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Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2025-26)

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QUERY rule for job reporting thread?

In our newest “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

Some food for thought re: organizing the job market reporting thread, which can get a bit unwieldy, as well as lowering ordinarily high levels of philosophy-professor neuroticism—how would people feel about instituting a rule that comments of the query type are only postable a month after the deadline closes? I do think a rule like this is in order… most departments are pretty slow.

I’m happy for users to informally institute a rule like this, but I don’t think it’s something that I can institute or enforce effectively, as I don’t know when job apps are due.

What do readers involved in the reporting thread think about this?

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3 responses to “QUERY rule for job reporting thread?”

  1. Anonymous

    Counterpoint: since the new platform can display more comments at once and direct replies are possible, it doesn’t seem to matter when a query is posted. Instead, people should be encouraged to ctrl-f for the job before posting a new query. When people have news or a pfo they can also search for the original query to post under. This would reduce the number of independent queries for the same job!

    If people are having trouble with checking the thread too often, perhaps they should consider getting an extension that can set a time limit for websites, or block the page entirely.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous2

    This rule seems to make a lot of sense. Whie I agree with Anonymous above that one could try to block out, it’s really hard to do so once you know a query is out there.

    In any case, I don’t know why anyone would oppose a guideline like this. Posting queries so soon (e.g. within a week or even a few days) doesn’t seem to have positive expected utility in general.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    I agree that such queries are annoying, but I don’t think a rule is needed. The queries are not that common, in any case.

    Reply

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