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> No, LinkedIn does not "shows degrees-in-progress and completed degrees the same way".

It does.

> LinkedIn lets you type what you want.

It also does, it doesn't contradict the previous sentence. As I said, Linked in does not have data item for degree being complete or not (I am not sure how familiar you are with data modeling, but situation of having a model for some property and deriving it from ad-hoc texts in unrelated data items are very different). Some people do extra work by using degree name or other fields to work around this, some don't bother. Neither are liars.

> That is exactly what people do on paper resumes, which also let you type what you want.

No, that's a very different case. Paper resume is completely freeform. Linkedin has set of forms, some of which are free text, which you can use - if you want to - to cover for shortcomings in other places, like use degree or program name to express completion status. Some don't bother to because they think it's be clear from context. Sometimes it is not. It happens. It'd be good to recognize that.

> Because falsely claiming (or even giving the impression of claiming) an academic degree is a giant no-no. People get fired for that.

People get fired for all kinds of things, like expressing unpopular opinion, as it turns out. But there's world of difference between claiming the degree on resume (which didn't happen) and somebody misreading ambiguous output of a site.

> You repeatedly ignore that he also falsely claimed to be a chess master.

Why I should address this unrelated claim before we address the one at point? If you admit you were wrong on the Linkedin part - and recognize the fact both claims are personal attacks, since they have little to do with the claims Damore is making or you were making - we can consider the chess thing. Before that it's just a distraction - what about this? what about that? what about that third thing? forget that I didn't prove the first two, what about the fourth thing? Nope, won't work this way. You have to substantiate every one of your claims, not just bring a new one once previous one was questioned.

> I see your DARVO.

You are implying that you're somehow a victim here? Nice one. So far you are the one denying the facts (as in, ones about Damore's performance) and personally attacking him (as in, bringing irrelevant claims about his character to discussion about his factual claims), and of course claiming that somebody here is "offender", without any proof of offense made - unless you consider you misunderstanding Damore's Linkedin profile as "offense" to you and you being "victim"? That'd be rich. The fact that you have a nice acronym in your pocket doesn't change any of that.



The claims of "falsely claimed a PhD on LinkedIn" and "falsely claimed to be a chess master on his resume" are not "unrelated". They are closely related examples of the same behavior. If he's a liar on his resume (and he is), it is much easier to believe that he's a liar on LinkedIn.

Spare me the condescension on data modeling. LinkedIn barely has a data model; it is a modestly structured version of a resume, with a bunch of free text fields. It is not a "very different case". People will often ask for "a resume or a LinkedIn link" in job applications because they serve the same purpose. LinkedIn will automatically render your LinkedIn profile in resume form. They are in practice the same.

And in either case, if you say "PhD, Systems Biology, Harvard" in the education section, reasonable people will believe you claim to have a PhD. That's how I read it. That's how many people read it. And if you did a user test, I'm sure that's how most people would read it. That anonymous Damore fanboys now claim they'd read it differently is not proof of anything about the wider world.

You can claim that it was a mistake on his part (and others have), or that his documented social ineptitude (as his fellow students talked about) mean that he just didn't understand the social implications of what he wrote. But then you would have to grapple with the other lie on his resume, which is why you are spinning so vigorously away from it.

I am not denying any "facts" about Damore's performance. I agree he worked at Google and didn't get fired for a while. I agree that he claims his performance was great. Those are facts. As I said at the beginning of this thread, I'd like to see that for myself. People who lie on resumes are not trustworthy sources for their job performance.




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