But I've just got to show you this, the entire array of "contributors" displayed in the sidebar on the main page at FiveThirtyEight:
They've got one female and 6 males. I guess it says something about their orientation toward numbers that they put 3 males then the female, then the other 3 males. That's sorta like gender-balancing. I'm not going to say they need to equalize the numbers for the sake of appearance, because I wouldn't want them to further degrade the significance of women by padding the operation with females who are not respected. My criticism is that the one woman they've got, Mona Chalabi, has as her first topic on her list of 3 topics, toilets. They have the woman doing the toilets! Her second topic is: teeth. Teeth!
I know these guys are statistics-focused, but somebody has got to have some sturdy intuitions about how things look and feel.
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120 comments:
They also added some artificial color.
In the last 538 thread I mentioned the iconoclastic baseball statistician Bill James and wrote: Asking interesting, counter-intuitive questions is what made Bill James great, not his statistical chops. There are thousands of sabermetricians with more statistical ability than Bill James. But James has a kind of fool's ability to see through convention. Convention actively irritates him. Nate Silver needs more of that.
The only way 538 will be worth reading is if Silver and company stop caring about what other people think. Optics are boring.
Women are so sensitive.
That's why guys hang out with guys.
Meh, broads aren't good with numbers.
14% women, HA! Better numbers than I had in engineering school in the 70's.
"Optics are boring."
Optics are distracting.
They need people working at the website who have a feel for these things. That doesn't mean engaging your conscious mind in the topic. Quite the opposite.
Megan McArdle and Veronique de Rugy are good with numbers.
Your post is about "optics", a word people use when they mean "marketing without substance". The optics might be bad here, but if the numbers are good and well analyzed, it won't matter.
I remember having a cafeteria lunch table discussion and being turned in by a woman for a sexist remark.
Also a true remark.
You just don't know what you can talk about anymore.
My boss, after a discussion of the incident, left with the comment, "Well, don't talk to women."
The guys in the communal computer terminal room thought it was all funny, but they got in trouble for dressing a large model sheep in bra and panties later.
You have to decide how much of a pantywaist you're going to be in life, that's all.
They need people working at the website who have a feel for these things. That doesn't mean engaging your conscious mind in the topic. Quite the opposite.
I can just imagine the directive from PR: From now on, no photos.
Maybe the figure that it will be mostly men going to a website that crunches numbers?
Who cares? And frankly, if the idea that one webpage on the internet, one single website is dominated by men... then really, there's bigger problems in our society that toilets and march madness, and no amount of optics is going to fix that.
given that these guys are DC lefties, I wonder how many of them are a bit light in the loafers?? that would be good diversity, no?
The ultimate discussion of women and math was by Vicki Hearne in the essay "Beastly Behaviors" in _Bandit_
Mostly, women can't sustain an interest in math, where men can.
They're perfectly capable of math but find no emotional reward in it.
Guys do.
It's the abstract and refine instinct of men versus the unresolved complexity interest of women.
Althouse is going for unresolved complexity here. It's interesting to her.
It ought to be interesting to men, she thinks.
No, they're men.
The order on the page shows more of an affinity to alphabetical ordering. Silver is the honcho so he gets top billing, the rest are in order by last name.
And if you click on contributors, they have 8 chicks and 14 dudes (if I count correctly)...just to have the numbers down to the ground.
Furthermore, as a programmer, I would venture that the featured contributors is not hand picked, but determined by an algorithm or other metric (most are...you don't want to have to tweak your site all the time by hand). So if the list would show a gender bias, it could be just the cruel neutrality of a coded metric.
It looks like they put the boss up top and the rest of them are alphabetical. Why read more into it?
Stats and men's sports. Surprised they found one woman.
The word "optics" is awful, Althouse.
Isn't making assumptions about people's gender based on their appearance a micro-aggression?
"further degrade the significance of women"? what complete and utter balderdash. althouse, you have a generally interesting eye on culture, but on some topics you are completely clueless. do you really go through life counting the number of vaginas and comparing that metric to the number of penises?
guys are better at or are more interested in different things than women; the converse is also true. so what?
The ordering of the images of the writers says nothing "about their orientation toward numbers that they put 3 males then the female, then the other 3 males."
As the main draw Nate Silver is given top billing with the other writer shown alphabetically.
