Posted by
Michael Lenczner on
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/maybe-OT-values-of-CivicAccess-tp1420p1426.html
I'm responding to Hugh's post because I'm concerned that my point
being mischaracterized.
I didn't email as a caution to this group. I am not trying to
convince anybody else that they should share my mistrust is of the
practices of data-driven decision making although I liked Tracey's
email and I appreciate Robin's point of the manipulablility of data.
I was writing specifically to say that I don't give blanket support to
the premise of better decisions through access more data. I think
that practice is a very political one which can and has been used by
people who's agenda I disagree with. I think assuming that we all
support that practice makes CA political in a way that we haven't
specifically agreed to. (Not trying to say that CA shouldn't be
political. It is and it should be. But in ways that are explicit and
agreed upon.)
A perfect example is Ibelieveinopen's second pledge. (
http://ibelieveinopen.ca/about/ )
"2. Make campaign promises specific and measurable, and report
progress on promises and their metrics at least semi-annually.
At work, most ordinary citizens have regular performance reviews.
These reviews chart progress that has been made on specific goals.
With Members of Parliament, and the government in general, tracking
performance is difficult because promises made during election time
are usually neither specific nor measurable.
In honouring this pledge, Members of Parliament must publish a
timeline for achieving their promises, along with specific metrics
that can be used to judge whether or not a promise has been kept."
It seems like a neutral point, but personally I do support this part
of the pledge. I respect the thoughts of people who would and I'm
happy to ally with them on the question of getting access to
information, but I do not want my participation here to be construed
as support for this type of policy. It doesn't correspond to my
politics.
And it doesn't correspond to my philosophy either (if that's a
possible distinction). I don't really have a lot of belief in the
concept of "raw data". I don't believe that data is a neutral object
around which different stakeholders will be forced to leave their
ideologies aside. . I think it can have play that role (of a
boundary object (thanks for that term, Tracey)) sometimes, but I
respond much more to Tracey's comment "Further, I want to have a
conversation with public officials, the private sector, and some NGOs
on a level playing field, which is hard to do when they have a
monopoly on the data and information.". I would like to empower
people who don't have access to data to be able to employ data in
their own ways to reflect their own agendas and ideologies. If, for
questions of having less resources, you don't have access to the
numbers that someone else is using to construct arguments, your
ability to respond is limited.
I don't think we're here because we share a concern about government
waste. There are other groups and other spaces for that. I don't
think we should be here because we want to suggest alternative
management practices for the government or because we all agree that
want to see innovative new solutions to social problems. There are
other spaces for that as well (someone can make a WorldChanging for
Canada). And I don't think we're here to support my goal of
empowering the social sector. I think we're here because we share a
desire to change practices and policies around *access to information
and data*. I think that's enough for us to accomplish wonderful work
as a community. And accomplishing that specific goal can help us work
separately on whatever other agendas we care about and want to
promote.
Hope that makes sense. And I've very much valued the other emails on
this topic.
mike
On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 6:59 PM, Hugh McGuire <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> mike,
>
> one example from the David Simon talk was: Baltimore's police chief
> promised a decrease in crime. And succeeded in dropping all crime by
> 40%, except murders. How did the police force achieve such success? By
> changing how crimes were classified...so armed robberies became
> robberies, robberies became larcenies... etc. So it was a data-shell
> game, but murders did not go down because you can't hide the bodies.
> In fact, nothing changed except how the stats were recorded.
>
> Re justice: I think broadly I would equate "justice" with good
> decision-making. That is, when societies make more of the kinds of
> decisions that improve people's lives, it makes for a more just
> society. And by opening up data to people I expect us to have "better"
> decisions, hence more justice.
>
> The thing about opening up data is that people who care can and will
> look at the data, at the methods, at the background, and I think/hope
> it will be harder to hide bullshit behind numbers if the data is open,
> and the methodologies are known.
>
> It would be interesting to track this particular hypothesis though ...
>
> Right now, if all you get is a police statement that crime is going
> down, and a pdf with "stats" to prove it ... you don't have much to go
> on. If you get the whole dataset, it's a different matter.
>
> So if you open things up, you are likely to have more statistical
> damned liars, AND more rigorous checking, and the hope is that the
> checking balances out, and overshadows the liars.
>
> But it's an interesting caution.
>
> h.
>
>
> On Nov 18, 2008, at 5:48 PM, Michael Lenczner wrote:
>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> Since we started CA, the question of common goals / values has been a
>> question. I'm don't think it needs to be 100% clear but I'm glad we
>> haven't assumed consensus on issues that haven't been explored, and
>> I'm glad that we don't assume that we all have the same values or
>> strategies for social change. I think everyone is pretty cool with
>> the idea that there's people from different places on the political
>> spectrum, and that we are well off coming together to work on this
>> specific goal of access to civic info and data.
>>
>> I wanted to share my concern about another issue. I've been picking up
>> on a perceived idea that we're all equally excited about data-driven
>> decision making. I wonder how true that is. Personally I get
>> concerned by a lot of imagined practices I see around access to data.
>> There's a whole positivist / empiricist side to it that kinda freaks
>> me out.
