OK, so this is funny.

Seems the American Society for Criminology had their annual meeting recently.

And they had a meeting on research integrity (which given all the recent fuss, makes sense).

After the panel, *the panelists hot-mic'd themselves* in a subsequent discussion. https://twitter.com/JustinTPickett/status/1199481735337193472

And posted it to Youtube.
...then emailed it to hundreds of people.
...then left it up for several days.
...then took it down.

Hilariously bad A/V management, of course, and would normally just be a bit funny/embarrassing, and not at all my problem.

Except I'm in it.

At 1.27 a voice says "They're going through and scanning issues of Criminology - the 'data thug' people... Most of my colleagues got an email."

Categorical statement: no, we aren't. I have no enduring interest in your journal, and I haven't read a single article in the field ...

beyond those originally sent to me anonymously.

And I might add, that anonymous head-kicker obviously had a point, because the retractions are coming. https://twitter.com/DalmeetS/status/1199538187422429185

I'm barely involved in this at all. And it wouldn't be scuttlebutt if I was - you'd know. I'm not coming through your back door. I'll walk right up to the front door and knock. I'm highly nonymous.

So if people in criminology are emailing each other, you have two options:

(1) this isn't happening at all, and this is idle chatter
(2) this whole fuss has emboldened everyone who has problems in your research area to do something about it.

Let's assume it's (2).

Academic fields which are controlled by fiefdom become weak when the 'important people' start protecting unlikely or indefensible work because it's produced by insiders. When it becomes acceptable to question that work - maybe it has now - the critical floodgates open.

My prediction is: there's a back-end network of people (probably junior people, ~postdoc/ass.pro.) who talk to each other about problems they see in the work they read, past and present, and they're highly dissatisfied with the whole thing. If they're asking questions ...

... anonymously (which is the only reason you might think they were me or @sTeamTraen) then that means they still fear the repercussions of calling out bullshit that they see. Still not a healthy environment, but progress IMO.

If that's what's happening here, good. Considering I *discussed the possibility of this only a month ago*, I'm grimly satisfied up in here.

And get my name out of your mouth. I'm not part of your drama.

https://medium.com/@jamesheathers/the-protraction-of-retraction-8a00ffc9b210

Thank you to @JustinTPickett for the link. This isn't the first time I've heard misguided idle bullshit talked about me, and it won't be the last - but it is very informative to know what people are really saying.