3 ms·

But even if dataset is incomplete or not accurate, do you think we could at least get directionally right insights from such datasets?

• chaps 2y ago
  Yes, of course there can be. But I cannot ignore the harms in doing so, by misrepresenting the data in a way that disallows others to understand what is or isn't there -- it happens regularly. These datasets are often used as a political tool and contracted with local universities to show that they're providing data... though not actually providing the accurate data. Simultaneously though, people who don't know data will champion the data as accurate because it comes from a university program. Sometimes what can happen is that somebody inexperienced will try to make some assessment of the data and come to the exact wrong conclusion because they didn't know what not to trust. But it gets on the news anyway and damage is done. We can do better than that.