>>
>> I can imagine us often making better decisions with access to more
>> data, but I can also imagine us making worse decisions by relying too
>> much on that practice. The reason I'm here is that access to
>> information is a justice issue. I don't think it is just that we
>> don't have access to our own civic information, and I think that we
>> would have a more just society if access to these resources were
>> opened up. Redressing that injustice is a goal in itself for me and
>> secondarily I'm excited about issues of transparency in terms of the
>> relation between citizen and government. Data-driven decision making
>> (ie: better decision) is farther down as a priority for me. Down
>> further still is the goal of increased efficiency.
>>
>> I don't necessarily respect the evaluation + management tools that are
>> currently being pushed on the non-profit sector and I would not be
>> comfortable with promoting more single-minded use of those tools by
>> our public bodies. There's too many difficulties around the
>> production of knowledge (data) and useful framing of it for me not to
>> be ambivalent about encouraging their use.
>>
>> That being said, I respect that there are others that have a different
>> set of priorities for being here and I'm not trying to convince
>> anybody. I'm glad that we are here to work together on the question
>> of access and possibilities for disseminating and using that
>> info/data.
>>
>> I've been thinking about this for a while, but Hugh posted a video by
>> the journalist behind the Wire that prompted my email. It points to
>> some difficulties of making decisions from a distanced, solely
>> quantitative knowledge of an issue.
>> via Hugh's blog
>>
http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/webcast_Simon.shtml>>
>> Hope that made sense.
>>
>> Since I'm on the topic, I'm glad that we've developed a respectful
>> culture here. No flaming and there's a good dialogue between new
>> people, technical experts and policy experts. Congrats for us. :-)
>> _______________________________________________
>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>>
[hidden email]
>>
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>
[hidden email]
>
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss>
On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 6:59 PM, Hugh McGuire <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> mike,
>
> one example from the David Simon talk was: Baltimore's police chief
> promised a decrease in crime. And succeeded in dropping all crime by
> 40%, except murders. How did the police force achieve such success? By
> changing how crimes were classified...so armed robberies became
> robberies, robberies became larcenies... etc. So it was a data-shell
> game, but murders did not go down because you can't hide the bodies.
> In fact, nothing changed except how the stats were recorded.
>
> Re justice: I think broadly I would equate "justice" with good
> decision-making. That is, when societies make more of the kinds of
> decisions that improve people's lives, it makes for a more just
> society. And by opening up data to people I expect us to have "better"
> decisions, hence more justice.
>
> The thing about opening up data is that people who care can and will
> look at the data, at the methods, at the background, and I think/hope
> it will be harder to hide bullshit behind numbers if the data is open,
> and the methodologies are known.
>
> It would be interesting to track this particular hypothesis though ...
>
> Right now, if all you get is a police statement that crime is going
> down, and a pdf with "stats" to prove it ... you don't have much to go
> on. If you get the whole dataset, it's a different matter.
>
> So if you open things up, you are likely to have more statistical
> damned liars, AND more rigorous checking, and the hope is that the
> checking balances out, and overshadows the liars.
>
> But it's an interesting caution.
>
> h.
>
>
> On Nov 18, 2008, at 5:48 PM, Michael Lenczner wrote:
>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> Since we started CA, the question of common goals / values has been a
>> question. I'm don't think it needs to be 100% clear but I'm glad we
>> haven't assumed consensus on issues that haven't been explored, and
>> I'm glad that we don't assume that we all have the same values or
>> strategies for social change. I think everyone is pretty cool with
>> the idea that there's people from different places on the political
>> spectrum, and that we are well off coming together to work on this
>> specific goal of access to civic info and data.
>>
>> I wanted to share my concern about another issue. I've been picking up
>> on a perceived idea that we're all equally excited about data-driven
>> decision making. I wonder how true that is. Personally I get
>> concerned by a lot of imagined practices I see around access to data.
>> There's a whole positivist / empiricist side to it that kinda freaks
>> me out.
>>
>> I can imagine us often making better decisions with access to more
>> data, but I can also imagine us making worse decisions by relying too
>> much on that practice. The reason I'm here is that access to
>> information is a justice issue. I don't think it is just that we
>> don't have access to our own civic information, and I think that we
>> would have a more just society if access to these resources were
>> opened up. Redressing that injustice is a goal in itself for me and
>> secondarily I'm excited about issues of transparency in terms of the
>> relation between citizen and government. Data-driven decision making
>> (ie: better decision) is farther down as a priority for me. Down
>> further still is the goal of increased efficiency.
>>
>> I don't necessarily respect the evaluation + management tools that are
>> currently being pushed on the non-profit sector and I would not be
>> comfortable with promoting more single-minded use of those tools by
>> our public bodies. There's too many difficulties around the
>> production of knowledge (data) and useful framing of it for me not to
>> be ambivalent about encouraging their use.
>>
>> That being said, I respect that there are others that have a different
>> set of priorities for being here and I'm not trying to convince
>> anybody. I'm glad that we are here to work together on the question
>> of access and possibilities for disseminating and using that
>> info/data.
>>
>> I've been thinking about this for a while, but Hugh posted a video by
>> the journalist behind the Wire that prompted my email. It points to
>> some difficulties of making decisions from a distanced, solely
>> quantitative knowledge of an issue.
>> via Hugh's blog
>>
http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/webcast_Simon.shtml>>
>> Hope that made sense.
>>
>> Since I'm on the topic, I'm glad that we've developed a respectful
>> culture here. No flaming and there's a good dialogue between new
>> people, technical experts and policy experts. Congrats for us. :-)
>> _______________________________________________
>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>>
[hidden email]
>>
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>
[hidden email]
>
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss>