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OOXML Vote and the CPI Corruption Index
Tapani Tarvainen writes "It turns out there's an interesting correlation between Transparency International's 'corruption perceptions index' and voting behavior in ISO's OOXML decision. Countries with a lower score (more corruption) on the 2006 CPI were more likely to vote in favor of OOXML, and those with a higher score were less likely. According to the analysis, 'This statistics supports with a P value of 0.07328 the hypothesis that the corrupted countries were more likely to vote for approval (one-tailed Fisher's Exact test). In other words, simplified a bit: the likelihood that there was no positive correlation between the corruption level and probability of an approval vote, that is, this is just a random effect, is about 7%.' Of course, correlation doesn't prove causality."
I've put up a little website with some initial thoughts, and I'd appreciate feedback from the slashdot community please.
Countries like India and China ... home to over 33% of the world's population - have voted "NO". Countires like Cote' de Ivorie and Cyprus have equal voting rights.
This population index anomaly must be rectified, before the ISO can regain any credibility as an International standards organisation.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FSM_Pirates.jp
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The questions which are relevant for standardization can, and therefore should, be always decided in a fact-oriented, principled manner. Otherwise the corruption problem will always remain regardless of voting weights.
Sorry /., but this is the sort of crap reporting that is persistent on the web and (because they're desperate to retain viewers/readers) is becoming the de facto standard in print and media journalism.
Appending "Of course, correlation doesn't prove causality." to the end of an article strongly implying causality in every sense, doesn't absolve the reporter from the false conclusions he/she implies throughout the rest of the article.
That the correlation was run at ALL implies that someone was 'looking for something' - suspect 1. The layer upon layer of dependent statistics leading to a very authoritative-sounding "the likelihood that this is a concidence is 7%" makes it sound very scientific and accurate - suspect 2
Sorry, this is FUD passed off as news supported by phony statistics.
-Styopa
First off, it just goes to show you how beholden the US government is to Microsoft money. Second of all, it shows you why the US branch of a certain worldwide NGO based in the US has been so slow in adopting the methods of its parent...because, oddly enough, International has seen fit to partner with Transparency International. Your average USian knows nothing of TI, and those that do tend to poo-poo them as being insignificant.
Brazil voted no, and we are a curruption paradise :)
Actually there was a strong fight in ABNT (brazilian standards regulation group) as happens in the government. The brazilian agencies and federal govern always used windows in a large scale from desktop to servers, while universities used most Unix and Linux. Current federal govern supports Linux, but there is a big resistance in sectors that always used windows and often there are problems with licitations (govern auctions) imposing a specific type of software.
For example, you can auction for "Microsoft Office" or "a Office Suite". Most states already fobid the first option in law, but at federal level it's not forbidden, even that there is a recommendation to avoid this kind of situation. But even with laws, often happens situations where the auction is so specific that it could only have a winner, when police does some investigation finds that someone got a "deal" to make sure company X wins.
Recently in my state they found a guy stealing mail stamps! Millions of them. He bought and kept the money for him, because the legislative house had a deal with the mail company to send letters. When found he buried the stamps in his house garden. Can you belive it?
Most research in the social sciences considers the threshold for statistical significance below .05. Since this is above, few would have confidence that this result is not random chance. So, reporting this result, while informative if you are trained in statistics, is likely misleading to the average reader...
Given the inappropriate use of the Fisher's test, questionable use of a one-tailed model and p > 0.05, I'd start with worrying about having proven correlation.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Come on people, we've been over this already!
If you look at the scientific studies, correlation is so closely correlated with causation that it's safe to say that one causes the other.
Check the stats for yourself.
Another intersting point coming out of all this the role of ECMA International
formerly European Computer Manufactureres Association - dont see many of them around these days).
ECMA is fully accredited by ISO and in ists search for a new role as a standards body did
a nice job producing a standard for the orphaned Javascript ( except for changing the name
to the disease like ECMAscript).
However since then other "standards" developed by ECMA have been:-
-- the programming language C# ( C "sharp")
-- a Common Language Infrastructure (CLI)
-- a CLI binding for C++
-- Office Open XMLOffice
Anyone spot a pattern here?
The other problem is that ECMAInternational is essentialy a club of computer software and
hardware manufacturers and unlike national standards organisations (ASA, BS, DN etc.)
does not have any public interest mandate; it exists only to serve its members and
to join you need to be a large software or hardware manufacturer.
I have no problem with any industry forming a club to standardise things among themselves
but for an industry association to be the main sponser of an ISO standard seems plain
wrong.
Microsoft for one seems to have spotted an ideal vehicle for turning proprietary products into standards.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
>>so the causal relationship is not really at issue.
He was talking about the article, the misapplication of statistics in particular, not whether there were irregularities or not.
Sweden has a low corruption index, but there is evidence of irregularities there. See, I just used evidence to trump the statistics in the article...
Of course, it is statistically a proven fact that the safest place to stand is in the exact middle of the road. The data doesn't lie. The people analyzing it do!
The game.
"OOXML Vote and the Corruption Perceptions Index Corruption Index"
OK, that's it for now - I have to run down to the ATM machine and put in my PIN number...
Sweden has a low corruption index, but there is evidence of irregularities there. See, I just used evidence to trump the statistics in the article...
No, the article doesn't say that. It says "We found that more corrupted the country is, the more likely it was to vote for the unreserved acceptance of the OOXML standard proposal."
Good that you mention Sweden though. The "irregularities" you mention were that Microsoft Sweden offered bribes to close business partners to vote "yes" to accept a suggested standard SIS had carefully evaluated over months and decided was worthless.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Of course it did! MS looked at the CPI ratings and then targeted their corruption attempts in the seemingly most suitable direction, so different ratings would have affected the outcome directly!
Another proven fact is that the safest place to stand in the universe, for a human being, is on the surface of the Sun (or else give me the name of someone who died or was injured there). The data doesn't lie. The sample used does.
there is no way to fix capitalism. money can buy you influence. even here. if you have enough money that you can pay 40000ppl worldwide you can alos afford to pay a few more to subvert openiso.org if it ever becomes necessary. it will make it hardare but it will not make it impossible. most likely it will not become necessary since they just buy the governments and tell them to ignore openiso.org at all. see all the legislation that is in favor of corporations like microsoft and others that is going on in the EU, the US and everywhere... most political parties in power there are already in line with capitalist interests.
what would make such an approach useful is that in the process of finding sane standards the people involved will learn about the deficiencies of the capitalist regime. capitalist regime is corrupt per definition: it means that money can buy you what you want. which is plain corruption. the more money you have the more human labor and natural resources you can command...
greetings from vienna,
mond.
A "working system" is one that works in spite of people of bad character and one that does not depend on people of good character.