What are the optics? I think Nate Silver is a political moron, a boring, completely conventional, intellectually lazy liberal who hasn't had an original or even careful thought in his life.
But when it comes to data crunching, he's one of the best and when election season rolls around, his website will be a regular visit.
Megan McArdle and Veronique de Rugy are good with numbers.
@Bob Ellison, can you imagine either of them working for Nate Silver?
If that blog is all about statistics then it would be sensible that statistically there are fewer women contributors. Men are more interested and able at math than most women. Math geeks and computer programing geeks are generally men.
Meh. Who cares if they are more men or less women who create something/anything as long as it works and is accurate?
I'm guessing it's a site for guys.
The obsessing over defacto gender quotas is just another manifestation of a supremacist attitude that assumes a deference to female sensibilities that is to be expected from men at all times.
"Optics" is PC propaganda, based on skin deep image.
Was it stated somewhere as to if the contributors chose their topics or were assigned their topics? She may have selected to write about those things.
Big Mike, I have no idea.
A good statistician follows the numbers. Nate Silver seems to do that, as do McArdle and de Rugy.
Silver might run a great place. Maybe we could all be happy working there.
Whiter than MSNBC
It's a sandwich. Sort of like Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd and the waitress.
SteveR said "Whiter than MSNBC".
Like the Professor, you're talking about "optics". Who gives a flying shit if the writing/talking/numbers are on the money?
The stupid seems to be viral.
Maybe women have no significance to degrade in certain areas of life.
They have the woman doing the toilets! Her second topic is: teeth. Teeth!
How do you know that it is the men that are "having the woman do the toilets". Maybe those articles were her idea in the first place.
The assumption that it is the men making the woman there look bad is little more than immature, feminist whining, Ann. It's also very SEXIST for you to assume its the men that are the problem.
Bob Ellison said...
The stupid seems to be viral.
I don't care who you are, that right there is funny!
Hey, Ann, and the rest of the Girls Club.
Life, and, especially work life, isn't all about your fucking FEELINGS all the God damned time.
Grow the fuck up.
That is all.
This alphabetical list looks better, especially above the fold.
Optics!
No blacks, no black topics, one less black reader.
Look, let's be honest. Black people, women, asians, native americans - none of these people measure up.
When these lefties start their businesses and inject their own money and reputation, the last thing they're going to do is hire people who don't measure up.
Nothing is more clarifying and bracing than starting a business and hiring other people. All the phony baloney b*llsh*t goes right out the door.
End of freakin' story.
They're all little kids! And presumably Nate's best buds. So of course they're mostly men. Is this a full-time gig for them? Did they submit resumes and go through a formal hiring process? Unlikely.
Like the Professor, you're talking about "optics". Who gives a flying shit if the writing/talking/numbers are on the money?
No, actually just irony.
"I know these guys are statistics-focused, but somebody has got to have some sturdy intuitions about how things look and feel."
Isn't the phrase "a woman's intuition" taken right out of the "Patriarchy's Playbook"??
FTW??
Nate's got glasses. He has bad optics.
I've not seen many male internet-pundits who are good at analyzing statistics.
So far, I've only seen one female pundit who is good at that kind of thing. (Megan McArdle, if you have to ask. And she has a combination of good intuition and sound analysis, in my opinion.)
The statistical sciences don't attract many females, so I'd expect the top-flight stats pundits to also have more males than females.
They've got one female and 6 males.
-All White, of course.
Me! Me! Me! Well, OK, I'd be better at statistics if I didn't write in the spare moments of the day but as a profession. Anyway, it seems to me that back in my college days, there were rather few women in my statistics classes, but when I proctor actuarial exams it seems like there are more women than there used to be.
Yesterday using a "gender-averaged" statistic was too obfuscatory. Today using pictures that show the gender* of featured contributors isn't obfuscatory enough. Figure it out, guys!
*NB that gender is a social construct and assuing sexual identity can be inferred from a picture and your own stereotypical beliefs is sexist. Probably racist, too.
I tuned out at "gender optics". Now I am going to go read the Pioneer Woman blog, with recipes, gardening, and homeschooling. Flowers plus macho ranch stuff for the win.
I think Nate Silver is a political moron, a boring, completely conventional, intellectually lazy liberal who hasn't had an original or even careful thought in his life.
