It's more about trying to formalize that knowledge into evidence-supported statements.

Kinda like they mentioned in article, there's tacit knowledge and externalized knowledge. They are trying to condense tacit knowledge in this area into externalized, or formalized, knowledge.

This formalizing of knowledge makes it easier to build on top of it and work with. So while it may seem silly to survey something that is tacitly known, it's also good to formalize this knowledge into something a bit more trustworthy.