Talk:NationMaster

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[edit] traffic

Can someone add a blurb about how at times it's impossible to access the website because of the traffic? Either too many people or their servers are god awful.

-G

[edit] updated verbage

After googling around and watching the discussions here, I have updated the grammar on this entry to reflect what seems to be the reality of Nationmaster. More work may need to be done to eliminate NPOV issues, so have at it. DanD 21:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions for future edits

I respectfully suggest that further edits on this article focus on 'what it is' (the company) and less on 'what it does'. Some examples might be Symantec and Hewlett Packard. Please note the external references for statements made about HP as examples on how to avoid POV issues. Wired is a well known, and thus respectable enough source for a statement. "I like it" is not. DanD 21:53, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

Clearly they do have variables from each of these sources. See NationMaster source list

 I have no idea what you are trying to say here, nor do I understand the context. Are        
 you suggesting that because something is listed on a website, that we should clearly   
 accept it as gospel?  If so, this would be a logical fallacy or sophistry at 
 its finest. DanD 21:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Supposed lawsuits

This seems a little unlikely, but perhaps more likely than Nationmaster being a scam with anti-semitic staff which this collection of blogs also claims. Is there any evidence like a scan of a letter from a lawyer posted online? Or some news story? I can't find any such thing.

- The correspondence between Nationmaster and the blog tdaxp has been posted online in several locations. Try the tdaxp archives or a simple Google search.

[edit] POV Check changed to NPOV

I cannot believe that this page even exists. It reeks of being nothing more than a blatant self-promotion. Unless someone includes independent references validating the many claims of this article, I propose the whole mess be sumarily deleted. DanD 03:08, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Looks like a popular site to me. I use it regularly.

"Looks like" and "I use" are weasel words that have no place in justifying content here. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not an advertisement. The fact that this article survived the vote for deletion does not justify the massive reverts (disguised as edits) that have been done to this article. Once again, this reads like an avertisement, and needs fixed. DanD 21:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Value add to Wikipedia

Nationmaster also runs an online encyclopedia which appears to be nothing more than ripped off format and articles from wikipedia, except that it's not in wiki. Atheistrabbi 17:30, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

They have a number of features wikipedia doesn't. Mouseovers on articles, a very good search (try it), and "people who liked this page also liked that"

[edit] Sex Category

Where is there evidence of this sex category? And if they did had one, and then took it off, how do we know it's because it was inaccurate? I would have thought they would have had complaints from schools who they appear to court: http://www.nationmaster.com/benefits_educational_non_profit.php

It did exist. I was a paid member of Nationmaster for a time and added to that it was a big controversy on their board. I'm just nervous about trying to look up "nationmaster sex" online.--T. Anthony 12:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Money making scheme?

"in an attempt to make revenue" - Makes them sound like a money making scheme. They may be a business, but I think the tone is wrong here.

[edit] Inconsistency of data

Regarding the many words devoted to a single inconsistency, check out therequestions page at http://www.nationmaster.com/faq.php :

How can statistic X be valid when it doesn't match up to statistic Y? I did the math! We use a variety of sources with differing methodologies and definitions. Consult the primary sources to get to the bottom of any conflict. You can do this by looking at the 'Source' entry, at the bottom of any graph.


[edit] POV Check

I added the POV Check because this article praises NationMaster and all, but doesn't even mention that it completely rips of Wikipeida. --Hottentot

T. Anthony: The current version just sounds snarky. I use Nationmaster some and it has some uses I wouldn't use Wiki for.

However if it's really that upsetting to Wikipedians it should be put on votes for deletion instead of NPOV.

[edit] Importance beyond wiki

Almost this entire article seems to be about nationmaster ripping off Wiki. As a matter of fact, that is the context this article seems to exist in. Does this website have any other particular significance? If not, this page should probably be moved. - Che Nuevara, the Democratic Revolutionary 04:42, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Searching for various terms in google throws you easily to nationmaster's ripped wiki pages.. The other inofrmation on the site seems pure ripoff from other free source sas well.

