Talk:Ecology (includes organismal and environmental science) 2007 2008 Archive

DISCUSSION
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DISCUSSION FROM OLD WIKI SITE
PLEASE ADD ALL NEW COMMENTS TO THE MAIN PAGE. THIS IS JUST AN ARCHIVE OF THE OLD COMMENTS.

THESE COMMENTS WERE IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, NEWEST COMMENTS ARE LAST.

anyone heard back after phone interview with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for Behavioral Ecologist position?

Anyone hear about TCU?

For the EMU listing, did the rejection e-mail contain something that told you that only people who weren't on the short list were getting e-mails? I have not gotten a rejection but have not been contacted either. Thanx

How did you find out that Southern Illinois had requested letters? Do you have any idea how many references they are contacting per applicant?

Any updated info on the TCU molecular ecologist search would be appreciated as it comes in. I know that three candidates have interviewed and that the facuty now need to decide who to make the offer. Any info beyond this would be appreciated.

TCU molecular ecologist position is listed as filled on the genetics board.

This list is getting very long. I vote that we delete anything prior to 1 Dec. Someone has already seconded this motion by listing some of the old ones. Can I get a few more 'yea's to this?

I would delete the "old" ones. Make a note that you have done so.

Who got the Hampden-Sydney Ecology position?

Traffic to this site seems to have slowed somewhat. I see the number of hits doesn't jump as high as it used to each day. Presumably, this is because people who were visiting this site have found jobs and fade away. The announcement to ECOLOG-L back in November seemed to get a hug response. Anyone on favour of re-posting an announcement?

I think drumming up some additional traffic would be good. I've found this site to be extremely useful. Maybe consider firing off an e-mail notification to the EVOLDIR Listserve to get more visitors. I know if I ever finally get a job offer that I'll probably stop visiting too, and I imagine since a lot of searches have wrapped up that traffic will generally be slow until the end of the summer when the big postings start hitting again. Most of the job postings coming out now are garbage; mostly temporary/adjunct/visiting positions and full-time positions at schools most of us have never heard of.

Go for it, send the messages abroad! :)

Time to clear off last year's listings and start anew? Can't believe it's that time already...

Are listings going to be here or at the (to me) annoying mixing of all biology jobs?

General biology on the other list, more specific ecol/evol/zool/etc here, right?

I don't think this page is linked on the main job wiki page (I may be wrong), so I'm not sure how you get here if you didn't bookmark it last year.

try it now... should be a new link from the front page.

In my opinion, having everything on the "biology" page only makes everything harder to find. There are enough jobs in this sub-category to make it worth a page of its own.

Does it *hurt* anything to have a page here? Does the person who deleted want to offer an explanation?

I think someone may not like this information out there and that's why it was deleted (can you say control-freak search chair?). I think it should be restored as it's a pain to "hunt" through subdisciplines I am not applying in.

... and by the way, good luck, everyone!

For University of Georgia Population Ecologist. The board says that on-campus interviews were being conducted in early November and rejection letters went out in late November. I have not received a rejection nor am I interviewing (the school did confirm my application). Is there a second set of applicants who are being kept in reserve in case the first set of interviews are not acceptable?

To UGA population ecologist applicant. I am in the same boat. No rejection letter and no interview. Haven't heard anything.

Everyone sit tight on the Wayne State ecologist job. . . as of December 4 they have not yet begun to invite applicants for interviews.

For U Georgia....job talks for candidates are listed on the homepage of the Odum School. Probably means that only some folks got letters and the rest are being kept in case those interviewing don't work out or that they forgot to send letters to some folks.

Somebody has been wiping out job wiki pages in other disciplines. This site doesn't seem to have a revert function, which really stinks for a wiki page. Does anyone know how to protect the content other than keeping electronic copies?

No idea, but I have reposted the biology one maybe 10 times, and it keeps gettting deleted!

In case someone deletes it again, past the following text into place. I do not know if this page is deleted with the main page, just in case some of you might want to back it up. I have it saved in a notepad text document.

Why sort this by date? It ought to be by school within a category. Really, it ought to be listed by school and position, with new actions listed beneath, so that one doesn't have to search for the school name through the lists every time.

How about it?

Why not try listing new positions alphabetically by school like this:

School Name Position Application due date: (Date) No news: (Date) Preliminary screening:(Date) Phone Interview: (Date) Campus Interview: (Date) Offers: (Date) Rejection Letters: (Date)

We can transition from the old style to this new style without having to delete the current listings.

