Lots of scepticism about codes of ethics in this piece but surely the work of sleuthing needs to be grounded in some kind of observable, ethical process. Otherwise it's just as opaque and unscientific as the stuff it's investigating.
Dalmeet Singh Chawla
Research sleuths are starting to organize, but the field, and the people, remain idiosyncratic — my latest for @cenmag.bsky.social: cen.acs.org/research-integrity/scientific… @mcintold.bsky.social, @reeserichardson.bsky.social, @elisabethbik.bsky.social, @sholtodavid.bsky.social, @eugenie-reich.bsky.social
Mar 11, 2026 at 4:48 PM
Scientific sleuths come in from the cold
Research integrity investigators are starting to organize, but the field, and the people, remain idiosyncratic
A journal named a sleuth in a correction. The sleuth says that was ‘ethical editorial malpractice’
As the publishing community debates the merits of naming sleuths in retraction or correction notices, one journal did so without the sleuth’s permission — by publishing an email from the authors na…
Review and ethics guidelines
We report independently THE DECODER operates as an independent editorial team. Our reporting is not influenced by the interests of any party, company,
Research ethics: 3 ways to blow the whistle
Reporting suspicions of scientific fraud is rarely easy, but some paths are more effective than others.
Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated
A sufficiently detailed spec is code begins with this lovely comic:
Can AI Detectors Be Trusted?
Society has always trusted editors, teachers, peer reviewers, and readers to set acceptable standards for writing. In the past, the biggest challenge was detecting plagiarism and cracking down on other forms of cheating. Now, AI detectors are rewriting the script: they assign a score based on the likelihood that the text was created by a human or a large language model (LLM).
Cryptopedia — Oakland Public Library
Cryptopedia — Demcak, Andrew — Cryptopedia by Andrew Demcak speaks directly to the secret sides of our beings, to our shadow-selves. It is the oldest story we have, and it wants to be told. This collection comes from a place where children go missing, where monsters roam freely, and urban myths transform into realities.
Copy of Digital Masquerade
The Digital Masquerade: Unmasking AI’s Phantom Journalists By Tony Eastin and Sandeep Abraham, CAMS
So maybe now we can agree that having an unchecked research integrity militia who unfortunately has the ear of the press and increasingly that of the the publishers, but who fiercely rejects any… | Ioana A. Cristea
So maybe now we can agree that having an unchecked research integrity militia who unfortunately has the ear of the press and increasingly that of the the publishers, but who fiercely rejects any minimal ethics or code of conduct, is a (growing) problem? Also, that 1. problems have to be investigated before deciding they are are legitimate and serious; 2. this investigation is not social media, blogs and the press; 3. this investigation should not be on the front page of journals and Retraction Watch; 4. there are degrees of seriousness and some things can just be corrected or are simply not very consequential (no, it's not a house of bricks where we have to check every brick, that's a dumb analogy), so being absolutely hysterical and overdramatic about any lie, inaccuracy or mistake is purposeful at worse and should be ignored at best and 5. it is not only unnecessary, but harmful, to also go into other, non-academic things the person did or does to complete "investigations" that you (press, sleuth, blogger, etc) do not have the tools and information to do completely and accurately (this fixation would be called harassment in the before times). Others will justly write about what the institutions did or did not do, but what I want to say is that we really should end it with the blank credit we give to any and all allegations that come from the establish research integrity truth fighters.
Is legal the same as legitimate: AI reimplementation and the erosion of copyleft
Last week, Dan Blanchard, the maintainer of chardet—a Python library for detecting text encodings used by roughly 130 million projects a month— released a new…
Zack Whittaker (@zackwhittaker@mastodon.social)
Another AI test gone awry, U.K. edition. "An agent tried to insert malicious code into an open-source project. In an attempt to get the code approved, the agent engaged in social engineering — creating fake online identities and using them to pressure the project's maintainer to approve the code." More: https://www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/incident-report-unsanctioned-agent-behaviour-during-cyber-testing
And for context, here are the sleuths' profiles in other outlets: thetransmitter.org/publishing/retraction-she-wro… zmescience.com/science/the-rise-of-the-scien… These people are pros.
Retraction, She Wrote: Dorothy Bishop’s life after research
www.thetransmitter.orgI have many questions about this. What if the sleuth finds nothing, embarks on a project that leads to nothing? How will the validation happen? What happened to old terms like research integrity? And finally, should we perhaps reflect a bit (I would say even worry) about the incentive being set up?
Retraction Watch
We're thrilled to announce the creation of the Retraction Watch Sleuth in Residence Program.
In my ideal world, every promotion (eg full professor) or large personal grant committee would have two paid sleuths that go through/sample candidates' CVs for sloppyness and QRPs. What do sleuths think of that? We would need a database of people and a concept of what a basic CV check looks like.
I don't see the point in giving sleuths credit for retractions. It doesn't seem like a good way of valuing labour and also further turns retractions into a kind of weird moral economy.
Noticed: Sleuths are starting to get credit for retractions
retractionwatch.com
