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> How could I know that you didn’t post it yourself? You can't? How could anyone else know that I didn't write "smells like outrage mongering", maybe I enjoy a

by keanzu 7y ago

> How could I know that you didn’t post it yourself? You can't? How could anyone else know that I didn't write "smells like outrage mongering", maybe I enjoy arguing with myself. The only people who know for sure are you and I ... if we are even two different people, maybe you are my sock puppet, maybe I am yours. Who can prove that we are or aren't? Assuming that I did write every comment in the entire tree - what difference does that make to any of the arguments?

AmericanChopper 7y ago
All perfectly reasonably points. Which is why anecdata should generally not be taken very seriously. Especially when the author of it has some seriously questionable motives, which is the case with Glassdoor. The two groups of people who have the strongest motive to post something on Glassdoor are disgruntled employees (and an employee can become disgruntled in any work place, no matter how good or how terrible it might be), and astroturfers (and perhaps also competitors, but I have no idea how good they are at policing that). It has exactly the same set of problems that any review site has. Perhaps it’s aggregate data can reveal some truths, perhaps not. But a single review (especially one that is either strongly negative or strongly positive) reveals nothing.
- keanzu 7y ago
  Upvoted. > But a single review reveals nothing. Agreed. The top comment presents a single review. Anecdata, little informational value - outrage mongering, fair point. That was responded to by Reedx who disputed the value of a single review (ok) and presented what was implied to be a broader cross-section of reviews. One of those felt peculiar, not phrasing I would expect in 59 independent reviews. I dug up the only sample I could find and smelled astroturf. Although my comment was negative I didn't address the point: "Why cherry pick 1 review?". Perhaps I should have opened by agreeing with Reedx that ancedata != data. Perhaps we can both agree to: Is Glassdoor a reliable and unbiased (including selection bias) source of information? Hell no. Did I contribute in some part to the outrage mongering by not affirming Reedx's good point and writing a wholly negative reply? Yes.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    I don’t disagree with anything here at all.

by keanzu 7y ago

AmericanChopper 7y ago

All perfectly reasonably points. Which is why anecdata should generally not be taken very seriously. Especially when the author of it has some seriously questionable motives, which is the case with Glassdoor. The two groups of people who have the strongest motive to post something on Glassdoor are disgruntled employees (and an employee can become disgruntled in any work place, no matter how good or how terrible it might be), and astroturfers (and perhaps also competitors, but I have no idea how good they are at policing that). It has exactly the same set of problems that any review site has. Perhaps it’s aggregate data can reveal some truths, perhaps not. But a single review (especially one that is either strongly negative or strongly positive) reveals nothing.

keanzu 7y ago
Upvoted. > But a single review reveals nothing. Agreed. The top comment presents a single review. Anecdata, little informational value - outrage mongering, fair point. That was responded to by Reedx who disputed the value of a single review (ok) and presented what was implied to be a broader cross-section of reviews. One of those felt peculiar, not phrasing I would expect in 59 independent reviews. I dug up the only sample I could find and smelled astroturf. Although my comment was negative I didn't address the point: "Why cherry pick 1 review?". Perhaps I should have opened by agreeing with Reedx that ancedata != data. Perhaps we can both agree to: Is Glassdoor a reliable and unbiased (including selection bias) source of information? Hell no. Did I contribute in some part to the outrage mongering by not affirming Reedx's good point and writing a wholly negative reply? Yes.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  I don’t disagree with anything here at all.