How credible is Nationmaster?

[Mouthwash]

I tried comparing Somalia and Ethiopia's economies on Nationmaster: [http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Ethiopia/Somalia/Economy]

WHY exactly are all of these statistics from the seventies, eighties, and nineties? I can't help but feel that I'm missing something because of the seeming uselessness of it. Is Nationmaster a reliable website?

 

[Cutlass]

I've thought so when I've used it in the past. But I think the limits are that the guy is not generating his own data.

Background (or 'Why did you make this site?')

The idea for NationMaster arose as I was surfing around the CIA World Factbook. It's a great read but I felt the individual figures (like number of TV's, or kilometres of coastline) didn't mean much on their own. They'd be more illuminating if they were placed alongside other countries and shown relative to population.


So I decided to put together a website that allowed users to generate graphs based on numerical data extracted from the Factbook. The next (rather obvious) realisation was that there's no reason I couldn't take in data from other sources. Why shouldn't the net have a central location that allows you to compare countries on any statistic you like?


But why did I do it? To promote education and understanding about the world. To make it easy to engage with the indicators that shape global commerce, health, politics and ecology. To make the facts easily accessible and meaningful. To bring the works of academics, public agencies and private researchers to a wider audience.


One intended use for this site is, during debates in discussion groups, people link to comparisons of specific countries. I hope students, educators and librarians will find the site a useful teaching aide. More generally, I hope the figures will spark people's interest and they'll want to read more.

So in some cases the data he's working from may be obsolete, but he doesn't have better.

 

[Mouthwash]

I've thought so when I've used it in the past. But I think the limits are that the guy is not generating his own data.



So in some cases the data he's working from may be obsolete, but he doesn't have better.

Far better to leave it blank then give DECADES OLD information. Quick fact: Somalia has tripled its GDP per capita over the past twenty years.

 

[Mise]

Probably because you're looking at Somalia.

 

[Wondering Kid]

Remember that due to Somalia's ongoing civil war, not only data from the country is hard to come by; but also it is really hard to determine how the place is going on just at looking at the numbers because of several other reasons.
For one, Somalia is also facing two regions that are vying for independence; in account that they have been more successful alone than with the central government at their side. Those are, so far, Puntland and Somaliland. Because Somalia's government considers them to be part of Somalia, ergo, of their economy; one cannot really know if all of that GDP is really 100% Somalian or 70% Somalilandese (dunno if that's the real demonym)...

The website seems good enough IMO, and best of luck in your search.

 

[History_Buff]

I'm betting it's just a problem of the statistic not being known to anyone. Civil wars tend to prevent accurate statistics gathering, assuming a central authority had the interest for such things, which they usually don't.

Putting the date there, clearly visible enough for you to notice it, is the correct way to go about things.