I'm not dead. Am I a hero? No.

#IDCC26 featured twenty paper presentations. The presentation slides from the paper sessions are now in our Zenodo community, and a number will be appearing as conference papers in IJDC over the coming months: zenodo.org/communities/...

It's disturbing how quickly we went from copyright weaponised to protect commercial interests (see, ever lengthening terms), to, actually copyright is a pain for commercial interests (see, this...).

What's your favourite George Orwell quote? Mine: "Can we not knock it?"

The standard of poster presentations at #IDCC26 was as high as ever, and getting more creative each year we do this. All 36 are now available to view. zenodo.org/communities/...

It's one poll blah blah disclaimer, but nine years ago Conservatives and Labour combined for 82.3 per cent of the vote in the UK General Election.

Just thinking back to when the manager of the football team I support gave a post-match interview where he claimed this was the worst group of players he's ever managed. He was gone within the hour.

Fascinating to watch the Gorton and Denton by-election coverage. That's three out of four parties basically adopting the line: it's not us, it's the electorate that are wrong/corrupt/manipulated [select all applicable options]

Thing is, it's not even the tone. Only *you* the reviewer can write constructive comments (you don't need the adverb here). If you can't, then you're not reviewing.

#IDCC26 featured a poster promoting the Sarah Jones Award, as nominations are open for the next edition. If someone's impressed you with an understanding and commitment to Open Science allied to an attitude towards collaboration, please put their name forward. www.rd-alliance.org/sarah-jones-...

Person on the table opposite got on to the train, sat, and plonked a copy of a book called _Question 7_ on the table. They opened it and lasted about ten minutes before switching to scroll on their phone. They're now smiling, which they weren't when reading the book. #AdventuresOnPublicTransport.

I know it's somewhat down the list of boneheaded behaviour here, but not backing up on Time Machine is just astonishing. It does, however, require connecting a usb to your machine, which is manual labour and therefore beneath the VC class.

Absolutely. Please do number 2 here. I don't think responding to a review request is an outrageous demand, after all, this is the business we have chosen. A "No" is far better to receive than no response at all.

Convinced that this official vetting process must have been along the lines of: "Jeff Epstein, the financier, with the island?" www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Congratulations to the brilliant @datarescueproject.org team: winners of the 2025 @rdapassociation.bsky.social Work of the Year Award. I'm glad they are recognised for their work, but hate they are having to do it. rdapassociation.org/news/13593532

In the Netherlands last year, I was in the vestibule of a crowded train next to a late teen/early twenties man who spent the half-an-hour he was there scrolling through instagram reels of street fighting and football related violence. Imagine dipping your head into that for hours every day.

Great songs don't necessarily make the times, but times eventually find the great songs. My 1990s take on RATM was essentially "alright, calm down lads" but here we are in 2026.

We've had five submissions already this year, all 28 days of it, that are definitely spammy, almost certainly genAI. And this is for a minor league journal on digital curation. God help the big names in experimental science.

It's Christmas in January!

Seems astonishing to me that very important people are still trying to reason with an attitude to the world that is essentially: We do what we want, and you do what we want.

The madman theory, but...he actually is mad! Brilliant.

Also an example of how AI is transforming policing. I remember when West Midlands police had to actually make up evidence themselves.

Of course, the longer this goes on the more I begin to doubt the answer.

To be fair, growing up in southern England, the north did seem to be some mysterious land. Does it have two Huddersfields? I don't know. Does Bradford even exist? Maybe, maybe not. Is Manchester 100 miles wide? Could be.

I cannot tell you how pleased I am that @mikalarae.bsky.social and @lyndamk.bsky.social agreed to do this. I imagine this isn’t going to be a comfort food keynote, but one that is critical, constructive, instructive, and ultimately inspiring. You can still join us #idcc26: dcc.ac.uk/events/idcc2...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Someone let Teams know we are back.

With pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the spirt. I'm signing off 2025. As for 2026; it can't go on like this, can it?

Forwarding on the basis that we're either in places where it has, is, or hasn't just yet: Rethinking the Role of Libraries as Democracies Falter ischool.illinois.edu/news/publica...

Not that they care, in fact, it is probably the intent, but this is not a "waiver," it's a visa!

This is caused almost entirely by UK governments who appear to think they are powerless to arrest or reverse it, but also seem to leap onto any policy choice that will make it worse.

Buried in here, but this was the 👀 line: "The website for applications would also be decommissioned, leaving a mobile app as the only platform to request a visa waiver."

Pleased to know World Cup draws are similar to how I put together a conference programme: "We'll skip that", "Can't have two papers from the same confederation". Mispronouncing names. Concludes with the Village People.

A positive aspect of this World Cup draw: I was right to hate Robbie Williams all these years.

There was an excellent webinar earlier this week on AI in digital repositories, organised by SIB under the @fidelis-project.bsky.social. Video www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvd4... and presentations drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Today's fun editorial task takes me to into an ontological discussion: is a screenshot of a table a table? Discuss.

Ideally timed for the 2025-12-25 market. Congratulations @kbriney.bsky.social!

Question here for repositories and archives, is there a corresponding rise in the submission or deposit of genAI slop datasets?

Workshop Alert! FIDELIS project virtual workshop: Adapting the FAIR-enabling data policy checklist for repositories Speakers: 🎤 @Joy Davidson & Laurence Horton (@laurencehorton.bsky.social) from @digitalcuration.bsky.social 🎟️ Registration is free: eden-fidelis.eu/events/adapt...

UK electorate: "Can you please just get public services functioning?" Labour government: "So, what we are hearing is you want us to rob asylum seekers? On it!"

The ability of publishers to bypass first sale doctrine when it comes to ebooks has been one of the great heists of our time.

Reminds me of the old line about the music industry: "Everyone's a one-hit wonder. If they're lucky." Just for the journal I help edit, there is one article that accounts for nearly 20 per cent of ALL views. The top five visited articles account for just over half of all abstract and article views.

I'm thinking about another Laurence Horton on this Remembrance Day. Laurence or Lawrence (birth certificate and index give different spellings) is my first cousin once removed. No, I am not named after him. #RemembranceDay #ArmisticeDay #LestWeForget

Heard comments that data rescue initiatives are nice but what we actually need is infrastructure. Well, yes. But resilience needs a foundation in people, so 👏@lyndamk.bsky.social "It's not just about the rescues, it's about the community we build through the rescues" www.404media.co/podcast-a-ma...

Two things you should think about very carefully before committing to are tattoos and adding documents to Sharepoint. You may regret them; you can never remove them.

My great wish for this moment in time is that my laptop calendar and phone calendar put aside whatever differences they may have and find a way to communicate with each other.

Also, there's nothing to *learn* about AI that can't be taught through a grounding in epistemology, logic, and ethics. Same old story about information systems and information and communication technologies.

Thinking back to a month a two ago when Sam Altman was reassuring us they'd solved the suicide machine problem, and so were giving us the chance to add big boobs to women.

I wonder if she's ever Meta social media company that could be providing a platform for extremist views?

From a data cleaning perspective the only thing worse than an open text field is a controlled vocabulary one.

One thing we try with IDCC is to give a platform to people working where we are visiting. Delighted to see this announced. @anticac.bsky.social will, no doubt, provide an engaging kick-off from the perspective of a researcher working in open science and based in Croatia. #IDCC26.