Okay I put it on votes for deletion as the problems or dispute seem insoluble so far. Or in least maybe putting it up for a vote will get more progress on what's to be done here.--T. Anthony 10:20, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Well it's got 4000 stats and a lot of good critical reviews. I find it very useful. See http://www.nationmaster.com/reviews.php

"It has 4000 stats .... I find it very useful".... once again weasel words for an NPOV problem in editing content. It is significant that Wikipedians notice the controversy of this page, add, and edit that content. The user Metcalfe has no justification for removing that content. Please, stop using Wikipedia as an advertisement. DanD 21:37, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Nationmaster seems to have an obsession with ripping-off this person's work: [1] they have many off-shoots of it here: [2]

[edit] GNU Info

I think it is valuable to have an article discussing this website. The content I found on Nationmaster for 'ostrobothnia' was exactly the same as the content on wikipedia. I saw no reference to wikipedia on the nationmaster page. (Though digging deeper did see it credited as one of many sources for one of many pages.) I am glad there is a notation on this page questioning this company's use of wikipedia GPL content. I mean, they can use it I guess as long as they don't try to make a huge profit off of it.

Also, if they are going to scrape wikipedia (and others) I think that they should be more responsible about their citations. AMB 04:11, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

They refer to wikipedia and the GNU license at the bottom of every page.

[edit] AfD result

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on September 25, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep.

— JIP | Talk 05:23, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

at the bottom of the nationmaster page:

The Wikipedia article included on this page is licensed under the GFDL.

Images may be subject to relevant owners' copyright. All other elements are (c) copyright NationMaster.com 2003-5. All Rights Reserved. Usage implies agreement with terms.

[edit] Nationmaster Crime Statistics Disclaimer

To me, the following paragraph at the end of the Criticism_and_controversy section is not a criticism or a controversy but an appropriate disclaimer about how the statistics are interpreted.

Other issues relate to shortcomings in the process of statistical collection. For example, their crime stats contain a disclaimer that "Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence."

What is controversial about that? NationMaster are actually being fairly responsible by saying that those statistics are sourced from law enforcement agency data and the numbers probably represent the efficiency of those agencies in recording the crime that is reported to those agencies, rather than how much crime actually happens in a country. What neither NationMaster, nor their source, the UN survey, do well is identify how those various agencies record crime statistics, so that the statistics can be classified and then compared appropriately.

Also, what is being measured and compared? Is it counts of crime reports, offences, cases, victims, charges or convictions that we have here? See what Aebi, Segessenmann, Barclay and Tavares all have to say about comparing international crime statistics. The real issue is that the UN is comparing methodologically inconsistent statistics, without either understanding or acknowledging the statistics are inconsistent.

What the criticism should be is that NationMaster repeats the error of the UN survey in that it compares, and ranks, incompatable statistics about crime that measure things in different ways, without the appropriate caveats and without an apparent understanding of the research that says such comparisons are invalid. To compound the issue, NationMaster then calculates crime rates using population statistics that are not aligned with the crime statistics, and presents the rate calculations for murder with 6 or 7 significant digits when no country has more than 5 significant digits in their total murders.

To me that suggests the people (programmers?) running NationMaster do not understand the statisticial issues or even the mathematical issues involved with computing statistics. They exhibit an unhealthy belief in the over-accuracy of the computer and do not round their result. This is a very bad example for school children, who should understand that calculated answers need to be rounded to the smallest number of significant digits in a calculation. -- Cameron Dewe 12:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Organized and sourced info on the page.Friarguy (talk) 06:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppetry and hoaxes

Hello, Per this sockpuppet report, and this checkuser request, User:Friarguy, an editor who has made significant edits to this page, has been confirmed as an abusive sockpuppet/sockpuppeteer. The Checkuser (see bottom of WP:RFCU link) indicates this person has a long history of adding hoax material to articles; unfortunately, they also seem to have a history of adding legitimate information as well, so their changes can't just be blindly-reverted. I do not have enough knowledge of this particular subject to be helpful, but I suggest those of you who do, and regularly maintain this page, go back and review User:User:Friarguy's additions, remove anything they've added that can't be sourced and verified, and add citations for anything that can be sourced but is currently unreferenced, to remove any suspicion of the legitimacy of the article.

They appear to be somewhat prolific, so if a new account shows up lobbying for re-insertion of any material you folks end up deleting as unsourced, I'd suggest being a bit wary, and insisting even more strongly than perhaps we usually do on verifiable, reliable sources for everything they try to add. They tend to cite "rare" sources that they have in their possession, so I guess emphasis on "verifiable".

I'm not checking each article I tag with this information, so if you've already noticed this misbehavior and dealt with it, feel free to mark this section resolved or something. --barneca (talk) 15:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)