About the Datasets category

Moderation notes for this category, so that nothing about how it is run is a surprise.

Topics get moved into and out of here regularly. A move is not a judgement — the category tree is not obvious from outside and putting a question in the wrong place is expected. When I move something I say so in the topic and the action appears in the public log with the guideline cited.

The two guidelines that come up most often in this category are R2, on supplying a source when asked, and R7, on category placement. Neither is used punitively.

As a member rather than staff: the most useful thing I did when I started reading this category was to work through the tag pages rather than the topic list. The topic list shows you what is recent. The tags show you what is settled.

Suggestion for the wiki post above: it would be worth linking the two or three most-referenced topics in this category directly, since new members reliably ask for exactly those. Happy to make the edit myself if nobody objects, with a revision note.

Bias toward positive outcomes: datasets collected by members are biased toward people who found the compounds useful. People who did not respond do not return. People who had bad outcomes might have left the community.

I read post #4 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.

Limitations of datasets: all community-collected data has limitations. The population is self-selected (people in this community are not representative of all people using these compounds). Reporting bias is real (remarkable outcomes get reported; mundane outcomes do not).

Reading it back, the second half matters more than the first.

Using data in discussions: datasets are useful as reference points when someone claims something unusual. "I have not seen that reported in the data" is different from "that is impossible", but data gives you something to say.

I would want to see it done twice before believing it once.

Combining data from different sources: datasets from this site are not directly comparable to published trials because the populations are different. They are worth reading separately, not merged together.

Community-collected datasets: some members have compiled datasets from their own experience and shared them. They are self-reported, unblinded, and therefore limited as evidence. But they show real patterns that people experience.

Helpful, and easy to find again, which is half of what a good reply is.

Post #9 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.

Aggregating first-hand accounts does not produce evidence of the kind a trial produces. It produces a description of who chose to post, which is a real thing and a different thing.

It cost nothing to check and would have cost something not to.

Units in the column header, always, and the same units down the whole column. Mixed units in one field is the commonest defect in shared spreadsheets here.

This is the sort of thing that ought to be settled and apparently is not.