He's light years ahead of any conservative polling analyst, as demonstrated in 2012. remember all the commenters here that were so sure Romney was going to win? Good times.
Jay and Drago come to mind. "B b b but +9!!!!!!
@BobK says it all: a simple alphabetic listing - nothing more or less. Ann's knee jerk reaction shows , on this issue, just how badly she is overwhelmed by her academic environment.
If you want to draw broad conclusions from a sample size of seven, when one of those seven is Nate Silver himself (so N really equals 6!) then you're part of the problem.
Intuition? Really? And YOU! A LAW PROFESSOR!!!
Here's two competing value propositions: Nate Silver offers to prove his case TO you. Althouse promises to FEEL her case AT you.
I checked 2 of the 7 names and didn't see a Wikipedia entry for them, very suspicious.
No blacks, no black topics, one less black reader.
You never sold advertising, huh? The fact is, dude, you dilute the demographics. Move along now. You're gumming the works.
...somebody has got to have some sturdy intuitions about how things look and feel.
Ironically, the creative director is a woman -- Kate Elazegui.
I just added a few of the RSS feeds to my feedly. No more optics.
To treat this question of optics fairly, I think what skews the issue pernicious is that it is more about plausible deniability than content.
One commonplace in the argumentative internet is the use of identity as authority. If FiveThirtyEight rubs anyone the wrong way, its gender and racial makeup will make it easy for the identity-politics crowd to attack it. Oh look, there's Crack EmCee bailing out already.
Lest conservative commentators here feel too smug, I'd point out the many dismissals of Silver in the election year based on who published his work.
For Silver and his team of writers (so many from the Guardian and Huffington Post) the challenge is to take Silver's New York Times credentials among the left and create interest beyond the largely male Sports, Economics, and Politics crowd. This embrace of lifestyle stories is explicitly part of Silver's editorial vision and is the most vulnerable to attack. When attacked from the left Silver won't have that plausible deniability that his staff isn't completely square.
That's optics too. What will make the difference is not whether Silver et al are white or male, but whether they are sons-of-bitches. They've got be capable of skewering their base or Five Thirty Eight will die of conventionality.
Althouse your comment here falls into the "get a life" category.
Those who can do---and they don't worry much about what the "team" looks like.
How do you know that it is the men that are "having the woman do the toilets". Maybe those articles were her idea in the first place.
The toilet piece is one of the more interesting/useful articles at the site.
It never ends. Ezra Klein gets shit for hiring the incorrect type of homosexual.
You need a "red meat" tag for your especially stupid knee-jerk librul posts like this one.
Only Nate and Carl Bialik have a Wikipedia bio. I think the others are clones or aliens.
Paul'A'Barge pronounces:When these lefties start their businesses and inject their own money and reputation, the last thing they're going to do is hire people who don't measure up.
That line might have some sting if it came from someone who has actually accomplished something in life and therefore knew something about measuring up. But it's coming from Paul, so it's just funny in a really tragic way. Chuckle.
Rhhardin says: The guys in the communal computer terminal room thought it was all funny, but they got in trouble for dressing a large model sheep in bra and panties later.
Life among the omega males, or another day in rhhardin's life. Anthropology is fascinating.
If Nate Silver is so damn smart, then why can't he predict the winning lottery ticket? Why isn't he turning his talents to Wall Street?
He got lucky once, and made a big deal out of it.
It's the Jeane Dixon effect, and good luck with that.
Welcome back to another episode of "Somefeller Gets Personal"
Just pointing out who's gagging a bit while biting down on the red meat, EMD. Some momentary lunchtime amusement. Plus, facts are stubborn things. And sometimes personal!
somefeller said
"This comment has been removed by the author."
That's probably the smartest thing I think you've ever posted.
Those photos look like a lineup of Obama campaign staffers or MSNBC hosts.
Every time I hear talk about women and math I remember this video: The real meaning of MPH
He got lucky once, and made a big deal out of it.
Notice he rarely (ever?) makes a definitive call. Saying Louisville has a 15% probability of winning it all gives you 85% deniability.
Probability models mean never having to say you're wrong.
Seems about right...6 times as many men as women in higher math. Nate probably has some study to back it up.
