First, a little bit about me: I’m a data science grad student. I have been writing for Medium for a little while now. I’m a scorpio. I like long walks on beaches. And writing for Medium made me realize the importance of taking personal responsibility over my data viz.

首先，關于我的一些知識：我是一名數據科學研究生。 我已經為Medium寫了一段時間了。 我是天蝎座。 我喜歡在海灘上散步。 為Medium寫信使我意識到了對數據負責的重要性。

我的理念 (My Philosophy)

I’ve always been libertarian when it comes to data dissemination; the more publicly available data, the more people tinkering with it from their basements and school libraries, the better. Data science is an increasingly pivotal field and I want others to get excited about it as much as I am. Great computer scientists are often made from 12-year-olds coding Tetris in Python (or whatever games they play now — Candy Crush?), although I myself didn’t open my first computer program until I was 21.

在數據發布方面，我一直都是自由主義者。 公開數據越多，地下室和學校圖書館對數據進行修補的人就越多。 數據科學是一個日益重要的領域，我希望其他人能像我一樣對它感到興奮。 優秀的計算機科學家通常是由12歲以下的人用Python(或現在玩的任何游戲，例如Candy Crush？)編寫的Tetris編寫的，盡管我自己直到21歲才打開我的第一個計算機程序。

I’d love to see an army of 12-year-olds graphing covid-19 in novel ways, getting invested in the spread and chiding their aunts and uncles to wash their hands better at their (socially distant) Thanksgivings. Furthermore, the more publicly available data, the more perspectives data scientists can tie in when trying to make predictions and recommendations on the job. More data + more people interested in data = a better world, clean and simple.

我很樂意看到一支由12歲的年輕人組成的小組以新穎的方式繪制covid-19字樣，投入資金進行傳播，并責怪他們的姑姑和叔叔在(遠離社交的)感恩節那天更好地洗手。 此外，公開可用的數據越多，數據科學家在嘗試對工作進行預測和建議時可以結合的視角越多。 更多數據+更多對數據感興趣的人=一個更美好，更干凈，更簡單的世界。

Or so I thought.

還是我想。

關鍵時刻 (The Moment of Truth)

This morning I had written an article about obtaining covid-19 data, performing your own exploratory analysis and then graphing it with animation in R. The end product looked something like this:

今天早上，我寫了一篇有關獲取covid-19數據，進行您自己的探索性分析，然后用R中的動畫繪制圖形的文章。最終產品看起來像這樣：

Cool, right? Not only a hot topic at the moment (covid-19) but now it’s animated!

酷吧？ 不僅是當下的熱門話題(covid-19)，而且現在已經成為動畫！

If anything, I felt like this was the right thing to do if it helped one person visualize the pandemic from their own computer. Furthermore, I was using knowledge gained from my master’s to make a chart I thought both accurate and eye-catching and I genuinely proud of that.

如果有的話，我認為如果這可以幫助一個人從自己的計算機上直觀地看到大流行，那是正確的選擇。 此外，我利用從碩士獲得的知識來制作一張我認為既準確又引人注目的圖表，我為此感到非常自豪。

I was just about to hit publish when I decided to do a few parting reads of how other Medium articles broached the topic. That’s when I started reading a host of posts published by public health and data viz experts that made a whole lot of sense — and not in a way that made me feel helpful or positive anymore.

當我決定對其他Medium文章如何提出該主題進行部分閱讀時，我即將publish 。 從那時起，我開始閱讀由公共衛生和數據專家撰寫的大量文章，這些文章很有道理-不再以使我感到幫助或積極的方式出現。

世界正在遭受Covid-19大小的可視化泡沫 (The World is Suffering a Covid-19-Sized Visualization Bubble)

“To sum it up — #vizresponsibly; which may mean not publishing your visualizations in the public domain at all.”

