TW, I want to thank you for putting this together, for looking at the evidence more closely than I did, for reminding me that Ben’s article violated my own standards of truthseeking, and for highlighting some of Kat’s evidence in more effective ways than Kat herself did. (of course, it also helps that you’re an outside observer.)
I hadn’t read some of those comments under Ben’s article (e.g. by Spencer G) until now. I am certain that if I personally had received evidence that I was potentially quite wrong about details of an important article I’d just published (or was about to publish), I’d be very concerned about that. I would start investigating and making changes immediately, I’d be embarrassed, and I’d be potentially very apologetic insofar as I was wrong ― but Ben and Hab wasn’t, and I don’t know why. So, I was persuaded to switch my vote from up to down on Ben’s article.
Now, Ben indicated that there were “many” other anonymous sources for the “Nonlinear is bad” vibe, but… well, he was unaware of the existence of more than half of NL’s staff. So I’d like to stop putting weight on these mysterious additional sources unless I find out more about who they were and what they had to say. A mistrial! Yes, let’s declare a mistrial.
well, he was unaware of the existence of more than half of NL’s staff.
If anyone has evidence that Ben was indeed this far off about the number of staff, please send it to me (or post it here). I am trying to look into this claim and am really struggling to find any trace of the 21 employees that Kat and drew claim have worked at Nonlinear.
I don’t see how you could get to 21 in addition to Kat, Drew and Emerson. There are maybe some contractors, short-term volunteers, and temporary unpaid interns, which I wouldn’t usually classify as employees, where if you count all of them, you might be able to have it add up (though even then I am struggling). I would really like to dig into this very large divergence between any traces I can find, and what Nonlinear is claiming. I’ve also reached out to Drew from Nonlinear about this.
Nonlinear responded and said that their final estimate of employees is actually 23. That number includes 11 volunteers (unpaid interns) as well as some unspecified number of contractors (my guess would be a substantial majority of the remaining ones, though see below for difficulties in drawing the line here).
I have asked for clarification on the breakdown between employees and contractors, though my understanding is that legally all employees of Nonlinear are paid as contractors, so there is no clear line here. Some contractor relationships obviously wouldn’t be relevant here (like paying for well-specified services like plumbing, copy-editing, or software development services, which to be clear I don’t know whether any such are included in the number), and some of them would be quite relevant (like if Alice and Chloe were technically paid as contractors).
TW, I want to thank you for putting this together, for looking at the evidence more closely than I did, for reminding me that Ben’s article violated my own standards of truthseeking, and for highlighting some of Kat’s evidence in more effective ways than Kat herself did. (of course, it also helps that you’re an outside observer.)
I hadn’t read some of those comments under Ben’s article (e.g. by Spencer G) until now. I am certain that if I personally had received evidence that I was potentially quite wrong about details of an important article I’d just published (or was about to publish), I’d be very concerned about that. I would start investigating and making changes immediately, I’d be embarrassed, and I’d be potentially very apologetic insofar as I was wrong ― but Ben
and Habwasn’t, and I don’t know why. So, I was persuaded to switch my vote from up to down on Ben’s article.Now, Ben indicated that there were “many” other anonymous sources for the “Nonlinear is bad” vibe, but… well, he was unaware of the existence of more than half of NL’s staff. So I’d like to stop putting weight on these mysterious additional sources unless I find out more about who they were and what they had to say. A mistrial! Yes, let’s declare a mistrial.
If anyone has evidence that Ben was indeed this far off about the number of staff, please send it to me (or post it here). I am trying to look into this claim and am really struggling to find any trace of the 21 employees that Kat and drew claim have worked at Nonlinear.
I don’t see how you could get to 21 in addition to Kat, Drew and Emerson. There are maybe some contractors, short-term volunteers, and temporary unpaid interns, which I wouldn’t usually classify as employees, where if you count all of them, you might be able to have it add up (though even then I am struggling). I would really like to dig into this very large divergence between any traces I can find, and what Nonlinear is claiming. I’ve also reached out to Drew from Nonlinear about this.
Nonlinear responded and said that their final estimate of employees is actually 23. That number includes 11 volunteers (unpaid interns) as well as some unspecified number of contractors (my guess would be a substantial majority of the remaining ones, though see below for difficulties in drawing the line here).
I have asked for clarification on the breakdown between employees and contractors, though my understanding is that legally all employees of Nonlinear are paid as contractors, so there is no clear line here. Some contractor relationships obviously wouldn’t be relevant here (like paying for well-specified services like plumbing, copy-editing, or software development services, which to be clear I don’t know whether any such are included in the number), and some of them would be quite relevant (like if Alice and Chloe were technically paid as contractors).