When Chris says that lab haters are a minority, how right is he?

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

"

Jennik wrote:

What makes you believe that the people who don't visit the forum are so very different from the people who do?

They choose to visit the forum, and the others don't. That's a significant difference. Choice is motivated by something. Actively choosing to participate in a poll indicates you have an opinion on the matter, so any poll that is trying to decide if you have an opinion on it can't be done by asking people to take the poll. Doesn't matter the topic or the forum or anything else. That's why these polls are meaningless.

Participants of polls are volunteers. Even in random sample, people have to choose to response. Finding volunteers that actively help to gather these data is one of the easiest way to get them. It is practical and feasible. Who is gonna be spending time speaking to people and asking people one by one?

"

raics wrote:

"

Entropic_Fire wrote:

If you ask random passers-by to participate in your poll they can refuse and keep walking

Well sure, two subsets of people are excluded that way:
- those in a hurry
- assholes

And unless the poll is about rights of assholes worldwide I don't see how will that skew results.

Why would people who don't want to participate in a poll some random person on the street is giving be assholes? That makes no sense.

I will never answer a poll a random person on the street is giving and I will never answer a poll a random person calls me with. It would take a very odd person to claim that this makes me an asshole.

"

deathflower wrote:

Even in random sample, people have to choose to response.

Ah, but there is a difference. In most random polls 'I don't have an opinion or don't want to answer' doesn't constitute a major portion of the votes and there's no basis to assume the vote distribution among those that abstained is any different. People have opinions much more often than not, picking random people will not limit you only to those that actively seek to share their opinions.

As we sad here before, negative feelings are by their nature stronger and those that have them will more readily seek to express them. That's what makes board polls skewed.

"

Jennik wrote:

I will never answer a poll a random person on the street is giving and I will never answer a poll a random person calls me with. It would take a very odd person to claim that this makes me an asshole.

Not a problem
- those in a hurry
- assholes
- poll haters

Happy?

Only GGG has the tools to set up a statistically significant study of how much people like/dislike/run the Labyrinth.

I, for one, like the Labyrinth and I'm surely looking forward to running the Uber Lab over the coming weekend.

"

raics wrote:

Happy?

Yeah, I'm a pretty happy guy. I just wonder why you're not putting any effort into giving reasonable responses to people. Clearly you calling everyone who passes up answering a poll an asshole was ridiculous. Why not put just a tiny bit of effort into thinking through your responses so you don't say things so obviously ridiculous in the future?

"

raics wrote:

Ah, but there is a difference. In most random polls 'I don't have an opinion or don't want to answer' doesn't constitute a major portion of the votes and there's no basis to assume the vote distribution among those that abstained is any different. People have opinions much more often than not, picking random people will not limit you only to those that actively seek to share their opinions.

As we sad here before, negative feelings are by their nature stronger and those that have them will more readily seek to express them. That's what makes board polls skewed.

There is no random polls on this. We don't look at data we don't have. We don't look at people who abstain from voting.

PS: The average response rate of internet surveys can be as high as 45% but the representative response rate of your sampling group can be as low as 5%. Contradictory to popular belief, a random sample is selected.

"

raics wrote:

"

Entropic_Fire wrote:

If you ask random passers-by to participate in your poll they can refuse and keep walking

Well sure, two subsets of people are excluded that way:
- those in a hurry
- assholes

And unless the poll is about rights of assholes worldwide I don't see how will that skew results.

Neither. I have at least one person on my daily commute that asks me to take a "quick pole" weekly. Eventually you're like fuck it. I'm not in a hurry and i'm not trying to be an asshole I just have no interest in whatever they are polling for.

Your theory makes sense but it just doesn't go down that way.

"

Jennik wrote:

"

raics wrote:

Happy?

Yeah, I'm a pretty happy guy. I just wonder why you're not putting any effort into giving reasonable responses to people. Clearly you calling everyone who passes up answering a poll an asshole was ridiculous. Why not put just a tiny bit of effort into thinking through your responses so you don't say things so obviously ridiculous in the future?

Thought it was clear enough what I was trying to say.

So, got any special reason for avoiding random polls or you just don't like them?
I'm kinda curious now, Wretch says he's sick of them and I'm thinking of it as a favor to poor sods having to strut around all day in the sun, the sooner they hit the magic number the sooner they can go home.

How many people would watch a Lab run stream? ResidentSleeper

Ya that's why I agree I used to take one every now n then but it gets annoying when its too often and you just distance yourself from these random poll takers as you make eye contact with them while entering the subway platform.