[OSM-talk] Analysing the OSM community

[Robin Paulson]

On 29 March 2011 12:26, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Speaking as someone with a background in science I think I agree with
> Elizabeth's interpretation.
>
> I get the impression the study is much more subjective than solid, the
> sample size far too small to get any meaningful results other than this
> needs more research dollars to further define etc etc.

ah, you mean the language is elitist and highly complicated? yes, i
would agree - welcome to academia. i'm not sure what the catch phrase
of the angry redneck ('politically correct') has to do with that
though

and unfortunately this (complicated language) is common to any area of
any complexity, even the holy OSM itself.

personally (having a background in sociology), the abstract is
meaningful and does make sense. to a sociologist. to expect to
understand the language is like reading a phd thesis on astro-physics
and complaining because you can't understand it. these are complicated
themes, based on complicated theories. it's not written with amateur
GISers in mind, although it perhaps should be so the knowledge is made
available to the source it draws from

dissecting what and why: the type of study done here demands a small
sample set - it is not supposed to be representative, generalizable,
or follow any other ideals of the scientific method.

the value is in a huge amount of data from a small number of people,
learning about their understanding of the concepts, not bland
statistics like the number of edits they do, the date they joined osm,
etc. it is typically used to guide the creation of new theories, which
are then tested with quantitative research (asking for bland stats).
to anyone used to working with the scientific method (most comp sci,
engineering, physics, biology, electronics, etc, professionals), this
can look a bit lightweight, but it's a different way of ascribing
meaning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research

for more

> I've just been reading a study on licensing by a consultant.  Take out the
> jargon and it says the more liberal the license the more likely it is that
> people will use your "Open data".  Well yes but did we really need a study
> to discover that?

is that all it said? i'd be surprised if there wasn't slightly more

> I like jargon when it is used as a short hand way of expressing something to
> a group of people working in a field but not when it is used to add
> "respectability" to a report.

this is true, i'd agree, but you're in a difficult situation. how do
you explain difficult concepts, which may themselves rest on other
difficult concepts, without talking in this way?

-- 
robin

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