alt Hacker NewsWe do not yet know just how the story unfolded between the two people listed on the byline. Consider the possibility that one author fabricated the quotes without the knowledge of the other. The sin of inadequate paranoia about a deceptive colleague is not the same weight as the sin of deception.
Now to be clear, that’s a hypothetical and who knows what the actual story is — but whatever it is, it will emerge in mere days. I can wait that long before throwing away two lives, even if you can’t.
> Bubbling that liability up to Arse Technica is valuable for punishing them
Evaluating whether Ars Technica establishes credible accountability mechanisms, such as hiring an Ombud, is at least as important as punishing individuals.
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That's what bylines are for, though. Both authors are attributed, and are therefore both responsible. If they didn't both review the article before submitting that's their problem. It's exaggerating to call this throwing away two lives, if all they do for a living is hit the big green button on crap journalism then I'm fine with them re-skilling to something less detrimental.
I agree that reserving judgement and separating the roles of individuals from the response of the organization are all critical here. Its not the first time that one of their staff were found to have behaved badly, in the case that jumps to my mind from a few years ago Peter Bright was sentenced to 12 years on sex charges involving a minor1. So, sometimes people do bad things, commit crimes, etc. but this may or may not have much to do with their employer.
Did Ars respond in any way after the conviction of their ex-writer? Better vetting of their hires might have been a response. Apparently there was a record of some questionable opinions held by the ex-writer. I don't know, personally, if any of their policies changed.
The current suspected bad behavior involved the possibility that the journalists were lacking integrity in their jobs. So if this possibility is confirmed I expect to see publicly announced structural changes in the editorial process at Ars Technica if I am to continue to be a subscriber and reader.
1 https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/ex-ars-writer-sentence...
Edit: Fixed italics issue