From: Isaac Koi <isaackoi.nul>
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:12:28 +0100
Archived: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:50:54 -0400
Subject: Re: MUFON: A "Game-Changing"(?) Project


>From: Robert Powell <rpowell.nul>
>To: post.nul
>Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 07:18:26 -0500
>Subject: Re: MUFON: A "Game-Changing"(?) Project

>>From: Isaac Koi<isaackoi.nul>
>>To: post.nul
>>Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:34:19 +0100
>>Subject: MUFON: A "Game-Changing"(?) Project

>>I’ve started a few threads on there myself in the last few days
>>to see how much of a response I get from MUFON representatives,
>>including: "Statistical analysis of MUFON case reports?":

>Isaac, currently the software that drives the MUFON database
>does not capture all of the critical parameters necessary to
>properly do a statistical analysis of varied parameters such as
>witness' educational level, time of day, day of week, county,
>length of sighting observation, etc. Those parameters exist but
>the built-in software isn't able to extract them; a special
>routine has to be written for each extract.

Many thanks for your email Robert.

While somewhat disappointing, your comments fit with the picture
I formed when writing the piece at the link below some time ago
about difficulties in accessing information about the evaluation
of cases held by MUFON in terms of the evaluation system
endorsed by MUFON (i.e. the Ballester-Guasp quantification
method):

http://tinyurl.com/34qogv4

That item included the following:

"... one of the volunteers that has contributed to MUFON's
database systems has helpfully informed me that 'a great number
of cases that have been investigated do have this information
available' and that it is part of the "final report text field"
within MUFON's records. That volunteer commented that:
"Unfortunately though it's difficult to do mass comparison
across the entire DB to get a sense of the quality of all cases
(or the cases that are missing this information) because the
data hasn't been abstracted to its own numerical column" (see
Footnote 23.10)".

I understand that a new MUFON database ("CMS2", i.e. a second
version of MUFON's "Case Management System" database) is now
largely completed.

I hope your point only applies to the existing database and that
CMS2 will address this issue...

>The current software can do things such as percent of hoaxes,
>UFOs, IFOs, U.S. state, year, etc. But some of those parameters
>are very dependent on the skill of each individual field
>investigator and don't make for good statistical analysis.

Well, I'm not sure whether _any_ UFO database really does make
for good statistical analysis.

Personally, I find UFO databases and catalogues more useful as
bibliographies (to help find relevant material) than for
statistical analysis.

Of course, summaries of the information on MUFON's database are
interesting in terms of providing information about MUFON and
the records it holds.


All the best,

Isaac


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