. We will conduct an extensive review to compile the information necessary to determine exactly what happened and the appropriate course of action. Scientific misconduct and academic dishonesty are serious breaches of professional ethics and research standards that are not tolerated at this university.”

RSF counted 42 journalists slain in 2003, while CPJ concluded in a separate report that the total death toll was 36. Both groups said the toll was about twice as high as in 2002 and that the war in Iraq was the primary reason for the increase. --Jim Lobe

--2003 Bad Year for Press Freedom  (Common Dreams)

Thanks for the suggestion, Jim.

The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion. --Michael Crichton --Aliens Cause Global Warming (Crichton Official Website)

SETI is the "Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence" project. A screen-saver popular among uber-geeks actually gives your computer calculations to do in order to help out the whole SETI program. The "Drake equation" is a way of figuring out, out of all the stars where planets might exist, where those planets might support intelligent life, where those life forms might attempt to communicate with outsiders, and where those signals might actually have been broadcast at precisely the time necessary for us to be able to receive them now. I have a vivid memory of Carl Sagan introducing this equation in the classic PBS series "Cosmos." (See a few of my thoughts on religion and Sagan's novel "Contact".)

Since we have no meaningful way to supply numbers for most or all of these variables, Crichton calls this guesswork "prejudice."

From time to time I blog about how the news media accepts unquestioningly the "fact" that global warming is caused by human activity, and I confess to feeling a bit smug each time I see a "mistaken" story.

But I've got to be honest with myself. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke, and rejoice in every law that makes it easier for me to breathe fresh air. Crichton gives an interesting account of how the EPA used "junk science" to "prove" that second-hand smoke causes cancer. And it's really easy for me to want to pat the anti-smoking activists on the back for their cleverness.

If the pro-smokers are so tobacco-addled that they can't see how yucky their habit is, and if it will take a little bit of scientific hocus-pocus to reduce the effect their nasty habit has on my nose, then bravo! If it's true that the science that supports smoking bans is no better than the science that supports global warming doomsday scenarios, then I'm employing a double standard, calling junk science duckspeak (George Orwell's term for an utterance which, when spoken by a supporter, is true and just and good, but when spoken by an opponent, is false and wrong and bad.) (And, of course, all this presumes that what Crichton and others call junk science really is junk. Since I'm not a scientist, I have to accept -- on faith -- the word of experts. I've been following the global warming/population bomb meme complex for long enough that I can see where journalists are oversimplifying or selectively reporting in order to reinforce a particular bias; I am not as informed about smoking issues (nor, to be honest, do I plan to investigate, since I'm personally in favor of the current anti-smoking trend).

An older link, popular now thanks to the skeptics at Arts & Letters Daily.

This paper addresses the evolution of metaphors for the Internet and shows how they have constrained and determined the development of cyberlaw. | Within the law, metaphors mold the framework of discourse, determining the scope of appropriate questions about and answers to various social and legal problems. Courts and commentators employ metaphors as heuristics to generate hypotheses about the application of law to novel, unexplored domains. Metaphors structure the way lawyers conceptualize legal events, as they infiltrate, consciously and unconsciously, legal discourse.... Three metaphors in particular will be examined: the information superhighway, cyberspace, and the Internet as "real" space. --Cohen and Blavin --Gore, Gibson, and Goldsmith: The Evolution of Internet Metaphors in Law and Commentary  (Harvard Journal of Law and Technology)

Looks like a good find, via Clancy on Kairosnews. The actual article is, unfortunately, a PDF document, so I'm blogging it until I can get to the office in a few days.