“總結起來-負責任地； 這可能意味著根本就不會在公共領域發布您的可視化文件。”

— Amanda Makulec

—阿曼達·馬庫萊克(Amanda Makulec)

Instead of my article visualization the coronavirus from the umpteenth time, I think it would be better to skim over one of these articles instead, written by actual professors and health experts:

我認為最好是略過由實際教授和衛生專家撰寫的以下文章之一，而不是我的文章從第10次開始可視化冠狀病毒：

In her sobering article, Amanda Makulec goes on to say:

阿曼達·馬庫萊克(Amanda Makulec)在其發人深省的文章中繼續說：

The stakes are high around how we communicate about this epidemic to the wider public. Visualizations are powerful for communicating information, but can also mislead, misinform, and — in the worst cases — incite panic. We are in the middle of complete information overload, with hourly case updates and endless streams of information.

在我們如何將這種流行病傳播給廣大公眾方面 ， 風險非常高 。 可視化功能強大，可以傳達信息，但也會誤導，誤導信息，在最壞的情況下還會引起恐慌。 我們正處于完全的信息過載之中，每小時更新一次案例，信息源源不斷。

As a public health professional, might I ask:

作為一名公共衛生專業人員，請問：

Please consider if what you’ve created serves an actual information need in the public domain. Does it add value to the public and uncover new information?

請考慮您創建的內容是否滿足公共領域的實際信息需求。 它會為公眾增加價值并發現新信息嗎？

If not, perhaps this is one viz that should be for your own use only.

如果不是，也許這只是您自己使用的一種。

Reading these posts — and taking a moment to think hard about my next steps and their consequences — made me realize that it was better to pull the article than publish it. Sure, maybe I lost a few hours of my life by not publishing an article I had already finished — but there was a substantial chance I could do more harm than good, and for 1/10th more of the time I could be sharing articles written by people who know the topic better than I ever will.

閱讀這些文章，并花點時間仔細考慮我的后續步驟及其后果，使我意識到，撰寫這篇文章比發表它更好。 當然，也許我因為不發表自己已經寫完的文章而損失了數小時的時間，但是我很有可能弊大于利，而且有超過十分之一的時間我可以分享所寫的文章誰比我更了解這個主題的人。

離別的想法 (Parting Thoughts)

When it comes to a life-threatening disease that has impacted millions of people, I’ve come to realize that it is better to amplify the voices of experts than to contribute to a melting pot of novices (including myself) putting their hat in the ring. Whether or not I can personally make an accurate graph matters less than helping to share a select number of data visualizations that are the most telling and honest in their depictions of this epidemic.

當涉及到威脅到數百萬人的威脅生命的疾病時，我已經意識到， 擴大專家的聲音要比助長新手(包括我自己)的大鍋大喝更好。環。 我是否可以親自制作一張準確的圖表，所需要解決的事情，不如幫助分享一些有關該流行病的描述中最能說明事實和最誠實的數據可視化。

Thank you to the visualization experts who unknowingly taught me the importance of responsibility over my data viz today. Having the ability to create information from data is like having a superpower —and you just saved me from becoming a villain.

感謝可視化專家，他們在不知不覺中教會了我今天數據管理責任的重要性。 能夠從數據中創建信息就像擁有超級大國一樣，而您只是使我免于成為小人。

Amanda West is a current master’s student in the School of Data Science at the University of Virginia. Prior to the program, she attended the University of Michigan, where she graduated with honors in economics and a math minor, studied abroad as a Gilman Scholar in Beijing, interned for the Ministry of Economic Development in Albania, trained and competed internationally in taekwondo, and held various jobs including as a Research Assistant and Data Visualization Consultant. You can contact her through her personal website here.

Amanda West目前是弗吉尼亞大學數據科學學院的碩士研究生。 在參加該計劃之前，她曾就讀于密歇根大學(University of Michigan)，以優異的成績畢業于經濟學和數學專業，并在北京以吉爾曼學者的身份出國學習，在阿爾巴尼亞經濟發展部實習，并在跆拳道進行了國際培訓和比賽，并擔任過各種工作，包括擔任研究助理和數據可視化顧問。 您可以通過她的個人網站聯系她 在這里 。