Why this posting was deleted

[Anonymous]

Research on how dcum parents describe schools. A paper by the brookings institute (reputable non-partisan think tank).

That posting with a link somehow was deleted.

You don’t like the results?

[jsteele]

The report is several years old now and there was considerable discussion of it when it came out. The report has severe flaws and was written with a conclusion already in mind. Data on our website was mined to support the predetermined ideas.

There are fundamental flaws in the report, including the use of word matching. The methodology used by the authors would consider a post saying "Janney is great" and a post saying "Janney sucks" as both representing positive interest in Janney.

The authors ignored the geographic concentration of DCUM users and ignored the fact that most posters were simply talking about their local schools. We have significantly more users who live in Ward 3 than live in Ward 8. Hence, it is no surprise that posters talk more about Ward 3 schools.

I found cases in which quotes included in the paper, when viewed in context on the website, actually say the opposite of how they are portrayed in the document. Such "research" would likely cause you to be failed in most universities.

Prior to my experience with that report, I also thought that Brookings was reputable. Now I take any of their research with a grain of salt.

Finally, while the conclusions of the report are flawed, the posts that I deleted didn't even describe the conclusions correctly, but made even more distorted claims.

But, to answer your question, no, I don't like the results. Nor should anyone who cares about accuracy.