Hi all.
I'm Commie4Life, admin for Communication and Media Studies.
We've had a bit of a debate about disclusing names. 2 examples:
1. JOB X
Comment: "That's an inside hire of VAP Sarah Smith!"
2. JOB Y
Comment: Steve Miller got this offer and is still deciding. Yay Steve!
In the first, it is speculative.
In the second, this may be a friend/classmate of Steve Miller and Steve Miller may not be happy about the name post.
What are other discipline wikis' policies on this?
Commie4life 16:06, January 22, 2012 (UTC)
A: Thanks for your question! Practices seem to vary across the disciplines, and are sometimes fluid even within disciplines. For example, on the English lit pages, names of hires are almost never divulged---with the big exception of Creative Writing, where the community seems highly interested in naming people and does it freely. Religious Studies forbids all naming of candidates and hires. History seems more apt to give names, but usually only when they are announced by department email or via other online means (AFII could speak to this more, as s/he mostly looks after the History pages). That said, there was recently some heated discussion on the History talk page about the appropriateness of even giving a link to a publicly-posted announcement of job talks; in that discussion, the view that the link should not be given on this site prevailed, but I think reasonable people could disagree about that particular outcome.
My view is that publicly, officially announced names of hires (i.e. through departmental means, ideally including a link to the announcement) are best, given complications that can arise from naming earlier in the process ... but I am also sensative to the norms that appear to be accepted in a given discipline (i.e. Creative Writing). I think it is healthy for each discipline to discuss their particular standards for naming hires when the issue becomes controversial or problematic. Una74 16:37, January 22, 2012 (UTC)