Talk:Our World in Data

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Source of funding[edit]

The only mention of the funding of the website is the sentence "Our World in Data is currently financed entirely through small individual donations from readers of the publication." with a reference to https://web.archive.org/web/20160309110606/https://www.tilt.com/tilts/help-save-ourworldindataorg However, other sources seem to indicate that this is not the case. According to the Oxford University website (https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/news/our-world-in-data-new-funding) Our World in Data has received a substantial donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which may call into question their independence - or at least is worth mentionning here. Any input on this? --Lvarnet (talk) 12:32, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Lvarnet: The article was updated on 12 May 2019 to mention Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding. I have removed the sentence you queried as it seems to be out of date. TSventon (talk) 13:33, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@TSventon: Perfect, thanks a lot! Lvarnet (talk) 08:57, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Tagged with the advertisement template, I'm not seeing its validity...[edit]

Is it like an advertisement? I certainly see some reliance on primary sources, so maybe that template would be better. But it looks neutral to me, the user who added this could just find sources for a criticism section instead, as he/she hasn't discussed this on the talk page per WP:WTRMT...Donkey Hot-day (talk) 03:33, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Tagged, again[edit]

Greetings, all. The text is biased and excessive in its praise for the subject. It contains excessive quotes from awards (e.g. "In 2019, Our World in Data won the Lovie Award, the European web award, in recognition of their outstanding use of data and the internet to supply the general public with understandable data-driven research – the kind necessary to invoke social, economic, and environmental change"). The claim that it's "one of the leading organizations publishing global data and research on the COVID-19 pandemic" is referred to sources such as these: The career-advice firm 80,000 Hours here, with sample quote: "The world’s first great source" - really? And what, for instance, is Johns Hopkins? Chopped liver?; an article in the good periodical Nature, another in The Economist, and one more from the CNN website which simply contain graphs taken from OWID (there are certainly more), but where no cush claim is made; an interview by OWID founder to the Spanish language newspaper Crónica Global, where he doesn't claim anything of the sort; an advertorial in Xataca; a [ link] to OWID's own website; and so on.

The effort to promote the subject website is palpable. And, though I'm also an occasional user of OWID's data, I find the slant to be just too much. We must have a marked improvement here, which renders the lemma appopriate for Wikipedia. -The Gnome (talk) 11:36, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just cleaned up various things (also per WP:MISSION, WP:PEACOCK), and removed several citations that were not actually supporting the claim they were cited for, e.g. that "In 2019, Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison called for a new academic discipline of 'Progress Studies' that institutionalizes the mission of Our World in Data" (a highly dubious claim, OWID is not even mentioned in various overviews of Progress Studies such as [1]).
I think the article is looking better now, and some positive quotes about the article's subject are OK if they are not cherry-picked and reflect notable views (I'm unfamiliar with that particular award).
However, it still seems worthwhile to check whether other citations might be similarly misleading (the Crónica Global one mentioned above remains in the article for now).
Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:33, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Towards reducing the "advertising" feel... the History section seems excessively detailed in comparison to the Content section which describes what Our World in Data is. I am drafting changes to tighten History up. If others have suggestions for adding to the Content section that may be helpful as well. Youblend2 (talk) 00:19, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
With the accumulated changes, is it reasonable to now remove the Advertising and Neutrality tags? Youblend2 (talk) 00:40, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As there has been very little changes since your edits @Youblend2 I will go ahead and remove it, if anyone disputes however feel free to revert. Tweedle (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Campaign for the IEA to make its data open[edit]

For more background on this campaign directed at the International Energy Agency, along with fully specified sources, please see: forum.openmod.org/t/2949/10. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 16:35, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]