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She submitted her paper late for internal review when it was too late for revisions. It might be the case that most papers are submitted late for internal revie

by freyir 5y ago

She submitted her paper late for internal review when it was too late for revisions. It might be the case that most papers are submitted late for internal review, but most papers don’t expressly criticize the employer’s work. That’s an important distinction, and it was naive to not anticipate that the paper might get extra scrutiny. Regardless, being upset because you didn’t get your way doesn’t give you carte blanche to do unprofessional things that will get you fired. You can’t say “Give me X or I quit” and not assume there’s a chance your bluff will be called (especially when “X” is a demand for the company to violate its own policies).

joshuamorton 5y ago
But her paper passed the internal review. It failed some additional internal review that wasn't policy at the time.
- freyir 5y ago
  No, there was only one internal review. It didn’t pass, and it was too late for her to make revisions because it was past the conference deadline.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    You're factually wrong. I was literally able to view her paper, and it's approved status, in the internal tool where papers are approved for publication.
    - freyir 5y ago
      This directly contradicts what Jeff Dean wrote: “A cross functional team then reviewed the paper as part of our regular process and the authors were informed that it didn’t meet our bar for publication” (emphasis mine).
      - choppaface 5y ago
        That sentence was written after Dean had a lawyer represent him.
        freyir 5y ago
        Which makes it more likely to be the truth, not less likely. It would be very foolish to write that if it were demonstrably false, as was claimed above. And I have to assume their lawyers aren’t very foolish. But this is all another deflection. Whether the paper was rejected by a regular process or an irregular process, it doesn’t condone her actions that followed.
        sillysaurusx 5y ago
        > Whether the paper was rejected by a regular process or an irregular process, it doesn’t condone her actions that followed This is where we'll have to agree to disagree. As you can see in this thread, she was treated unfairly. Someone confirmed to you that this is the case, and you're still arguing that her subsequent behavior was unjustifiable. I think her subsequent behavior was a result of the unfair treatment. I'm not sure how I would've reacted in her place, and I have a lot of empathy for a scientist who is being scrutinized outside of normal policies. Her paper was anodyne. No one would've blinked if it was published. And I think you keep saying that it's okay for a research department to stop publication of scientific work regardless of whether the paper was mistaken or not. You've said that it needs revisions. I work in ML. It seemed not to need any revisions, as far as I could tell. Google's reaction seemed far out of proportion for what the paper claimed. You can say "Well, that's life. Google didn't do anything wrong." The former is true, but I'm skeptical of the latter.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        jollybean 5y ago
        "As you can see in this thread, she was treated unfairly. S" This is not true. The fact that she may or may not have had extra scrutiny than others, within regular policy or not is completely besides the point. If a company, for whatever reason, wants to have 'another review' of the paper, it's completely within their purview. "Her paper was anodyne. No one would've blinked if it was published." Our view of whether it was notable or not is irrelevant. If the company wanted to put the brakes on it, especially because it related to Google, then that's their choice. It's hugely arrogant for her to make the claims she did - let alone publicly (!) - by all right she should have been fired for that, she was luckily the conditions enabled her to even try to establish the premise of her own resignation.
choppaface 5y ago
Other papers were late and didn’t receive the same prejudice.
- texasbigdata 5y ago
  Which ones? Specifically. After the, (my words), harrasment of Lacun on Twitter, the sort of belittling of the internal award she was given (you'd have to really think they were evil to give her an award just to gaslight her), plus the short notice ultimatum to a very senior person (one level down from Jeff Dean right?)....no offense but from the outside she seems exhausting to manage. The abstract came out, and honestly the paper was so so. Obviously it went against googles business model, but it'd be a wayyyy bigger scandal if they burried it. Maybe Jeff Dean is a liar, but his comment was the paper missed incorporating significant recent research. As head of the group, and just out of respect towards the institution and to science, pondering it for more than 48 hours before bouncing on vacation or heaven forbid presenting at the next conference would have been reasonable. Biased external view though. YRMV.

by freyir 5y ago

joshuamorton 5y ago

But her paper passed the internal review. It failed some additional internal review that wasn't policy at the time.

freyir 5y ago
No, there was only one internal review. It didn’t pass, and it was too late for her to make revisions because it was past the conference deadline.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  You're factually wrong. I was literally able to view her paper, and it's approved status, in the internal tool where papers are approved for publication.
  - freyir 5y ago
    This directly contradicts what Jeff Dean wrote: “A cross functional team then reviewed the paper as part of our regular process and the authors were informed that it didn’t meet our bar for publication” (emphasis mine).
    - choppaface 5y ago
      That sentence was written after Dean had a lawyer represent him.
      - freyir 5y ago
        Which makes it more likely to be the truth, not less likely. It would be very foolish to write that if it were demonstrably false, as was claimed above. And I have to assume their lawyers aren’t very foolish. But this is all another deflection. Whether the paper was rejected by a regular process or an irregular process, it doesn’t condone her actions that followed.
        sillysaurusx 5y ago
        > Whether the paper was rejected by a regular process or an irregular process, it doesn’t condone her actions that followed This is where we'll have to agree to disagree. As you can see in this thread, she was treated unfairly. Someone confirmed to you that this is the case, and you're still arguing that her subsequent behavior was unjustifiable. I think her subsequent behavior was a result of the unfair treatment. I'm not sure how I would've reacted in her place, and I have a lot of empathy for a scientist who is being scrutinized outside of normal policies. Her paper was anodyne. No one would've blinked if it was published. And I think you keep saying that it's okay for a research department to stop publication of scientific work regardless of whether the paper was mistaken or not. You've said that it needs revisions. I work in ML. It seemed not to need any revisions, as far as I could tell. Google's reaction seemed far out of proportion for what the paper claimed. You can say "Well, that's life. Google didn't do anything wrong." The former is true, but I'm skeptical of the latter.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        jollybean 5y ago
        "As you can see in this thread, she was treated unfairly. S" This is not true. The fact that she may or may not have had extra scrutiny than others, within regular policy or not is completely besides the point. If a company, for whatever reason, wants to have 'another review' of the paper, it's completely within their purview. "Her paper was anodyne. No one would've blinked if it was published." Our view of whether it was notable or not is irrelevant. If the company wanted to put the brakes on it, especially because it related to Google, then that's their choice. It's hugely arrogant for her to make the claims she did - let alone publicly (!) - by all right she should have been fired for that, she was luckily the conditions enabled her to even try to establish the premise of her own resignation.

choppaface 5y ago

Other papers were late and didn’t receive the same prejudice.

texasbigdata 5y ago
Which ones? Specifically. After the, (my words), harrasment of Lacun on Twitter, the sort of belittling of the internal award she was given (you'd have to really think they were evil to give her an award just to gaslight her), plus the short notice ultimatum to a very senior person (one level down from Jeff Dean right?)....no offense but from the outside she seems exhausting to manage. The abstract came out, and honestly the paper was so so. Obviously it went against googles business model, but it'd be a wayyyy bigger scandal if they burried it. Maybe Jeff Dean is a liar, but his comment was the paper missed incorporating significant recent research. As head of the group, and just out of respect towards the institution and to science, pondering it for more than 48 hours before bouncing on vacation or heaven forbid presenting at the next conference would have been reasonable. Biased external view though. YRMV.