these dimensions of standards are in some sense idealized. They embody goals of practice and production that are never perfectly realized, like Plato’s triangles. The process of building to a standardized code, for example, usually includes a face-to-face negotiation between builder(s) and inspector(s), which itself includes a history of relations between those people. Small deviations are routinely overlooked, unless the inspector is making a political point. The idiom “good enough for government use” embodies the common-sense accommodations of the slip between the ideal standard and the contingencies of practice.408 ↱
Sorting Things Out
Classification and Its Consequences
Geoffrey C. Bowker, Susan Leigh Star