People who care about optics are in the wrong quadrant. People who care about people who care about optics are ALSO in the wrong quadrant. Move along.
Optics gave us Obama.
I don't have much use for optics.
Plus, facts are stubborn things. And sometimes personal!
As if you know any.
To hell with the gender optics, the important thing is he has Louisville with the best percentage chance to win the NCAA tournament, just like last year.
Ann turning identity politics around on liberals, gotta love it!
Rather a pale and pasty lot, too... Has Ezra Klein ever met any black journalists?
Applogies, I short-brained over to Exra Klein's new startup.
This is still a pretty whitebread boys' club though. I mean, at least the Little Rascals had Alfafa and his sister.
The optics are in the eye of the beholder. From a compositional viewpoint the woman's position in the center gives her extra weight. My eye is automatically drawn to her then to the top of the list and then simply scans the other guys.
The optics look like 1 woman = 6 men. Her topics seem superficial but when I checked the leader, his topics are even more superficial.
Finally, there is high probability that women will not find this site interesting, plus the writing sucks.
Michael K said...
It's a sandwich. Sort of like Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd and the waitress.
LOL. Really bad optics, but funny as Hell.
BTW
In that sandwich, was it dark or white meat. In this day and age, that's important.
Forget the gender BS. Mona Chalabi has no business being a featured writer on any blog.
She has no writing style, she exhibits no original thinking and more importantly, she has the distinct disadvantage of being a Millennial without a sophisticated worldview.
As for the male contingent, only one of them appears to be capable of growing facial hair. Nate Silver is obviously operating on a tight budget in this startup.
I'll just use the same argument I use for "wage gap" BS.
Men make up >96% of workplace deaths. If women want to equalize every single statistic related to work,I'm gonna need three thousand women more a year to get themselves killed. When that happens, I personally will go down to the offices of 538, take control of the company, fire half the men, and install women in their stead. Deal?
R. Chatt said...
The optics look like 1 woman = 6 men. Her topics seem superficial but when I checked the leader, his topics are even more superficial.
The topics of their optics, or the optics of their topics?
Such a topical discussion on optical topics.
Good grief, I gotta go.
Michael K said...
It's a sandwich. Sort of like Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd and the waitress.
OK, I don't have to go yet, especially with these horrible optics in my head needing a dumptruck to unload.
Who would play Ted Kennedy and who would play Chris Dodd in the movie version of that short story? (no implications in the word short)
And if the soundtrack had to be by Bob Dylan, what song would prevail?
I nominate "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" just for the optics of the topic.
A new discovery on the FiveThirtyEight Contributors page.
Eight of 21 contributors (not counting Nate Silver) are women - many of them college professors.
Ok,
John Goodman could play Chris Dodd and...Rosie O'Donnell could play Ted Kennedy.
Homeschooling websites are dominated by women. So it goes with the optics.
You can run a gender report on the AMC here. Naughty math and its culturally oppositional optics.
Heh contributors = unpaid scribe as patented by Huffpo.
She was feeling a little flushed.
Jason,
"You never sold advertising, huh? The fact is, dude, you dilute the demographics. Move along now. You're gumming the works."
If you take five white guys and put 'em with five black guys, and let 'em hang around together for about a month, and at the end of the month, you'll notice that the white guys are walking and talking and standing like the black guys do. You'll never see the black guys going, "Oh, golly! We won the big game today, yes sir!" But you'll see guys with red hair named Duffy going, "What's happenin'?" - George Carlin
And anyone selling anything should keep that in mind,...
Optics AREN'T a branch of politics.
Optics IS a branch of physics.
The CONTRACTS of this is terrible.
(See how annoying and wrong it is to use a term incorrectly.)
Crack Emcee -- You're quoting a white guy.
rhhardin, what was the remark?
I'll assume it was "She's on the rag" for now.
If you take five white guys and put 'em with five black guys, and let 'em hang around together for about a month, and at the end of the month, you'll notice that the white guys are walking and talking and standing like the black guys do. You'll never see the black guys going, "Oh, golly! We won the big game today, yes sir!" But you'll see guys with red hair named Duffy going, "What's happenin'?" - George Carlin
That didn't happen with me when I did it. Nor did the other white guys do that. But, them again, we weren't there to be black or white, we were there to be soldiers and brothers. And sisters.
