4 ms·

>I can think of contexts, especially when n=15(if this was a statistical study on insulin response to artificial sweeteners, people would be saying the sample s

by slg 6y ago

>I can think of contexts, especially when n=15(if this was a statistical study on insulin response to artificial sweeteners, people would be saying the sample size is too small to draw conclusions), but I don't know if developing hypothetical scenarios is useful. N = 15 while p ≈ 20. It has been a while since I have taken a stats class, but that sample seems plenty large enough to me. >Learning the true context is most important. This could be done by corroborating allegations for example. Corroborating is exactly what journalists do. From the article: >five people with knowledge of the situation said. >But according to 23 current and former Coinbase employees, five of whom spoke on the record, as well as internal documents and recordings of conversations >according to a recording of the session shared with The New York Times >In a company email he sent later, which was also shared with The Times >wrote in a Slack message that was viewed by The Times. >three people briefed on the situation said >according to a recording of the event >according to a copy of the message seen by The Times >according to a copy reviewed by The Times. >two people with knowledge of the situation said The NYT talked to dozens of people, watched/listened to multiple recordings, and viewed numerous emails and Slack messages. This story is corroborated.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
oh_sigh 6y ago
If you order the claims in the article on a scale of not racist at all to clearly racist, you'll see basically all of the corroboration comes from claims on the left side of that scale, and few if any on the right side. The claims I was specifically thinking about were things like: > One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-worker at a recruiting meeting broadly described Black employees as less capable. Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced white employees. The accumulation of incidents, they said, led to the wave of departures. These have no corroboration, even though they allegedly happened in front of multiple coworkers.
- slg 6y ago
  We don't need to corroborate each individual complaint. The story here isn't that one employee was passed over for a promotion. The story is the trend that all these anecdotes support. There is corroboration for the trend.
  - googlryas 6y ago
    But the point is that the corroborations are all on the lesser or non-complaints of the article, not the most egregious ones. To make an extreme example, posting a series of actual facts that culminate in aliens have visited earth doesn't make the latter assertion any more true. edit: Sorry, I'm the poster from above, I just posted from my phone which has a different account logged in that I originally intended to give hiring advice unlinked to my main account(opsec fail).
    - slg 6y ago
      The egregious complaints are corroborated by the other egregious complaints. Let's use another example in which evidence is hard to find: sexual assault. If one woman accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, the burden of proof for her story is high. She would need some pretty strong evidence to get Cosby charged let alone convicted. She probably wouldn't even receive coverage in the mainstream media without some other form of evidence. However the entire situation would change if she was one of 60 women coming forward. Suddenly the burden of proof for that first woman is greatly diminished. Each individual's story is corroborated by someone else having a very similar story.
      - tomp 6y ago
        > Each individual's story is corroborated by someone else having a very similar story. Our culture is full of anecdotes and stories that serve as a warning why this is a very bad idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
        6y ago
opinion-is-bad 6y ago
Addressing only the viability of the sample for basic binomial analysis, the sample size is on the small end. This would be okay if we could reasonably expect the underlying events to follow identical and independent distributions, but when we know the people involved worked together that assumption is clearly void. Unfortunately this means we really can’t use any sort of statistical analysis on this datum. The models just don’t support it.

by slg 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

oh_sigh 6y ago

If you order the claims in the article on a scale of not racist at all to clearly racist, you'll see basically all of the corroboration comes from claims on the left side of that scale, and few if any on the right side. The claims I was specifically thinking about were things like: > One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-worker at a recruiting meeting broadly described Black employees as less capable. Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced white employees. The accumulation of incidents, they said, led to the wave of departures. These have no corroboration, even though they allegedly happened in front of multiple coworkers.

slg 6y ago
We don't need to corroborate each individual complaint. The story here isn't that one employee was passed over for a promotion. The story is the trend that all these anecdotes support. There is corroboration for the trend.
- googlryas 6y ago
  But the point is that the corroborations are all on the lesser or non-complaints of the article, not the most egregious ones. To make an extreme example, posting a series of actual facts that culminate in aliens have visited earth doesn't make the latter assertion any more true. edit: Sorry, I'm the poster from above, I just posted from my phone which has a different account logged in that I originally intended to give hiring advice unlinked to my main account(opsec fail).
  - slg 6y ago
    The egregious complaints are corroborated by the other egregious complaints. Let's use another example in which evidence is hard to find: sexual assault. If one woman accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, the burden of proof for her story is high. She would need some pretty strong evidence to get Cosby charged let alone convicted. She probably wouldn't even receive coverage in the mainstream media without some other form of evidence. However the entire situation would change if she was one of 60 women coming forward. Suddenly the burden of proof for that first woman is greatly diminished. Each individual's story is corroborated by someone else having a very similar story.
    - tomp 6y ago
      > Each individual's story is corroborated by someone else having a very similar story. Our culture is full of anecdotes and stories that serve as a warning why this is a very bad idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
      - 6y ago

opinion-is-bad 6y ago

Addressing only the viability of the sample for basic binomial analysis, the sample size is on the small end. This would be okay if we could reasonably expect the underlying events to follow identical and independent distributions, but when we know the people involved worked together that assumption is clearly void. Unfortunately this means we really can’t use any sort of statistical analysis on this datum. The models just don’t support it.