this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
60 points (91.7% liked)

Data Is Beautiful

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A place to share and discuss data visualizations. #dataviz


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[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago (2 children)

11.5 what? Data doesn't really mean much without units.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

That's pretty close to 12 so you know it's better.

[–] aBundleOfFerrets 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Number of github users present in country according to user poll

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Surely it can't just be number present. It must be some proportion.

Looking through the comments, it looks like it's per 1000 Internet users.

My question was mostly rhetorical, really, to make the point that without units listed on the map it becomes almost entirely useless. Sure, it gives some idea of proportion. I can tell that the US has more GitHub users in a certain group than Canada does in that same group, but it's lacking a lot of context. What group (Internet users, per capita, etc.)? 11.5 out of how many (out of 100 would be significant, out of 10000 not so much).

It shouldn't be necessary for people to have to search through the comments to find this context. What if I want to share the map? Am I expected to caption it myself when I share it?

Sorry to kind of go off, I know it's not really that significant. But it's such an easy thing to include units with your data, and I feel like it's necessary to emphasize its importance in this community while it's still young and developing.

[–] aBundleOfFerrets 3 points 10 months ago

I comment in jest, but yes, OP will likely never make this mistake again after reading the comments they have gotten :P

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

per 1000 internet users by country

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

And why did anyone decide making "unknown" countries completely invisible?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Well, the scale is given. Just the unit isn't.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Interesting data but in terms of viz, this is an odd choice of color scale - the max and background being very similarly dark-toned. It may look better with flipped color scale, or maybe background should be lighter. Plus, I’m mot sure Greenland being very dark means there’s no data or it’s the max.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

It appears that the Greenlandic coast is filled to the brim with Github users.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Anywhere where we can see the raw data?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The UK has the least amount of programmers per capita in Europe? Quite interesting, any ideas why?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Not every programmer has a github account.

[–] aBundleOfFerrets 3 points 10 months ago

per 1000 people