polls
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PepperFritz
The Cosmic Force
"Polls" are rather simplistic devices that try to reduce complex issues to "yes" or "no", or "a, b, or c" options. The purpose of this forum is to explore issues in their full complexity, not reduce them to easily digestible bites and categories. If you want to know what members of the forum think about a given issue, all you have to do is start a thread asking the question. The answers are bound to be more "interesting" than the results of a "poll"....
That's my take, FWIW....
That's my take, FWIW....
anart
A Disturbance in the Force
mugatea said:
Well, actually - polls have been considered for the SoTT page, simply because the SoTT readers responses would likely be much more interesting than, say, CNN. Plus, the poll wouldn't be rigged as they often are on mainstream sites. I just think it's something we haven't gotten around to due to having so much else going on.
I think polls that are run well can be entertaining and offer insight - as always it's a garbage in/garbage out situation and can really only apply to simplistic situations, but it could be interesting. ;)
(Pepperfritz, your response was a bit strong, don't you think? It sounds like you've witnessed bloody atrocities committed by renegade bands of polls... ;) )
Thinking about polls got me thinking about statistics and a good book:
[QUote author=Wikipedia]
"How to Lie with Statistics" is Darrell Huff's perennially popular introduction to statistics for the general reader. Written in 1954, it is a brief, breezy, illustrated volume outlining common errors, both intentional and unintentional, associated with the interpretation of statistics, and how these errors can lead to inaccurate conclusions.
Over time it has become one of the most widely read statistics books in history, with over one and a half million copies sold in the English-language edition.[1] It has also been widely translated.
Themes of the book include "Correlation does not imply causation" and "Using Random Sampling". It also shows how statistical graphs can be used to distort reality:
1) By truncating the bottom of a line or bar chart, one makes differences seem larger than they are
2) By representing one-dimensional quantities on a pictogram by two- or three-dimensional objects to compare their sizes, one makes the reader forget that the images don't scale the same way the quantities do. Two rows of small images would give a better idea than one small and one big one. [/quote]
[quote author=Mark Twain] "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." [/quote]
[QUote author=Wikipedia]
"How to Lie with Statistics" is Darrell Huff's perennially popular introduction to statistics for the general reader. Written in 1954, it is a brief, breezy, illustrated volume outlining common errors, both intentional and unintentional, associated with the interpretation of statistics, and how these errors can lead to inaccurate conclusions.
Over time it has become one of the most widely read statistics books in history, with over one and a half million copies sold in the English-language edition.[1] It has also been widely translated.
Themes of the book include "Correlation does not imply causation" and "Using Random Sampling". It also shows how statistical graphs can be used to distort reality:
1) By truncating the bottom of a line or bar chart, one makes differences seem larger than they are
2) By representing one-dimensional quantities on a pictogram by two- or three-dimensional objects to compare their sizes, one makes the reader forget that the images don't scale the same way the quantities do. Two rows of small images would give a better idea than one small and one big one. [/quote]
[quote author=Mark Twain] "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." [/quote]
PepperFritz
The Cosmic Force
anart said:
LOL. Sorry for being so cranky about it. If my response sounds strong, it's because I do feel strongly about the utter uselessness of "polls". I've never seen one that wasn't manipulative and skewed in nature. Or one that featured as one of the possible "answers" my own position on a question, since I don't tend to think in black-and-white terms about anything. As you say, they "can really only apply to simplistic situations", and I don't see this as a forum that concerns itself much with "simplistic situations". I figure they only serve to encourage simplistic thinking. But that's just my personal take on it.
Gee, maybe we should conduct a poll about it!
anart said:
Can you give me a hypothetical example of a poll/question you've seen (or can envision) that would offer valuable "insight"? I'm not being snide, I'm genuinely curious as to what you have in mind.
mugatea
Jedi Master
As well as being fun and interesting they can give insights which bring about questions that may not never have been asked. Also like anart said, they would be more accurate than cnn polls, although it wouldn't be a representation of the masses, it would a more enlightened. And there has also been a lot of talk about 'opinions' lately.
"I've never seen one that wasn't manipulative and skewed in nature. Or one that featured as one of the possible "answers" my own position on a question, since I don't tend to think in black-and-white terms about anything."
Ah, but now you could create your own polls which do include an answer that fits your own position. We all could!
Polls that we have known are generally there to serve someone else's purpose, but who knows what would happen here. It may only end up being some light relief tho, but who knows.
J
"I've never seen one that wasn't manipulative and skewed in nature. Or one that featured as one of the possible "answers" my own position on a question, since I don't tend to think in black-and-white terms about anything."
Ah, but now you could create your own polls which do include an answer that fits your own position. We all could!
Polls that we have known are generally there to serve someone else's purpose, but who knows what would happen here. It may only end up being some light relief tho, but who knows.
J
Rich
The Living Force
I had that thought too. I would vote yay! - no harm in giving it a try and seeing what comes up. Used sparingly I think they can work well. Often websites that have a permanent poll feature struggle to maintain their initial enthusiasm for the idea.PepperFritz said:Gee, maybe we should conduct a poll about it!
What polls would readers want to see? I personally would find it really difficult to come up with meaningful questions and options.
mugatea said:
Well mugatea, along the lines of the question Pepperfritz posed to you,
if you were going to create the first poll. what question and options would you post?PF said:
Re: is there a way to create a poll?
Hi teeeg,
As I understand it, the create poll feature is disabled in this forum. It is only available to certain group of users, like moderators for example. I am not sure if it's available to the other members. There was a discussion on polls here sometime back. I'll merge this topic to it. :)
Hi teeeg,
As I understand it, the create poll feature is disabled in this forum. It is only available to certain group of users, like moderators for example. I am not sure if it's available to the other members. There was a discussion on polls here sometime back. I'll merge this topic to it. :)