Survey data-file encoding artifacts can corrupt key variables.

Evidence

South is defined throughout as the eleven states of the former Confederacy. … Roper warns that unreadable characters may have arisen in the conversion process and indeed every binary file we tried to read (roughly a dozen) had characters for some of our key variables that we could not decipher. We thus avoid binary files to ensure data quality. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1022

Categorization

• XREF: Methodological caution mirrors the reader’s standing concern about data-quality choices shaping substantive empirical claims — connects to their skepticism about how the ‘threatened privilege’ thesis is measured. — connects to: Reused master tapes corrupted early CDs, explaining poor CD-versus-LP comparisons; Record label tape-erasure practices corrupted early CD releases at the source — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 157; Copying errors blamed on scribes may reflect divergent local norms and lost base texts (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Coding manuals derived post hoc from data cannot validate differences. #exemplifies (0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 601
• Unreliable interpersonal information causes mis-coding with injurious results. #exemplifies (0.80) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 92
• Record label tape-erasure practices corrupted early CD releases at the source #expands (0.75) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 157
• Reused master tapes corrupted early CDs, explaining poor CD-versus-LP comparisons #expands (0.72)
• Copying errors blamed on scribes may reflect divergent local norms and lost base texts #exemplifies (0.70)
• Independent manuscript copies allow cross-verification of corrupted Arabic-Christian translations. #responds-to (0.70) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1307