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Comment by macksd | Hacker News Reader

I think sidelining the lead researcher and giving the project to another group is accurately described at "gutting a team". No, they didn't end the project, but the series of events described seems to be insinuating that she could have led the project if she was willing to have her work funded by Facebook, listen to one of their former people, etc. So if that was their goal, and they just got someone else to do the work, is that any better?

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Noting that the project and all its documents are publicly accessible to anyone at https://fbarchive.org/.

But further work from the same leadership has been discontinued...

That's not quite what I imagine when I hear the term "gutting a team." Gutting a team is when then very significantly reduce its size and priority. Simply switching leadership of a project isn't gutting a team, it's normal university politics and infighting.

If they are forcing funding by Facebook/Meta, then that does seem like a conflict of interest, but is a quite a different headline.

The sidelining is to show damages to her reputation etc. Page 50 or so starts the description alleging how the administration and the dean gutted her department by blocking, reallocating funds, stopping hiring, and refusing to extend contracts when funds are available.

From what I gathered, they didn't simply switch leadership, they removed it entirely, along with the person doing the most work, replacing them with nothing, which effectively shut down the project.

Is there someone continuing it that I missed?

According to the complaint, "the project" was FB Archive, which Dr. Donovan came up with the idea for and was the only person in the room with the actual source material. The Public Interest Tech Lab was the organization actually tasked with building out FB Archive, which they did, and it shipped: https://fbarchive.org

I think Dr. Donovan's complaint is not that it didn't happen, so much as she was not allowed to play a larger role in it despite having the desire, the people, the funding, and the right--as the person who came up with the idea and the person who provided the material, without which there would be no project. (And then worse, history rewritten to exclude her contributions)

Who exactly did the university get to replace the lead researcher they dismissed*?

Who remains at the university doing the research halted by the dismissal* of the lead researcher?

* – whether overtly or via constructive dismissal

Fair, but it raises the question of the motives behind it. It would seem they didn't necessarily have a problem with the research, but rather with the lead researcher. There's complicated issues of academic freedom to parse here, but in principle, if you aren't happy with the work someone is doing, it's not entirely unreasonable that you'd let them go and have someone else pick up the work.

> It would seem they didn't necessarily have a problem with the research, but rather with the lead researcher

This is the entire crux of the issue; do they have a problem with the lead researcher because she isn't good at her job or because she is finding things that their large donor doesn't like?

Exactly. It's easy to presume one interpretation, but it's far from clear.

Exactly. The evidence* points to the act being corrupt, but the university is free to attempt to convince people otherwise.

* - The researcher being removed without any good cause evident

Universities don't work that way. There's generally very little oversight over the PI of projects. The university generally wants more projects leading to more publications and grants, not less. Administrators understand that removing a PI generally means abandoning their lab's projects, so it usually doesn't happen.

Usually being the operative word.

FWIW that's definitely not gutting a team. Swapping out leaders makes a big impact but it isn't gutting a team. It could lead to the same outcome.

In academia, it very much is the same thing.

An academic team isn't the same as a team in a company though, right? My understanding (which could be incorrect) is that a PI is almost like the CEO of a startup which happens to have the goal of doing research, and operates in the context of a university. A PI is not like a team lead in a company . Each PI-led team is doing research independently of the rest of the department. I have the impression it's not even expected to outlive the PI's employment there.

Imagine swapping out leaders and expecting the same outcomes. Why even bother?

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