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Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

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Re: Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

#31

Post by Quanttek »

ourworldindata wrote: post #12
kauffj wrote: post #6

One possible improvement is to provide a way for the community at large to discuss/criticize possible problems with the data as well as for Our World in Data to respond to criticisms from the public. Recently, Bill Gates issued a Tweet demonstrating excitement for progress in diminishing global poverty, citing Our World in Data: https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1086662632587907072 This received substantial push b…

A community discussion forum to discuss research would be great. I'd be interested in hearing what you would suggest? We have discussed whether something like StackOverflow, but for global development, would be possible. I think we are too small for it though. If we'd build a platform we'd need a big group of engaged contributors and we don't think we are big enough for that yet. I read the newspaper article and have…

I'm on mobile, so I can't provide you the full run-down. In short, I feel like the main problem is an understanding of "development" that may agree with popular conceptions, the UN, and the concept used by economists. However, this doesn't incorporate the thoughtful critiques of critical scholars that show the limits of such a narrow concept centered around economic development. There's a lot on how the cultural, social, political, and ecological dimensions are neglected, how it's operationalizations cover only a tiny sector of the economy (ignoring nature's and subsistence economy which are reduced whenever the financial economy is expanded), or how it reinforces Western and North-South power relations.

There's a lot of literature you might use to read up on this topic, especially critiques of the concept of sustainable topic. Of the top of my head, I can only think of "Ecofeminism" by Vandana Shiva & Maria Mies. While I personally disagree with the conclusions/recommendations of the book, this revolutionary book provides a thoughtful critique of development.

Re: Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

#32

Post by Hannah_OWID »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #24
ourworldindata wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A community discussion forum to discuss research would be great. I'd be interested in hearing what you would suggest? We have discussed whether something like StackOverflow, but for global development, would be possible. I think we are too small for it though. If we'd build a platform we'd need a big group of engaged contributors and we don't think we are big enough for that yet. I read the newspaper article and have…

We have been trying to engage the international development community in working with crowdsourcing of content in a wiki around water issues, https://akvopedia.org It hasn’t been very successful. I have seen efforts around using a StackOverflow model to get engagement, but it hasn’t been successful. The way we ended up getting content varied. We convinced those that had content to allow us to republish it in wiki sui…

Thanks for sharing your experiences on this. I hadn't heard of Akvopedia before, so it's new to me.

Agree that finding the right solution that sticks: is read by many, consistently kept up-to-date and gets the level so detail correct/unbiased is difficult to do.

We're trying our best to do our version of this work. It's reaching some people, but we can always do more/better. It's really helpful to hear experiences/responses from elsewhere which we can learn what works and doesn't.

Re: Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

#33

Post by Hannah_OWID »

kauffj wrote: post #27
ourworldindata wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A community discussion forum to discuss research would be great. I'd be interested in hearing what you would suggest? We have discussed whether something like StackOverflow, but for global development, would be possible. I think we are too small for it though. If we'd build a platform we'd need a big group of engaged contributors and we don't think we are big enough for that yet. I read the newspaper article and have…

Appreciate the response. I wish I had some great ideas here, but I don't. Maybe allow a discussion area, but only from those willing to go through some kind of accreditation process? The blog post that you link ( https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-history-methods ) is a great follow-up. But it looks like there is no connection to it from the source page ( https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-condit..…

It's funny that you make these suggestions, because they're all things we're grappling with/considering at the moment.

Until now, most of our work has been supply-driven: we write and work on what we think people want to know rather than actually asking them. This has probably been a mistake. We're really changing the way we work to be more demand-driven. This means possibly having some kind of area where people can ask questions, have discussions etc. It's definitely something we're considering.

And you're also right that we need to work on the connectivity between aspects of the site. We're in the middle of trying different designs and formats to try to nail down the best way to do this.

Re: Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

#34

Post by avip »

jpvelez wrote: post #30

I think the work you do is vastly important, and it is especially heartening that it originated in academia. In the age of choose-your-own-facts, academics of all stripes have a moral duty to engage the public on what is - and, crucially, what isn’t - known about nature and society. And they’re largely asleep at the switch. So this is major progress. A couple of long-term ideas: - breadth of topic: global development…

Absolutely agree. The danger of non-profitism is to build something useful and beautiful then forget to tell the world about it. I'm quite shocked I have never heard about OWID, even though I read the "cancer death decline" story only a few days ago.

Re: Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

#36

Post by ikeboy »

ourworldindata wrote: post #12
kauffj wrote: post #6

One possible improvement is to provide a way for the community at large to discuss/criticize possible problems with the data as well as for Our World in Data to respond to criticisms from the public. Recently, Bill Gates issued a Tweet demonstrating excitement for progress in diminishing global poverty, citing Our World in Data: https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1086662632587907072 This received substantial push b…

A community discussion forum to discuss research would be great. I'd be interested in hearing what you would suggest? We have discussed whether something like StackOverflow, but for global development, would be possible. I think we are too small for it though. If we'd build a platform we'd need a big group of engaged contributors and we don't think we are big enough for that yet. I read the newspaper article and have…

A subreddit would be great, no minimum size to open

Re: Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

#37

Post by alanaut24 »

kauffj wrote: post #6

One possible improvement is to provide a way for the community at large to discuss/criticize possible problems with the data as well as for Our World in Data to respond to criticisms from the public. Recently, Bill Gates issued a Tweet demonstrating excitement for progress in diminishing global poverty, citing Our World in Data: https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1086662632587907072 This received substantial push b…

I had been working on a pedagogical approach to social impact learning for many years now.

http://www.developfy.com became AmplifyAI.

Re: Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

#38

Post by ourworldindata »

ikeboy wrote: post #36
ourworldindata wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A community discussion forum to discuss research would be great. I'd be interested in hearing what you would suggest? We have discussed whether something like StackOverflow, but for global development, would be possible. I think we are too small for it though. If we'd build a platform we'd need a big group of engaged contributors and we don't think we are big enough for that yet. I read the newspaper article and have…

A subreddit would be great, no minimum size to open

I didn't think of that. Sounds like a good idea!

Re: Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

#39

Post by ourworldindata »

1ste wrote: post #23

Wow, this is awesome. I have a project where I want to visualise reported news and weather on the world including trends of news topics. It will be at world.ie (nothing there yet)

There should be many more projects like ours so I'm happy to hear that! I'd really like it if we had as much reporting on the slow long-term changes as we have media that focusses on single events in the last 24 hours.

Re: Launch HN: OurWorldInData (YC W19 Nonprofit) – Data on World’s Largest Problems

#40

Post by ourworldindata »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #22

This is absolutely fantastic ! I have been banging on about wanting a "ordered backlog" of global issues that could be used to anchor our politics in the daily twitter storms of our attention battles. This looks like it could become my go to site Good luck guys, we are rooting for you

Thank you very much!! Let us know if you are missing something to make it your go to site.
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