Talk: The venting page

Editing Table

12/09/11 Honestly, I don't think I am that inept with computer stuff, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to add a new entry to the venting page without messing up all the tables. Isn't there an easier way to set this up, or could someone post more clear instructions (the step about where to insert the copied text is confusing to me since there are several iterations of the line that is supposed to precede the copied text). I'm guessing this is why there hasn't been much added to this page -- surely there is plenty to vent -- and I know I have also seen over the years how often people screw up the page.

A: The instuctions on the page work if you are in "Source" mode while editing (click the tab at the top of the edit window and you will see the page in "Source" and the formatting referred to in the instructions). Honestly, I'm not a big fan of these tables either because of formatting issues (I didn't set the pages up this way), but I also don't have the time to reformat all of this, frankly (someone else is welcome to, though, as long as posts aren't lost). On the Universities to fear page, most people seem to be able to edit the same type of tables with little trouble, so I'm going to copy the instructions there to the front of this page as well, hoping that will clarify how to edit this for everyone. Una74 15:57, December 10, 2011 (UTC)

What happened to some of the more recent posts?

Just wondering what happened to some of the more recent posts. They were deleted by various search committees, as simple as that!

venting archive?

Should older posts on this page be archived at some point? It's getting really huge, and scrolling through it to edit previewed posts takes my browser a while (maybe other people are fine).

Good suggestion. Venting from 2008-2010 now archived here: 2008 Venting, 2009 Venting, 2010 Venting. The front page now only includes 2011 vents so far. Hope this will make things more manageable. Una74 21:39, March 27, 2011 (UTC)

Misc.

4/4/08 Did anyone see the "name-posting repartee" on the art history page under University of Virginia (Medieval)?

2012-1-19

This isn't exactly a vent but a request to academic wiki admins to create a page on the site where the job ads are organized in terms of universities. I am not sure if it is as difficult a process as I imagine it is, but it's the kind of page that would be truly informative in the sense that wiki-ers would have a tangible idea of what kind of hiring across the humanities is taking place. Since the ads are currently sorted in terms of areas of specialization, I don't quite have a sense of how, say, University X compares in terms of increased/decreased hiring when seen in the contexts of different departments in that university, or other universities in the same research tier, and then across tiers. It would be great to hear what people think of the idea for having such a page; perhaps I am being lazy in wanting the statistics served on a platter! Having made such a request for what I think would be an improvement, I have to say I am a big fan of the wiki as its stands and, for all its pragmatic benefits, my own gratitude is for having a community to feel a part of!

A: This is an interesting idea, but I believe it might be more labor-intensive than you might think. I think, right now, admins. would not be able to take this on, but if you or some other users wanted to try to start and build such a page, administrators could and would provide support. Thanks for your support of the wiki. --Una74 22:17, January 26, 2012 (UTC)

Content relocated from main page 11/7/17

The content below has been relocated from the main venting page. For background, see previous discussion here. --Una74 (talk) 03:08, November 7, 2017 (UTC)