I think it depends on how frequently you're checking. If you look at the listings often, it is easiest to glance at the bottom of each category to see whether anything's been added, rather than having to think of a school and look for it alphabetically. So I, for one, prefer the by-date format. I would be OK with the listing by school and not by category, though.

I think it's working fine the way it is. It's easy to see what new events have happened.

Does anyone know what area of biology the U Pitt interviews are for? I know it was an open search, but those who got interviews, what is your field? Thanks

Who cares if "anything new has been added"? What matters is if there had been a change relevant my applications. Thus when I check the page I want to know whats going on with specific schools. thus I need to find them quickly, a process that would be easier if they were in alphabetical order.

Can this discussion page be listed in reverse chronological order? If not why not?

While it's nice to be able to find a specific school quickly, that can also be done using your browser's "find" function. I have 15-20 applications out right now and it takes forever for me to find each school (within each category) and see what's going on. It's much easier just to check out what schools have made progress in a search since the last time I checked. I would prefer it if the list went back to being in chronological order.

I understand the appeal of having all the information on each school partitioned, but I too find it most useful to list chronologically as it was before, with newest reports at the bottom of each category. This makes it easy to keep tabs on many searches simultaneously. The Search/Find function is perfectly fine for finding individual schools when needed.

I have to agree with the majority of responses here (re: new format). Scanning down each list is somewhat easier than trying to sort through all the information the new format proposes. Having said that, I do appreciate the spirit of the idea. The problem I have is finding the most up-to-date information for a school(s). Why? Because of poor house keeping (I include myself in this accusation) schools are often listed in multiple places thus, making it confusing. A better format might be a table, with column headings, for example:

School Name Deadline Shortlist Phone Interview Campus Interview Rejection* Offer

Each "cell" would contain either a date or even just an 'X'. I really see no advantage in knowing, e.g., the date the shortlist was made. The fact that it has been made, seems like the most relevant information (hence an X is simple enough; but hey convince me otherwise). Schools could be listed in alphabetical order. This also has the advantage of easier "housekeeping" because once a school's line has been filled, then the line is deleted after some agreed upon period of time (e.g., 1 month). No one has to remember to move school Z to list Y on the day they got their rejection letter.

Just a suggestion...

I do also wonder why the discussion list is in reverse chronological order. Does not seem logical.

I propose that these new format attempts go at the end of page. The old system seemed to me to work pretty well and was something that the community had settled on and used. Right in the middle of the job season seems like a bad time to being switching formats.

Table format is way to difficult to use, I agree that we should stick with the current format. It is cleaned up a bit now, but moving to alphabetical order within each month will help significant. Also, if you use firefox, try using the update scanner addon extension. It lets you know when a webpage is updated, and highlights the changes...

Like others, I prefer to have updates listed chronologically. I, too, have several applications out, and it's easiest to scroll to the bottom of each category to see if anything has changed. Listing things alphabetically is just a pain to sort through ... it means I have to read through each category for each job, usually to find out that nothing has changed. Can we *please* go back to chronological listings? Anonymous above suggested skipping the dates ... they're useful if you want to quickly search for the most recent changes. I occasionally use my "find" feature to scan for anything from December, for example.

Table format looks pretty, but is probably too confusing for a newcomer to figure out and use? I think it needs to be as simple as possible to keep folks posting. I like the deleting from one section when it moves to the next category (i.e., Application date to Phone interview). Please keep chronological order though it is much easier to scan and check for updates.

I really like the dates too...

Somebody sorted the listings alphabetically (prior to the 7pm comments), so there isn't much we can do about it now?? It is not so bad with each month having alphabetical listings as the chronological listings kept getting out of order.

If we can't put the old listing back to chronological order, can we please put new listings at the bottom of each category like before?

I really like this format (proposed above), especially if kept in alphabetical order:

School Name Position Application due date: (Date) No news: (Date) Preliminary screening:(Date) Phone Interview: (Date) Campus Interview: (Date) Offers: (Date) Rejection Letters: (Date)

The table format is also good, although it might be too space-limited.

Using the above format would allow users to quickly scan to the appropriate schools, and allow them to asses the status for each school immediately without needing to scroll throughout the whole site.

The current format is hard to use: looking at each section for an update is tedious (and even worse now that they are no longer in chronological order).

