[2009-01-16 05:59] Noah Slater <nslater@tumbolia.org> > On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 10:00:04PM +0100, markus schnalke wrote: > > I know it is not possible to _know_ the real percentage of uses which > > submit popcon stats of all users. But I want to ask for guesses, > > because more oppinions do likely improve the result. > > This question of trying to figure out whether a book is good or bad by > looking at it carefully or by taking the reports of a lot of people who > looked at it carelessly is like this famous old problem: Nobody was > permitted to see the Emperor of China, and the question was, What is the > length of the Emperor of China's nose? To find out, you go all over the > country asking people what they think the length of the Emperor of China's > nose is, and you average it. And that would be very "accurate" because you > averaged so many people. But it's no way to find anything out; when you have > a very wide range of people who contribute without looking carefully at it, > you don't improve your knowledge of the situation by averaging. > > -- Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Good point, but one may refer to the Delphi method: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method However, the answers I received actually helped my. Not because they were estimations, but because they were comments for what to keep in mind. In any way, I believe more oppinions do improve results, but not by telling numbers one can average, but by showing how others see the situation. This widens the own view. meillo
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature