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summary post & emerging trends

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 7:46 am
by paolospada
Hi all,
I am trying to follow all the threads, but already the content is becoming a bit overwhelming for me. So in this post I'll try to join the emerging trends I spotted insofar. I am not going to catch everything, I might miss quotes and I might have missed one or more approach or miss-categorized it. I'll keep editing this and I offer it to Alan, feel free to edit it to if it is helpful.

Obviously most community members touch multiple topics so the following classification is very rudimentary, subjective and is simply meant to guide a new person joining the community to not get overwhelmed!

I spotted the emergence of 3 approaches/clusters of posts:

A) It is dangerous/pointless/disconnected from reality to have a standard approach for transparency/data replication
In general this type of posts showcases how any type of standard would do more harm than good no matter how well crafted and nuanced

a1) unfair burden and excessive costs
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=60
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=39
a2) duplicates work
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=50
a3) systemic negative effects
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=58
a4) it will give a weird vague mandate to editors that might have unintended consequences
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=42
a5) it's pointless
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=49



B) the pro and cons of multiple standards depending on the sub-field
This cluster combines both community members that make the case for multiple more nuanced standards explicit and those that highlight how problematic is the current Da-rt for a specific subfield. The authors of the latter posts do not make the case they want more nuanced standard, they simply point out the risk for such sub-field. But their reflections offer crucial information to anybody that is thinking to a more nuanced set of standards. I am provisionally adding them to this cluster to promote dialogue with those that think more nuanced standards are the way to go. Any more nuanced standard needs to be capable to respond to all these specific critiques.

b1) discussion that started by identifying that Da-rt has a double standard
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=59
b2) discussion on the stages of QCA and how different standards apply already to each
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=62
b3) Da-rt is particularly problematic for high risk research
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=57
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=47
b4) Da-rt is particularly problematic for interdisciplinary research
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=45
b5) it will kill case studies
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=55
b6) Da-rt would affect negatively the creation of new original datasets
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=41
b7) lessons from Oral history scholars
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=44
b8) lessons from political theory
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=43


C: should we require that the standard of Da-art is fully applied?
This cluster has recently emerged and it's not easy to summarize, in part it connects to the quant/qual distribution of burdens, in part has spotted an internal inconsistency of Da-rt that is quite ironic and could be used to promote self-reflection in the entire discipline, in part is making sure we are not painting too much of a straw man of Da-rt, something that Lupia highlights a lot in his editorial.

c1) we should ask quantitative scholars to upload the preliminary qualitative research they often do, everything is mixed method, Da-rt is not as terrible as it seems
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=52#p103

c2) as a thought exercise to explain our position to the rest of the discipline we should ask Da-rt is fully taken to his consequences for quantitative analysis that is currently only posting the "tip of the iceberg"
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=59#p120
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=59#p109

c3) we should not discuss the comic book version of Da-rt, beware of simplification [for now this is not in the forum, but just in the editorial of CP]
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=52#p103