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How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

nytimes.com

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Re: How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

#41

Post by imh »

conistonwater wrote: post #31
aetherson wrote: post #15

Nate Silver at 538 talks about the whole dissecting polls deal, or "unskewing" them. All polls must make methodological choices, and all of those choices have advantages and disadvantages. Spending a lot of time trying to dissect those choices and passing judgment on them is not as productive as: 1. Looking at aggregates of lots of polls. 2. Looking at the variance that a poll captures from one iteration of it to ano…

> so he has a dog in this fight. I don't understand this criticism. Usually when people bring this sort of thing up, they have a specific criticism in mind (e.g., Exxon Mobil on global warming): they have identified an opinion that is sufficiently, demonstrably , wrong, and then they go looking for a reason how someone might get it wrong, so one conclusion might be is "having a dog in the fight". But the logical chai…

The disclaimer is that they make money if people believe they are right, so may be inclined to cherrypick facts. So when we repeat Exxon Mobil's stance on global warming, we say that their stance might not represent all the facts. It's a disclaimer that this isn't my own opinion, and that I don't 100% trust it to be fair.

Re: How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

#42

Post by mturmon »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #3

Regarding the Times ' decision to run this article, I wonder how much of it was based upon "hey, polling is kind of goofy" and how much of was "look! Here's another way we can show that Trump isn't really resonating with voters!".

I don't know if you've followed polling closely, but this particular poll (LAT/USC) is outside the envelope and it has attracted considerable attention because of this. See the lead sentence in: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-poll-faq-20161006-... .

Anyway, the story turns out to be a great example about survey design tradeoffs.

Re: How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

#43

Post by ianai »

aetherson wrote: post #15

Nate Silver at 538 talks about the whole dissecting polls deal, or "unskewing" them. All polls must make methodological choices, and all of those choices have advantages and disadvantages. Spending a lot of time trying to dissect those choices and passing judgment on them is not as productive as: 1. Looking at aggregates of lots of polls. 2. Looking at the variance that a poll captures from one iteration of it to ano…

You just criticized somebody for specialising in what they're talking about. Next you're going to tell me Hawking's biased about physics theories because he knows them and that's somehow a bad thing.

Re: How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

#44

Post by mwfunk »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #17
untog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? The point is that they published an article that is factually accurate. If they were publishing an opinion piece based on such motivations there might be an argument here. But they aren't.

You're completely missing the point. Publications show bias all the time based on what factual information they report (or don't report). Look at CNN.com right. Literally nothing about the new wikileaks that came out today, even in a factual manner. Plenty of opinionated anti-Trump garbage. This is what your parent comment was referring to.

Either that, or you are the one with bias, and the news outlets you go to and/or the people you associate with feed into that bias. You can see just as much bias in the opposite direction on any number of news sites. They're all biased in different ways, some knowingly and some unknowingly.

Individuals are usually even more imperfect than most news outlets when it comes to having limited sources of information and unexamined preconceived notions about things. No one is off the hook for being personally responsible for trying to understand all sides of a debate or being as educated as possible on all sides of an issue. I only say this because I see huge correlations between people complaining about bias in news outlets (regardless of political leanings) and people who don't see just as much bias in their own preferred media inputs.

Re: How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

#45

Post by MrZongle2 »

mturmon wrote: post #42
MrZongle2 wrote: post #3

Regarding the Times ' decision to run this article, I wonder how much of it was based upon "hey, polling is kind of goofy" and how much of was "look! Here's another way we can show that Trump isn't really resonating with voters!".

I don't know if you've followed polling closely, but this particular poll (LAT/USC) is outside the envelope and it has attracted considerable attention because of this. See the lead sentence in: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-poll-faq-20161006-... . Anyway, the story turns out to be a great example about survey design tradeoffs.

Oh, I'm certainly not disputing the NYT article itself. But as with all political coverage this year, I'm highly suspect of timing and motivation.

This post had an additional benefit: I've been able to observed the votes for my comments go up and down like a roller coaster for the past hour, as the readers of HN apply their own biases. Rather interesting, especially as the number of actual responses is relatively small.

What can we learn about HN's user base from the ultimate comment score, I wonder?

Re: How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

#46

Post by hx87 »

blank_dan wrote: post #19
roywiggins wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't doxxing.

'Spose not. I think it is an attempt to subvert the authenticity of the poll though.

What exactly is wrong with questioning the "authenticity" of a poll based on its methodology?

Re: How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

#49

Post by monksy »

untog wrote: post #9
MrZongle2 wrote: post #3

Regarding the Times ' decision to run this article, I wonder how much of it was based upon "hey, polling is kind of goofy" and how much of was "look! Here's another way we can show that Trump isn't really resonating with voters!".

Does it matter? The point is that they published an article that is factually accurate. If they were publishing an opinion piece based on such motivations there might be an argument here. But they aren't.

It does matter. Popularity bias affects how people vote. NYTimes is a fairly liberal media source, and it's incredibly suspicious that this small case has been used to show "hey this bad guy is getting support due to this!" ... why didn't they publish this before?

Re: How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages

#50

Post by Ensorceled »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #45
mturmon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've followed polling closely, but this particular poll (LAT/USC) is outside the envelope and it has attracted considerable attention because of this. See the lead sentence in: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-poll-faq-20161006-... . Anyway, the story turns out to be a great example about survey design tradeoffs.

Oh, I'm certainly not disputing the NYT article itself. But as with all political coverage this year, I'm highly suspect of timing and motivation. This post had an additional benefit: I've been able to observed the votes for my comments go up and down like a roller coaster for the past hour, as the readers of HN apply their own biases. Rather interesting, especially as the number of actual responses is relatively sma…

Probably that they dislike politically motivated conspiracy theories when there is an obvious, non conspiracy based explanation, e.g. the one you just replied to.
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