11-03-2017	This kind of slander has no place on the venting page, sheesh.
2017	Michael Berube is trolling adjuncts again. See comments. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/27/split-verdict-graham-spanier This is an email to Scott Jasik, editor of Inside Higher Ed. I sent it twice, thinking it might have gone to his spam folder. No response. I don't care if he responds or not, but he shouldn't allow this bully, Michael Berube, to break the terms of use on his website. And he shouldn't remove beniegn comments like this one. The moderator deleted this comment and closed the thread at the same time. If they are going to allow Michael Berube to insult others and make personal attacks, that should be the policy for everyone. Dear Inside Higher Ed (Scott Jasik), I would like to know why my comment on this website was deleted. It's not appropriate to critique how the moderators favor an endowed professor? But it's OK for him to bully and insult others in the same comments? That's a poor professional practice on many levels.  This is the article and below it is my comment. You should reconsider what you've done and post the remarks.  -NYC Adjunct  https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/27/split-verdict-graham-spanier Pointing out how Bérubé’s essay interprets “coach” may absolve him, and that the essay has apology in it, doesn’t make the reader stupid or malevolent, or worthy of being repeatedly insulted and intimidated. He also terms Freehdom friendo, a threatening and aggressive termed used to scare someone. I don’t understand how personal attacks and repeated insults toward others could be approved by the moderator. People use anonymous names in comments because of what Bérubé is doing. But Michael Bérubé, just because he’s an endowed chair or someone who has published in Inside Higher Ed, shouldn’t be able to break the terms of use on this website. He shouldn’t be able to attack people like this. I am sure that if Freeh-dome had posted a link to reading buddy for Bérubé, or a link to a troll, it wouldn’t be approved by the moderator. It’s probably part of Bérubé’s full endowed professor privileges. It looks like three distinct issues: 1)  Berube’s defense of Paterno (apology for facilitating child rape, says Joe could be innocent) 2)  Berube bullying people who point out the article exculpates Paterno 3)  Scott Jaschik’s preferential comment moderation, in which he allows Berube to break TOS and deletes responses to Berube’s asshole remarks (Jaschik facilitates Berube’s bullying of others) On #1, it’s hard to believe that Michael Berube would try to cook up something so stupid as “coach” meaning “Sanduscky” and using it to invent “we don’t know.” But he did it. The people involved are all his friends and yes, he may have been in denial about it. His responsibility was to look beyond friendship and sear these criminals, but he apologized for them, making up a story that made it possible for innocence. Asshole. Asshole. Asshole. He’s not the grown up frat boy who rapes children, but he is the one who argues that a rape facilitator could be innocent. “We don’t know.”  (We = apologists only) On #2, Berube is an asshole. He bullies and attacks ad hominem but only when the person is anonymous or way below him in power. That’s typical of bullies, characteristic of the dreadful combination he has... insecurity, power and narcissism. he's surrounded by people like Scott Jaschik, who facilitate his attacks. Just like Berube uses his stick to argue Paterno’s innocence, Jaschik uses his to allow Berube to attack others. The frat boys are a network. Are they all assholes, like Michael Berube? That’s a question for #3.  And look at this* Historiann, a full professor, says she found the piece “apologetic” and “strange” and “Most of the people who liked his essay appear to be apologists for Penn State, big football, JoPa, or all of the above.”  https://historiann.com/2012/10/23/so-why-did-you-resign-again/ What’s interesting is Michael Berube’s response to a tenured professor like him. She makes the exact same observations as “Freeh-dom” but Berube doesn’t call her stupid, or post a link to reading buddy. Of course not. Bullies work like that, only down the latter, at people more vulnerable than themselves. Read his comments:  Actually, I was a little surprised by the number of people who didn’t think there was a sufficient explanation of why I resigned the chair. Quite apart from the supplementary explanation I provided on Facebook (about resigning the chair as a precondition of commenting on the scandal that has engulfed my institution), I thought that these two passages were fairly clear. –Michael Berube She makes the same comment but receives these remarks instead of insults, why exactly? Because Michael Berube is a piece of shit who bullies people. And he only aims down at people he feels aren’t his equals. This makes me understand his hatred for Rebecca Schuman described below.  On #3 Scott Jaschik may not be an asshole but his actions makes it seem that way. Jaschik and Berube are probably old friends/buddies/acquintances from the conference circuit, or grad school, or by whatever friends in common they have. That doesn’t mean Jaschik should let Berube bully people on his website, or break the Terms of Service. Does the privilege Jaschik gives to an asshole like Michael Berube make Jaschik an asshole too? Maybe to a lesser agree. Well, yes it does. Allowing people to attack others and call them stupid, post memes about reading skills, really, Jaschik, that’s fratboy prick behavior. Take if From One Who Knows. Berube came to Penn State precisely to pal around with Paterno and the football program. That’s what being “Paterno Chair” was all about. I suspect Paterno consulted with Berube about Sandusky’s shower incident in 2001. It would explain why Berube has always insisted on Paterno’s innocence. I lived in College Park from 2005-2008 and was nowhere near the football team or the English department. I heard rumors about Sandusky. I thought people who didn’t like the football program were joking. There’s no way this professor who knows all the people involved hadn’t heard the same things. There were in the comments of the State College newspaper website long before the story broke. What I find strange about Berube’s comments is that about what he himself said them. He made the apologies for Paterno. He tries to deflect responsibility by these unhinged attacks when people point it out. But only some people. If it’s his peer saying it, he is respectful and polite.  As for Jaschik, he is very likely one of Berube’s many Ivy League connections, like the people at the Village Voice and the Atlantic who jumpstarted his career. (Berube’s elite private Ivy-feeder high school didn’t hurt, either.) So not only does Jaschik open and close IHE comment threads at Berube’s request, and delete and block commenters who are critical of Berube. Apparently he also feeds Berube information about pseudonymous commenters’ employment status so that Berube knows who to attack (adjuncts) and when to be polite and deferential (admin, tenured faculty like Historiann). The whole frat party culture at IHE makes me physically ill. Berube’s frat boy and Ivy league stuff with Jascik doesn’t bother me, Jascick can do what he wants with his own website as far as I am concerned, but Berube's deferential treatment of Historiann is cowardly. He won’t attack people on his level.
