Talk:Quantitative storytelling

Reacting to a recent editing of User talk:MrOllie
Dear User talk:MrOllie, In this page, as well as in the other pages you have visited last September, i.e. Sensitivity analysis, Sensitivity auditing, Sociology of quantification, Ethics of quantification, Post-normal science and others, your intervention could perhaps be improved. In the present page, the following pieces have been cut out: QST encourages an effort in the pre-analytic, pre-quantitative phase of the analysis to map a socially robust (i.e. inclusive of the interest of different stakeholders) universe of possible frames. QST expands on one of the rules sensitivity auditing by asking the question of ‘what to do’ in order to avoid that an issue is framed unilaterally. Obviously, the medicine for a diseased evidence-based policy is not a prejudice- or superstition-based policy, but a more democratic and participatory access to the provision of evidence—even in terms of agenda setting. For this a new institutional setting is needed. The proponents of QST flag the affinity of this approach to others such as NUSAP and Sensitivity auditing. Saltelli and Giampietro (2017) suggest that our present approach to evidence-based policy, even in the more nuanced formulation of evidence-informed policy (Gluckman, 2014 ), is often based on an arbitrary restriction of the definition of the problem, which is then reinforced by an effort of quantification - via models and/or indicators, of the selected frame. Other applications of approaches which can be referred to QST are to the analyses for the cost of climate change, to the controversy surrounding the OECD-PISA study  ), to food security, to the controversy surrounding the use of Golden Rice, a GMO crop, and to the ecological footprint of the Ecological Footprint Network.  Perhaps some of the text above could be properly streamlined and salvaged, without sacrificing non-COI references such as  . Reference, 273 citations in Google Scholar, is the most quoted on the topic. I welcome your opinion on this comment. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 10:27, 8 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello Saltean, I'm not here to weigh in on the paragraph's content itself (I know nothing about it) but I do have an opinion on style and tone.
 * It seems to me the adverb "obviously", and the "disease/medicine" metaphor, aren't really encyclopedic, and not really neutral.
 * "Obviously" implies some form of preceding, self-evident knowledge. You can't assume anything is obvious to the reader, at least not in an encyclopedia article, which has to be as didactic as possible.
 * The "disease/medicine" metaphor, when used to characterize a policy, doesn't sound neutral at all. Again, not encyclopedic.
 * Reading this as a layman (like I said, I'm not judging the content), this somewhat raises a red flag in my mind, makes me more inclined to consider the claims dubious (again, I'm not saying they are).
 * Anyway, not trying to nitpick here, but since you reckon the paragraph could use some streamlining/salvaging, I figured my tiny feedback could be useful. The article is an interesting read in any case! Castor Gravy (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks and ... yes, you are right. The tone is not encyclopedic. Will try to do better if I edit the page again; for the moment I am worried of doing anything on the page that might be COI. The way I will proceed is see if User:MrOllie replies and then proceed with caution. Thanks again! Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 07:10, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking COI concerns seriously. By 'proceed with caution' I assume you mean you won't write about yourself like this any more. MrOllie (talk) 14:01, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Dear MrOllie
 * Thanks again for your input. In case you have not seen it yet this is my conflict resolution text opened as a result of your interventions; I will use red below for better readability. The case has been closed by User:Robert McClenon, see by Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_241; please see as well the talk page of User:Robert McClenon. From now on I am systematically using the Edit:COI and declaring my conflict at the beginning on any page.
 * Regards Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:23, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Have you discussed this on a talk page?
 * Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.
 * Location of dispute
 * Users involved
 * Dispute overview
 * This concerns a series of edit made last September 2023 by User:MrOllie and relative to a several different pages, see User_talk:MrOllie where all references to my own work have been removed.
 * My case is that in two particular two pages Sensitivity auditing and Sensitivity analysis my own references are instead needed. In one case the references eliminated correspond to the most quoted articles in the respective discipline of sensitivity analysis (see detailed list in Talk:Sensitivity analysis). In the other case I am simply the creator of the method, please see Talk:Sensitivity auditing.
 * I agree that COI needs to be avoided. I agree that I quoted excessively my own papers, lesson learned, and I can live with the elisions in the other pages. I ask no action there.
 * Now I can use the edit COI template to gently reinsert at least the essential references at the two pages mentioned, but would like to note that editors such as User:MrOllie could use some restraint and especially address the authors of Wikipedia with courtesy. I noted User:MrOllie's hostile and confrontational tone with practically all authors, and even outside Wikipedia there have been complaints. I am not saying that User:MrOllie is wrong – most likely User:MrOllie is mostly right in the pertinent domains but being right gives no licence to be brusque. User:MrOllie should consider the possibility that some author is also right in his/her subject domain.
 * Since User:MrOllie is a seasoned editor (as I am a seasoned author) I doubt this complaint of mine will make any difference, but still, it pains me that we cannot work in Wikipedia in a spirit of cooperation instead of one of aggressive confrontation – though, let it be clear, I met scores of polite and collaborative editors in Wikipedia who corrected and still correct me constructively.
 * How have you tried to resolve this dispute before coming here?
 * See
 * Talk:Sensitivity analysis
 * Talk:Sensitivity auditing
 * User_talk:MrOllie
 * Talk:Quantitative storytelling
 * Talk:Ethics of quantification
 * User_talk:Saltean
 * How do you think we can help resolve the dispute?
 * Talking to User:MrOllie would be a good starting point.
 * Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:23, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * How do you think we can help resolve the dispute?
 * Talking to User:MrOllie would be a good starting point.
 * Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:23, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Change under the COI template
Based on the above discussion in the present talk page, here is my attempt to re-establish a useful reference using the edit COI template.
 * Specific text to be added or removed: One reduced portion of text following the suggestion of User:Castor_Gravy.
 * Reason for the change: Relevance of the proposed insertion to the page, see discussion in the present talk page.
 * References supporting change: Scholar Google can be checked for the reference to 'What is wrong with evidence based policy, and how can it be improved?'; it has 280 citations at the time of writing. I also added a reference from a A. Stirling treating the subject of reductionism in framing.

In these proposed changes I have not suppressed text from other authors.Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 09:07, 1 March 2024 (UTC) Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 09:07, 1 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I get the gist of this, but it's still pretty advanced language considering the advice at WP:AUDIENCE. Some comments:
 * Where in the article would this go?
 * The terms pre-analytic and pre-quantitative phase don't ring a bell for me. Can they be defined in the article or replaced with a longer explanation of these phases of analysis?
 * Is there a commonly accepted list of rules of sensitivity auditing? If not, maybe the specific application of QST in sensitivity auditing that you're thinking of should be included instead.
 * The issue of tractability achieved by reductivism is already discussed in the article. If I'm reading this right, it looks like the point of the last sentence is to say reductivism is reinforced by quantification by focusing people's attention on indicators from a reductive model. Is there a way to integrate that with the text already in the article? There's nothing wrong with removing text by others if you can state it more clearly, and it's important to avoid unnecessary repetition.
 * HansVonStuttgart (talk) 09:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)