As a marginal minority, SJMR is one of the few places for people like me to get access to information in the profession. It equalizes access to information. Please don't spam it or make it useless.
SJMR is good for equal access
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The job listings have been gone for a long time, and the journal info is not frequently updated. So this is no longer the case. It’s too bad. I left the ASA the moment I got a job, but I went back in the market, and liked having a free job bank here. But this is not due to spam. This happened with the last attempted, semi-successful, boycott.
As for the handful of topics and people discussed, if someone came into the faculty lounge talking about them, I’d immediately know they’re an SJMR user (and keep it cool of course). Because it’s niche interest, not general.
Sadly, no equalizing anymore.
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Why do people come to anonymous forums? They don't get included in other discussions, or not as equal partners.
Imagine you're a factory worker and the factories in your area don't have a inter-factory union or forum. On an anonymous forum, workers can come to vent, share, and speak up. How is SJMR different?
With all the bad things that come with it, anonymous forums generally increase inclusion in a field.
It doesn't create the discriminations and bad political conversations -- they were already there in the field.
As a minority group me bet, I REALLY hope this is a joke.
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With all the bad things that come with it, anonymous forums generally increase inclusion in a field.
I agree in theory. The execution is what's lacking here. Moderation and anti-spam efforts would go a long way to making this forum useful again.Agreed. But who moderates an anonymous forum, except for by people in the field? Shouldn't we try to self-govern, and try to talk about real questions more here?
Everyone can do that. Especially if you've learned something useful here, you should post more real stuff here, so that the forum doesn't get spammed out easily.
I disagree with protests and efforts to shut it down. It doesn't solve real hatred and discrimination, only potentially sending people onto more extreme forums.
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That of cour se de pen ds entirely what the anonymous forum is about. SJM R doesn’t discuss the US (and certainly not global) depart m en tal lands cap e at all. My empl oyer, for example, is the on ly one in the state, and on e of only 2-3 in the region, to be discu ssed in SJMR. This leaves out less er ra nked, les ser known, direct ional, regional, etc., not fam ous S/LACs, which is wh ere the vast majority of job candid ates will be placed.
Of cou rse, the stron gest pr edi ctor of being mentioned here is drama. Followed by a few other sensati onal topics, which make for pas sionat e onl ine discu ssion, but again, don’t really speak to the average departmental dramas. So even that aspect doesn’t really tell the average marginali zed person much.
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Oops. My stuff keeps getting deleted
Not going to try and fix it. So the factory workers, in this analogy, are not actually talking shop in a way that gives them a leg up. SJMR has long been the island of misfit toys of sociology. Because come here precisely because of how different it is from mainstream US sociology.
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1. I think “average marginalized person” is a weird term. Could you clarify what profile you have in mind when you say that? There are all kinds of marginalized person. That I’m not “average marginalized person” doesn’t mean I’m not marginalized.
2. Your earlier post says this forum talks about only major departments. Then goes on in this post to say it’s for misfits and not mainstream sociology. I’m confused
3. This forum isn’t going to get anyone a job, if “a leg up” means that. But it does produces information about the discipline for all to get.
Oops. My stuff keeps getting deleted
Not going to try and fix it. So the factory workers, in this analogy, are not actually talking shop in a way that gives them a leg up. SJMR has long been the island of misfit toys of sociology. Because come here precisely because of how different it is from mainstream US sociology. -
1. When you introduced yourself as a marginalized minority group member, was this supposed to be in reference to a category nobody could make sense of? It was introduced generally, so it was taken generally.
I presumed you were making reference to the generally written about obstacles in the form of human and social capital, as this specifically effects how students and junior faculty are ill/informed about how institutional sociology and the academy in general work. If you are talking about a specific marginalized group that this does not apply to, I think it would be prudent to specify.
2. There’s no discrepancy. SJMR talks about gossip in a handful of major programs. But these are usually not the programs sociologists belong to. Major programs are rare, so this is not an odds with a juxtaposition with the mainstream.
Second, the observation that SJMR users mostly discuss gossip in a few major programs was not a declaration that they belong to them. They usually don’t.
The island of misfit toys reference is how the average SJMR user is juxtaposed with the field of sociology in general. Generally, in terms of ideology and belief. See what the average person complains about, for example, when they call for SJMR boycotts. They believe it simply doesn’t belong. The average users obviously disagrees. This is not at all an assessment of what universities the average user is placed at.
I said all this mindful of myself. I do in fact work at one of the major universities gossiped about here. But in teams of ethnicity, ideology, and class background, I feel like an outsider in my department.
3. I’m not just speaking about jobs. Or conferences and publishing opportunities.
In general, the information discussed here is extremely skewed. A lot of what is discussed here is not of general interest to the average sociologist, provides little to no practical value, and is demonstrably inaccurate. Some of it is certainl
...See full post -
1. I was talking about racially marginal. I thought that would be the one of the things people think about when talking about "marginal", so I didn't specify that.
2. Thank you for sharing your experience for feeling an outsider due to ethnicity/ideology/class background. I think it proves my point that SJMR is inclusive -- in that it allows people to get info and also to share their experience, speak up equally.
3. A few things that have helped me on SJMR: understanding who the successful job market candidates are, and looking at their CVs help me understand what's valued at job market; journal turnaround rates; grievances of people at other departments (e.g. feelings about tenure denials), which help me understand what people in my field are going through and what I shall expect if I'm going to be in their position one day.
I didn't find these information easily accessible at Reddit or Twitter, none of which I use anyways. And being a marginal person was why I felt more comfortable here than on Twitter.
1. When you introduced yourself as a marginalized minority group member, was this supposed to be in reference to a category nobody could make sense of? It was introduced generally, so it was taken generally.
...See full post
I presumed you were making reference to the generally written about obstacles in the form of human and social capital, as this specifically effects how students and junior faculty are ill/informed about how institutional sociology and the academy in general work. If you are talking about a specific marginalized group that this does not apply to, I think it would be prudent to specify.
2. There�s no discrepancy. SJMR talks about gossip in a handful of major programs. But these are usually not the programs sociologists belong to. Major programs are rare, so this is not an odds with a juxtaposition with the mainstream.
Second, the observation that SJMR users mostly discuss gossip in a few major progra