A summary based on the quotes which I included in a separate comment:
Larry Madoff, who served as editor of the program from 2002 to 2021, said he was “forced out” by the organization’s CEO, Linda MacKinnon, according to STATnews.
It seems likely that something unfortunate is happening here, but I’m unclear what.
There was a letter written by several ProMED moderators, it appears that they objected to:
A letter going out to all ProMED subscribers proposing a subscription model;
this was signed by “The ProMED team” without the moderators being informed in advance; I don’t know much about what’s going on here, but this seems like a management issue;
they didn’t say it explicitly, but I’m guessing they are opposed to the subscription model, not just to the way the process was managed.
I don’t know enough to know whether the subscription model is a good idea.
They also objected to not receiving pay in a timely manner.
ISID CEO Linda MacKinnon’s response statement said: “this is unfortunately not a unique situation because ProMED has always operated on a shoestring budget. <...> We have addressed this more recently by stabilizing the predictability of payments. However, as we are currently in a funding pinch, we communicated in July to the ProMED team that some payments would be delayed, potentially up to two months.”
I’m unclear on what it could mean for them to have stabilised the predictability of payments (maybe they opted not to explain that for brevity?) Whatever it is, I’m unclear on how it could have been effective given the communications about payments being delayed for up to two months.
The moderators/editors who wrote the letter took the apparently strong action of suspending their work, even though they described it as a labour of love.
One of the details mentioned in Linda MacKinnon’s statement is that they plan to decommission scrapers. I’m confused by this, since I would have guessed that scrapers would be one of the more cost-effective components.
A summary based on the quotes which I included in a separate comment:
Larry Madoff, who served as editor of the program from 2002 to 2021, said he was “forced out” by the organization’s CEO, Linda MacKinnon, according to STATnews.
It seems likely that something unfortunate is happening here, but I’m unclear what.
There was a letter written by several ProMED moderators, it appears that they objected to:
A letter going out to all ProMED subscribers proposing a subscription model;
this was signed by “The ProMED team” without the moderators being informed in advance; I don’t know much about what’s going on here, but this seems like a management issue;
they didn’t say it explicitly, but I’m guessing they are opposed to the subscription model, not just to the way the process was managed.
I don’t know enough to know whether the subscription model is a good idea.
They also objected to not receiving pay in a timely manner.
ISID CEO Linda MacKinnon’s response statement said: “this is unfortunately not a unique situation because ProMED has always operated on a shoestring budget. <...> We have addressed this more recently by stabilizing the predictability of payments. However, as we are currently in a funding pinch, we communicated in July to the ProMED team that some payments would be delayed, potentially up to two months.”
I’m unclear on what it could mean for them to have stabilised the predictability of payments (maybe they opted not to explain that for brevity?) Whatever it is, I’m unclear on how it could have been effective given the communications about payments being delayed for up to two months.
The moderators/editors who wrote the letter took the apparently strong action of suspending their work, even though they described it as a labour of love.
One of the details mentioned in Linda MacKinnon’s statement is that they plan to decommission scrapers. I’m confused by this, since I would have guessed that scrapers would be one of the more cost-effective components.