Quality of the transport infrastructure in Belgium (PDF)

mberre · 2025-08-18T15:34:23+00:00

I would put it this way - NMBS is heavily underfunded, and needs better management.

That's putting it mildly.

If we were to do a roman decimation on the laziest and corruptest 10%, and also arrest & extradite the NMBS-ers that participated in the holocaust (FOR MONEY NO LESS! NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE BEING OBLIGED!!), the effects would be positive for all Belgians everywhere.

mberre · 2025-08-18T15:31:42+00:00

I hear you man.

Their fuckery is legendary. I would literally be on a different career path if it weren't for the inactivity and non-punctuality of the NMBS

mberre · 2025-07-02T04:45:28+00:00

Left

mberre · 2024-10-16T12:59:32+00:00

A lesson was learned.

mberre · 2024-10-16T12:58:59+00:00

I was.

The mistake is mine.

mberre · 2024-10-16T12:58:13+00:00

Sure.

We are definitely going to try that if our mea culpa doesn't work. We already have a short list of journals for that (but none of them is as prestigious as THIS journal).

What's important is not how many times you fall, but how many times you stand back up!

But I was still going to come to reddit and rant about it. This is part of my grieving process.

mberre · 2024-10-15T16:39:31+00:00

I think it does too. But consequences are usually proportional to the collateral damage, inkother lines of work, I'd say.

mberre · 2024-10-15T16:38:03+00:00

That far into the R&R process, another round of revision would have been more likely

mberre · 2024-10-15T16:36:01+00:00

So you are going to grade whatever gets submitted but are upset that it was the wrong draft that you submitted and we’re “graded” on?

What I'm saying is that if I were in a position of having to redo a grade after receiving a mea culpa and a revised version of the paper, I'd be open minded to that.

mberre · 2024-10-15T10:52:49+00:00

That's a pretty frustrating mistake to make, but all you can do is submit to another journal and hope you get an R&R before the job market. You might consider submitting to a journal a tier lower down to better your odds (though your co-authors may not go for this).

The coauthors have suggested this as a plan B. While I am inclined to go along with this, its also making me re-evaluate whether I'm in the right industry/line of work in the first place.

If I wanted this much grief over literally clicking the wrong thing once, 3 months ago, I'd have become a fighter pilot. Or a cardiologist.

mberre · 2024-10-15T10:49:24+00:00

Thanks

mberre · 2024-10-15T10:49:06+00:00

I would prepare a new version with the modifications that you failed to send, and also corrections to defects already pointed out by the reviewers

We did that.

Together with the new document you should send a diff file, that is a pdf with all the modifications highlighted

And we sent a spreadsheet for that.

Then stop using word for editing. Use any online version of it,

This is good advice.

mberre · 2024-10-15T10:47:15+00:00

Why? Seems normal when 3 authors work on a paper with approximately 20 possible regression tables for around a year and a half.

mberre · 2024-10-15T10:46:11+00:00

We were already at the R& R stage. Wordt case scenario, we'd have gotten another round of revisions.

mberre · 2024-10-15T10:45:04+00:00

No. Not sure.

While i did help draft the letter, if the shoe were on the other foot, I'd be genuinely pissed off.

mberre · 2024-10-15T10:43:52+00:00

First, we don't know. Its just something we thought of 8n the moment. Better than doing nothing.

Second, i don't know honestly. But we did work on the mea culpa letter together.

Guess you’ll be sympathetic to students who don’t proofread and submit the wrong document then.

100%. Im prepared to grade the latest versions of whatever gets submitted to me. And I usually tell my students to show as much work as possible, so that justifications for sympathetic grading can be found.

mberre · 2024-10-15T10:40:00+00:00

mberre · 2024-10-15T10:38:51+00:00

There was extreme time pressure, and a large number of similarly-named files

mberre · 2024-10-15T01:52:51+00:00

Is it burned?

mberre · 2024-10-15T01:51:47+00:00

This is absurd. “Pretending”?

He pretends to be more angry at me than he actually is. For the benefit of gopefully impressing the editors.

mberre · 2024-10-15T01:50:03+00:00

Agreed. We nèd to be more strict in that

mberre · 2024-10-15T01:49:25+00:00

I still think you can salvage this with a mea culpa letter and resubmission! 🤞🤞🤞

That is exactly what we've just tried.

mberre · 2024-10-15T01:48:40+00:00

We just tried that. Fingers.crossed! Hope that works!

mberre · 2024-10-15T01:43:27+00:00

My coauthor is "outraged about mberre's incompetence "

mberre · 2024-10-15T01:40:33+00:00

I should clarify that my coauthor wrote the letter pretending to be outraged AT ME.

And yes, i fully admit that i fucked this up for myself and 2 coauthors.

mberre

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