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."

Comments

OpenISO.org

[jafoc]

Since in so many counties the MS-OOXML "evaluation" process was a farce and the outcome shows complete incompetence because it amounts to blind approval of MS-OOXML, I believe that it is time to put some pressure of competition on ISO (which is essentially a cartel of national standardization organizations) by means of creating OpenISO.org, a new international standardization organization committed to principles of openness.

I've put up a little website with some initial thoughts, and I'd appreciate feedback from the slashdot community please.

Re:OpenISO.org

[jafoc]

OOXML was overthrown at ISO, isn't this what you wanted after all.

No, MS-OOXML hasn't been "overthrown" at ISO, at least not yet. There's going to be that "ballot resolution meeting" in February 25-29, 2008 in Geneva (I've already booked my hotel room, since hotel bookings can be a bit difficult in Geneva if attempted on short notice) and then there's going to be another vote. In my opinion it'd take a miracle for MS-OOXML not to get passed then regardless of how many of the substantial comments the "ballot resolution meeting" manages to resolve.

So the system works

No, it doesn't. It's totally broken. And if in the end the voting result happens to be the correct one (rejection of the "fast track") after all, that won't be the case because of a trustworthy process based on legitimate, valid arguments, but rather it would be the case because of the successful application of comment-bombing and similar tactics by the opposition.

no need for anti-establishment rebellion for anti-establishment's sake

I have seriously tried to work within the existing system, with the only resulting success being that I have learned just how badly broken it really is.

Re:OpenISO.org

[throup]

Thanks to what Microsoft have told me, I believe there is a place in the world for both of your competing certifying bodies. One may publish potential standards that have been created from scratch with the intention of being useful to the world, whilst the other may be better suited to represent existing standards in a more open way.

So, for example, OpenISO.org may publish something along the lines of:

Standard process for brushing teeth

• Hold toothbrush in left hand;
• Hold toothpaste tube in right hand;
• Position tube above toothbrush and squeeze the tube until a pea-sized amount of paste is on the brush;
• Transfer brush to right hand and follow the process detailed in OpenISO.org OI22987 Standard process to brush something.

Whereas SoiOpen.com may publish something along the lines of:

Brush your teeth the right way

• Buy a Colgate toothbrush;
• Buy some Colgate toothpaste;
• Use them like Steve Ballmer does*.

* For personal reasons, Mr Ballmer will not discuss his dental hygiene routine with anyone.

Sorted.

More interesting pattern

[jkrise]

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.

Re:More interesting pattern

[arivanov]

Welcome to the world of international organisations.

Those of us observing the ruthless buying of pro-whaling votes by Japan over the last decade have noticed this one long ago. In that case countries that do not even have a coastline or a single ship registered in their name apply for a membership in the International Whaling Commission with Japanese money and go ahead to vote with a yes.

Unfortunately the dead body of a standard is not sufficiently heavy and smelly so it will be difficult for GreenPeace to dump it on the Microsoft doorsteps http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4627178.st m . Pity actually. It would have been quite fitting.

Re:More interesting pattern

[asc99c]

Although I don't agree with whaling, I feel I should at least point out that the IWC was a whaling industry organisation that was subverted into a conservation group. This happened as a group of big countries recruited a lot of the smaller countries (with again, no whaling interests of their own) to join the IWC and vote to ban whaling.

So this ruthless vote buying process is hardly without precedent ...

.07 is not significant

[pbooktebo]

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...

Re:.07 is not significant

[wembley fraggle]

Not only is 0.07 not significant, they used a 1-tailed test, rather than a 2-tailed test. If they had used the 2-tailed test, the p-value would have been 0.14, which is REALLY not significant. You're only ever justified in choosing the 1-tailed test over the 2-tailed one if you know for certain which way the influence is pushing. If, for example, one could make the case that the OOXML vote would have gone the other direction, with the more corrupt countries voting against it (a case we have no a priori reason to discard), then the use of a 1-tailed test is inappropriate here.

Actually, having read TFA, I'm pretty sure that correlation isn't appropriate at all here. The corruption scores are discrete, categorical values, rather than continuous values. This calls for nonparametric methods. Start with chi-square and move on from there. You can't do correlation with a straight face if your variables are discrete, since there's no guarantee that the "distance" in corruption between 2 and 3 is the same as the distance between 4 and 5.

Of course...

[Otter]

Of course, correlation doesn't prove causality.

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.