Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: Zac Medico <zmedico@g.o>
To: gentoo-project@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev-announce] Call for agenda items -- Council meeting 2011-12-13
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:36:45
Message-Id: 4EDD5563.1000503@gentoo.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev-announce] Call for agenda items -- Council meeting 2011-12-13 by "Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn"
1 On 12/05/2011 03:09 PM, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
2 > Zac Medico schrieb:
3 >> One person's common-sense behavioral model is another person's baseless
4 >> claim.
5 >
6 > Claims don't have to be based on data. You can come to a conclusion from
7 > experience/knowledge of working/researching/studying in a particular
8 > subject, or from opinions of those who did. Or you can say that this is
9 > your idea of "common sense". Or your can say that it is derived from
10 > your imagination.
11 >
12 > All these claims are valid and deserve attention, but in a discussion
13 > should be clearly labelled as what they are.
14
15 My intention wasn't to present anything as fact. It was to provide a
16 hypothetical mechanism for sampling bias, in order to demonstrate the
17 kinds of challenges involved in statistical analysis.
18
19 >>> One way to investigate would be to sample statements in the forum
20 >>> thread, and determining how many responded with personal preference and
21 >>> how many with practical arguments. It would still have to be accounted
22 >>> for those who try to rationalize their pre-conceived opinion with ad-hoc
23 >>> arguments, but better than nothing at all which is the current case.
24 >>
25 >> Sure, but that seems like more of an academic exercise than a practical
26 >> one. I think we'll better of with a judicial approach, where a group of
27 >> judges weighs a set of pros and cons. Gentoo's council is the closest
28 >> thing to that we have to a judiciary.
29 >
30 > I have just given an example of what I would have considered data/fact
31 > regarding the bias claim.
32
33 And I think that statistics are basically useless in the current
34 context, due to the challenges involved in obtaining a reasonably
35 unbiased sample. That's why I suggest that a judicial approach would be
36 most appropriate.
37 --
38 Thanks,
39 Zac