[OSM-talk] Survey coming

[Mike Thompson]

On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 1:03 PM Allan Mustard <
allan.mustard at osmfoundation.org> wrote:

> The respondents constitute a sample of the target population.
>
Yes, but for the results to represent what the population "think, believe,
and prefer" the sample must be representative.


Since we don't really know what the population looks like (we don't even
> know the breakdown by gender, do we?)
>
Have we defined the population (sorry if I missed it)? e.g. everyone who
has ever contributed to OSM? Everyone who has made at least x number of
edits in the last year? Everyone who has an account?, all OSMF members?
People who have attended a Sotm conference? Anyone who has ever used OSM
data? Anyone who is actively using OSM data? Anyone who has contributed
code to an OSM related software project? Subscribers to the mail lists?
Wiki editors? etc.

You do have a difficult job. Don't take my nitpicking as criticism of you
or the board.


... With a large enough sample, the law of big numbers [1] takes over.
>
 Yes of course, as long as the sample is representative of the population.
The law of large numbers doesn't correct for selection bias. For example,
it doesn't matter how many people you survey from wealthy zip codes about
the financial impact of COVID, the results are probably not going to
represent the overall impact to the population as lower income groups, such
as some restaurants workers, have been disproportionately impacted (one
reason in that example is that office work can be done from home, while
that isn't possible with restaurant work, so officer workers are more
likely to have kept their jobs, while restaurant workers have been more
likely to lose theirs).

So please amplify my original message and get the word out far and wide
> that the survey is coming and that the Board wants as many people as
> possible in the OSM community to take it.  E-mail, social media, all
> communications channels, please!
>
I will happily do what I can.

Thanks for serving on the board and for taking this initiative.

Mike
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20210110/1b1018bf/attachment.htm>