I will have no part in your efforts to redefine the scientific method on its talk page.
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Sage Ross <[email protected]<ragesoss%[email protected]> > wrote: > On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 11:58 PM, Brian <[email protected]> wrote: > > Quite frankly the advice that you should only use five subjects makes no > > sense. The appeal to Nielsen's authority is not going to work on me or > > anyone else who understands why the scientific method exists. It's > > unscientific thinking and it's going cause to you waste money. You're > going > > to draw conclusions based on results that simply aren't valid, and you > won't > > know it until the study is over and you didn't make progress. > > > > Careful analysis of site data could allow you to draw some conclusions. > I'm > > curious how you're planning to go about that. Dependent/independent > > variables? > > > > An exercise in statistical thinking: when everyone or almost everyone > cites problem X, how many people does it take to reach statistical > significance that X is a problem worth addressing? Even if the > results are a statistical fluke and in reality only 20% of new users > run into trouble with problem X, that's still a problem worth > addressing. > > The fact that so many of the 15 people had the same problems, and > those problems also align with common sense, is a strong indication > that the study has found some things worth fixing. > > There is more than one way to come to reliable conclusions. Any time > I see someone invoking "the [singular] scientific method", as if there > is only one and it is set in stone and universally agreed upon by all > rational people, I have trouble taking them seriously. See > [[Talk:Scientific method]]. > > -Sage (User:Ragesoss) > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