I should add that it would be best if a chronological list (by due date) of job announcements preceded this format:

School Name Position Application due date: (Date) No news: (Date) Preliminary screening:(Date) Phone Interview: (Date) Campus Interview: (Date) Offers: (Date) Rejection Letters: (Date)

My 2 cents. I like the table format for a number of reasons: 1. people tend to be lazy or unclear on removing old info when they post new info. having the table eliminates the need to remove the old stuff and does not increase the size of the list (I spent almost an hour last weekend removing the old info). 2. the table should be alphabetical, which would satisfy those that think it's better than chronological. 3. the table is a "one stop shopping" format that allows someone to get all the info in one packet (so if you know the short lists have been made you also can see if the rejection letters have gone out). 4. regardless of the number of jobs, the table always will be shorter than the list, which will make for a easier time if you don't search by category. 5. my suggestion is to have the table on a seperate page and let the masses decide based on which is updated most. If more people are updating the table then the list will go unsued, and visa versa.

Also, someone mentioned that the table format was too hard to use. When adding new dates, you just need to add the date right after the category and off you go (how confusing is that?).

I think I agree with most, the old (non table) format is fine - Schools start out listed chronologically by date, then new info is added to the end of each list. It doesn't matter much if a school is accidentally lift in 'no word yet' really, looking at the bottom of the short list/interview/rejection categories is really quite efficient. I think that the suggestion in the last comment isn't a good idea (put both up, let the people decide). If we do that, both will be incomplete and everyone will need to deal with the shortcomings of both formats. Keep in mind too that this bulletin board is a handy guide with useful info, NOT a massive database that millions will be searching every day - it's pretty much good enough as it is.

Who screwed up the job wiki? And why?

So new news is supposed to be added to the bottom of each list within a category as it comes in, such that the date is the date of the posting of new information? Why break it up by month? why not by week or day? why at all? Just add new information at the bottom of a single list witin each job action category. Or just use the table, which is an improvement over listing by school name. Think ease of finding information, not cataloging raw data. It shouldn't be a lab notebook.

I personally think the table format is much easier to read and followactually better than I envisioned when I originally proposed it (yesterday). (note: I did not create the table itself, just the idea). I also think it will be easier to manage. One reason we keep lab and field notebooks is because it is easy to quickly scan and find info! I must strongly disagree with one long list (previous Anonymous post). That will be a nightmare. I think I would agree with having 2 pages one with and one without the table. Let the masses decide. One suggestion though: only bold the school name and the column headings, not the dates.

Whomever is messing with this wiki has too much time on his/her hands! The wiki has worked fine for at least two years prior to this and does not need to be radically revamped. I find it to be *more* work now to find updates (because I have to search all entries by name) than before (when I could just look at the bottom of each category for changes).

Now, I can't even make an edit because it says someone else is editing now. This has never happened to me before. What gives?

The table is useful, but entering data through the edit command is a real pain, have a look at the code required. Here are the main issues about the table: (1) The wiki table coding structure is a pain. If you don't count correctly, you will frequently run the risk of putting things in the wrong box. In order to avoid this, I would recommend that the subheaders or placeholders are used in each cell. Try entering some info in the practice table at the bottom and you'll see what I mean. (2) Unlike wikipedia, there is no autosort (alphabetical) with this wiki software. (3) The table doesn't allow any room for info, such as notes, or notified by email, or questions, etc.... Take a look at the amount of info on the page now, and what we'd be missing if we just had dates.

I say keep it as is for this year, but next year change it to the alphabetical list structure mentioned above.

School Name Position Application due date: (Date) No news: (Date) Preliminary screening:(Date) Phone Interview: (Date) Campus Interview: (Date) Offers: (Date) Rejection Letters: (Date)

See examples of similar structure at:

link http://wikihost.org/wikis/academe/wiki/american_studies

link http://psychjobs.wikidot.com/

The wiki has been moved to a different set of wiki pages. link link http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/BiologyPositions

I hope it doesn't confuse anyone, but it should help with the vandalism.

RIP Ecology Job Wiki. Just two days ago you seem so vital and useful, but you were cut down by the bullheaded and power hungry.

Was the page "moved" in response to a total deletion, or because some people were trying to change it?

Thank you for re-establishing the listserv. I much prefer chronologicalI scan to see what has changed. The new way is more difficult. I agree that people should NOT change the listserv with consulting first!

Thanks for the table format. This is even better than I envisioned it.138.87.237.90 17:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Survey for 2008/2009 wiki
Would you prefer a single table rather than the current layout with multiple sections (see example below)
 * Yes, I would prefer a single sortable table: 9
 * No, I like having multiple sections: 1
 * No preference: 0

Would you find it useful to sort by Job Title Specialty (area) or department?
 * Yes: 4
 * No: 3
 * No preference: 1