8-1-2014	See the conversation about Rebecca Schuman: Wikipedia Talk: "Berube trolls Rebecca Schuman" and Talk:Michael Bérubé "It is indeed remarkable that Michael Bérubé, a full professor and former president of MLA, could be so immature. This page is surreal, like reading comments from a teenager. Take away the endowed full professor title and read these comments on Schuman and his tawdry attacks on others, he comes off not only as a troll but also a jerk and a bully. His patronizing and constant condescension toward others seems like a parody of a Full Professor mansplaining meme." Berube was absolutely owned! Hilarious! This is upsetting. Michael Bérubé should do us all a favor and retire. Imagine someone like this reading your application materials? Ugggg.... People who are so vain and petty and obviously insecure bring all of that to their judgments of dossiers. It's all quite ironic too as he has defended Salita, and yet he attacks people who post from anonymous IP addresses, calling them cowards! What a jerk. I guess that's why he stuck at Penn State? Reading the wikipedia discussion again, though, I get the feeling that Michael Bérubé is not the only "famous" full professor who is disrepectful to others (especially those who disagree with him) and generally a terrible example of professionalism. Bérubé has a lot in common with Joe Lieberman. His corporate liberalism is a perfect match for the “Public Ivy” Penn State. Smack in the Alabama between Philly and Pitt, he’s Penn State’s resident Fox News “Liberal” who argues leftish positions in a way that makes right wing arguments stronger. As he often calls himself part of the “left,” this gives a veneer of credibility to a very conservative English department. His pathetic comments on the Paterno chair could have been written by a football booster or the outgoing president himself. Instead of addressing a toxic culture of macho stooges who enforce silence and have each other’s back, even when abusing children, Bérubé was all apologies and aimed his criticism at the Freeh Report. The football and the money and the “history” of Penn State are all more important, and his apologetic piece said exactly that. Trolling a pregnant woman and people on wikipedia are right in character for him these days.  Michael Berube is a troll for sure, but I can't access that link. Is there another way to read the comments about Rebecca Schuman? I'd like to read them too. It's strange how far to the right he is on tenure and academic labor in general, but I guess it goes with the territory of his generation, and with those who become professors after spending their formative years in elite universities. They tend to tacitly defend the hierarchy and structures of the status quo, even if they don't realize it, under the guises of change or something "else." Their suggestions are often the same narrative under new slogans. There is a Bérubé meme circulating that is quite funny but I can't find it again. If it could be posted as well as the text of his attacks on Schuman, cheers. Berube’s bullying of Rebecca Schuman takes the form of “catastrophizing” the way she quoted him. What she did was rather ordinary but Berube attacks her by describing it as a dreadful event, so bad that he had to do all this to compensate for his victim status. Catastrophizing declares that acceptable and normal actions are too appalling to stand, and allows Berube, supposedly a “victim” of Schuman, to demean her publically. This is a man who lives in the very safe and privileged world of tenured endowed professorship, who has a giant office with all the perks, probably a nice home and very high salary, and who probably teaches a class once in a great while but regularly travels the world on “research” trips that don’t come out of his salary, and he can’t bear that this woman who’s an adjunct didn’t quote him the way he would like in a blog post? This is what sucks about the academy: people like Michael Berube. So learn this you little worthless peons like Rebecca Schuman, Berube may be quoted or paraphrase only in ways he deems acceptable. If you don’t, he will attack you. Yes, he bullies someone else’s right to open their mouth and say words. Why is it *only* people like him, and just like him in every way, who attack people in this way? (x3) Michael Bérube makes me sad. Years ago he seemed poised to become an outsider in a cordoned off academy, a voice for the excluded, sometimes female, sometimes disabled or minority, underdogs. Now that’s all gone. He’d rather spend his time attacking a pregnant Rebecca Schuman and trolling his wikipedia talk page. His curiosity and openness about others have devolved into this kind of smug knowingness, full circle from activist to bully. I don’t think growing into an angry professor caricature was the original plan. It’s unfortunate how academic status brings out the worst in people. M. Bérubé was never an activist! Except maybe in his support for Bush.  This. A thousand times this. And it’s true as well of Berube’s Bros, the so-called “activists” of the 1990s. Nelson turned into a hardline Zionist ideologue and a shill for the UI admin in the Salaita affair, and Bousquet spent about three years of leave time blustering on the higher-ed comment threads and haranguing graduate students about how important his work is. Not a one of them has accomplished anything tangible for contingent faculty. You can put all three in a bag and throw them in the river as far as I’m concerned.: The mention of Marc Bousquet makes me think someone is sockpuppeting again.  Bérubé isn’t done trolling her either. This entry from an IP in Wash DC appeared the same morning he was in DC for an AAUP event. http://academicjobs.wikia.com/wiki/The_venting_page?oldid=441023 He removes the link to his bizarre and unhinged Wikipedia bullying and replaces it with a link to other people--not him--trolling Schuman. Or someone else in DC made that change and it’s some huge coincidence. Sure. See also: https://tropicsofmeta.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/not-all-humans-are-haters-a-response-to-slates-rebecca-schuman-2/.