Don't get me wrong, that's a funny joke. But the reality is different.
garage: "Jay and Drago come to mind. "B b b but +9!!!!!!"
Yawn.
Once again, as I said many times during the run up to the election: I had no idea as to the quality of the statistical models, or the quality of the data fed into those models, or how the data was massaged in the models.
I never said Romney would win without all the standard, everyday, run of the mill caveats that statisticians use.
As I mentioned many times, the outcome would depend on whose turnout model was correct.
Which is why you garage, like your media matters pals, post snippets of my quotes with all the caveats and lead ins scrubbed out.
Which proves you know you are lying.
Because you know you had to cut pieces out of sentences to "prove" your point.
Now, having dispensed, once again, with the old white failure in some backwoods WI locale, the lack of diversity in Nate Silver's operation as well as others (i.e., the Ezra Klein gang over at Vox.com), is directly the result of dearth of necessary skills amongst the "out" groups that are not members of these media ventures.
I know a little something about the Vox effort in particular, and I can assure you the makeup of the "team" that has been assembled to deliver the product is driven primarily by what is envisioned technologically and what it will take to build it.
Henry said...
Crack Emcee -- You're quoting a white guy
Give Crack a minute or 2 and he'll explain how Carlin stole all his good material from "Teh Black Man", so, presto chango "not quoting a white guy!!"
Oy. All of these comments, and only one seems to get to the heart of the issue. Alex nailed it (if I am interpreting Ann correctly); 538's contributors are all standard-issue urban liberals, yet none of them noticed the gender and racial disparities within their group. If 538 were a conservative site, the Kos kids and the other leftie droolers would be up in arms about the lack of diversity.
SGT Ted said...
Don't get me wrong, that's a funny joke. But the reality is different.
Then why's it funny?
Henry said...
Crack Emcee -- You're quoting a white guy.
I quote lots of white guys - not everyone's an asshole like you guys.
Bill Burr, Tim Wise, I got a million of 'em.
As I asked on another thread:
Why is it they can talk about anything to blacks and not come off as dicks but you Paul Ryan fans can't?
Speaking of "gender optics", did anybody else see the Republican Pajama Boy?
SGT Ted,
"We weren't there to be black or white, we were there to be soldiers and brothers. And sisters."
Oh yeah - the same American military I served in - just one big happy family,...
Let's stop using "optics" when "appearances" is what is meant.
And anyone selling anything should keep that in mind,...
Lowest common denominator.
stlcdr said "Lowest common denominator."
You mean "greatest common factor."
The lowest common denominator is always 1.
ok, you feminists,
please explain belle knox's comments here at the New York Post
Complaints like this show that feminists and minorities know they're full of shit.
If white men were these evil rapists and oppressors they feel we are, they wouldn't even mention it out of fear of being slammed down.
That they are unafraid to mention it shows that they know it ain't true.
damikesc,
"If white men were these evil rapists and oppressors they feel we are, they wouldn't even mention it out of fear of being slammed down.
That they are unafraid to mention it shows that they know it ain't true."
Or they've been looking whites in the eye, for so long, they could give a flip what they say, think, or do - it just comes down to death, either way, so screw it.
Might as well live,...
The race optics at Althouse are terrible.
Just sayin'.
EMD said...
"The toilet piece is one of the more interesting/useful articles at the site."
I agree -- who knew so many American males (1000+ per year) suffer the injury of penile crush caused, apparently, by plumbing design catering to womens' gender specific demands to have the toilet seat DOWN?
Balancing genders for appearance sake is an obnoxious practice. My -ex was once on a selection panel for an opening in her state university English department. The search narrowed down to one man and one woman. When she pointed out that the department was already 82% female, she was taken aside and "counseled."
The woman was chosen, of course. Nobody spoke of the optics, that I recall.
Gender optics may just be the unrealistic expectations of people with an agenda.
6 guys and 1 girl? no blacks.
What does that say? not necessarily what people trying to make it an issue think.
How many women applied for a position. And how many black people? and of those how many were more qualified than the people who were ultimately chosen.
Unless you implement a hard quota you'll never get parity and so if you're looking for unfairness based on gender optics you'll always find it.
Its a good talking point for republicans to point out the hypocrisy of liberals. If you look at news divisions, they're all white. So if they want to preach about diversity you'd think they'd look at their own house.
