I very much agree. To give a little context to my annoyance with the guy that posted a link to LSN: OP already has an account on LSN, and I know this because I'm watching it because he has similar numbers to me. That's probably why I wrote what I did. I just feel it's very dismissive and unfriendly to post a link to LSN without saying anything else, especially given the concerns that URMs face when looking for information.bk187 wrote:Because I'd rather engage in this derpfest than read another page of CivPro I'll try to be useful. FWIW I am a URM who shares similar numbers with barely a dozen other URMs on LSN when looking over the past 5 years of data (not to mentions that even when expanding to non-URMs the pickings are fairly slim).
LSN is still the most valuable resource there is for URMs which basically obviates the need even for URMs to make these types of threads. A collection of data is always going to be more useful than random one-off anecdotes from people who almost always already have their data on LSN anyways. In fact I'd argue that since URM cycles are harder to predict that anecdotal responses are even less helpful for URMs than LSN data (though there is a decent argument that URM anecdotes are worthwhile for establishing the bounds of what is possible and where it would be worth an app fee even on a very small chance of admission). That being said, this is still true when you get into different URM subgroups. Are they given differing boosts? To a certain extent they are, but it isn't so definite that you can demarcate exactly who gets a boost of X and who gets a boost of Y. To go even further, subdivision creates even more problems due to the already sparse amount of URMs out there so that once you start looking for a specific URM subgroup for a specific data range you could be looking at few to none who are within that range. The best thing to do is to use all the URM data points in a given range even if they are not your URM subgroup and of course to take it with a grain of salt. Could they be slightly off for you? Of course they can, but they really are the best source of data out there.
URMs will be fine with doing LSN research without the need to make a thread about it. While the data is not as full as one might like it, it is there in a full enough fashion that almost every URM can figure it out given enough parsing. The only time I could think there would be an issue is when there is a fake LSN profile (tends to happen more with people making fake URM profiles than with fake non-URM profiles), though I believe that most of those profiles are fairly straightforward and obvious.
JMJ: operative word in my post was "trying". Something about hitting someone with an LSN link and nothing else just annoys me, I must admit. Ironically, that was probably the only thing in this thread that actually made me mad.
And you're right-- "LSN really has very little to tell you" is sooooooooooooooooooo much more helpful than our "lower T14" comments. 
Not to mention your own original post here was only UMAD comments, and you went back and edited in the 'Anyway, [not really helpful comment]" to "pretend to be in this thread for some reason other than" being mad.