Only, CNN maybe largely white because more whites than blacks go into journalism.
I once heard one of the race optics monge ask why there were no CEO's of oil companies. Simple. How many blacks are going to school to get jobs in the oil field? How many blacks are in the oil field? its a tiny subset of blacks. and if we're talking management its a tiny subset of a tiny subset. And so, you can't look at it as if there aren't 14% of black CEO's then something's wrong.
Crack Emcee: I quote lots of white guys - not everyone's an asshole like you guys.
You're a black guy quoting a white guy explaining how black guys project cultural superiority over white guys. And you're very serious about it.
This is why your handle isn't Irony Emcee.
Crack Emcee, if you served in the US military thank you for your service.
But you should know then that Hispanics have earned the MoH in numbers well out of proportion to their representation in the services.
And Obama's speech that day was a condescending, contempible POS.
Boy, everybody's obviously more "inarticulate" than Paul Ryan.
But nobody else is let off the hook for it by whites.
Just Paul Ryan.
Funny how that works,...
The white gaze does not view black Americans as individuals. When a black person makes a mistake it becomes the focus of a “national conversation” about the black community, one in which “black leaders” are forced to publicly explain and condemn the actions of other black people. There is not an equivalent ritual for white people. White conservatives and the white community will not be forced to condemn Paul Ryan. Nor will white people be held publicly accountable for Paul Ryan’s and the Republican Party’s racism.
Whiteness deems that Paul Ryan is a “racial innocent”, an “individual”, and that he should be treated as such.
Paul Ryan and other movement conservatives are racial political arsonists. Ryan’s racist claims about lazy black people with bad genes are a function of a willful political strategy and determined worldview. They are not exceptions, outliers, or bizarre happenings.
Racism is a habit for white conservatives because racism and conservatism are the same thing in the post civil rights era.
Paul Ryan and other conservatives can claim that they are innocent of their racist political arson. But, they are repeatedly caught, hiding behind the dumpster, or in the bushes, as the building burns. One hand is busy, down the trousers, working in onanistic fervor as the conflagration spreads. The other hand is concealing a lighter. The police approach, shake their heads, and say “you again!”
Paul Ryan and his fellow racial political arsonists in the Republican Party apologize, flummoxed, and indignant with the police that “you have the wrong guy!”
The police will just slap his wrist and say “don’t do it again”. Why? Because Paul Ryan and other racial political arsonists in the Republican Party are really decent people who are just misunderstood.
Why does Crack have a problem with CHarles Murray's conclusions, and considers those racist, when he has no problem suggesting that all whites are born racists and assigns faults to all whites.
Pot meet kettle.
Crack's racist claims about racist white people are a function of a willful political strategy and determined worldview.
Charles Murray suggested in 2000 "that genetics will likely show, “One reason that we still have poverty in the United States is that a lot of poor people are born lazy.”
Is that racist? He says poor people, but not black people. There are poor white people too, and therefore Murray would suggest that those who are poor might genetically be born lazy.
Also, being poor is not an inborn trait,like race, but rather a condition in life that you can overcome or succumb to. So why are poor people poor? A lot of it has to do with personal choices.
So, why are they making those poor choices? is that due to genetics or circumstances? I'd imagine both.
And any time people start talking about known racism because of code words and dog whistles it's harder and harder to take them seriously.
jr565: "Why does Crack have a problem with CHarles Murray's conclusions, and considers those racist, when he has no problem suggesting that all whites are born racists and assigns faults to all whites."
Fen's Law.
Crack demonstrates, daily, that he, like all the other leftists, does not actually believe a single thing that he lectures everyone about.
Why count girls and boys? I thought we were beyond that. I don't care who or what the writers are only on how good they are. I might learn more about a writer I like to check out other site's where they contribute.
Function comes first, form maybe later.
Drago,
Crack demonstrates, daily, that he, like all the other leftists, does not actually believe a single thing that he lectures everyone about.
No, what Crack demonstrates is he doesn't answer questions by people he's deemed idiots anymore, so you can "think" what you want, and it'll still add up to people trying to rub one brain cell against nothing, trying to raise a spark.
Not going to happen.
Enjoy your own brilliance, guys - you're gonna need it,...
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