How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by hilop » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 9:58 PM UTC

alva wrote: post #39

erickhill wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His dog won pretty handily in the last election, though. It's not an exact science, but his methodology seemed to eliminate a fair amount of doubt from the equation.

Nate Tin did eventually publish a post [0] outlining that his way off predictions (sub 2% at one point) [1] of the R. primaries were terribly affected by his bias. That was honourable of him to admit. Presumably he is trying to eliminate that bias going forward for the main event. [0] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-i-acted-like-a-pundi... [1] https://i.sli.mg/hF2vOz.jpg

His name is Nate Silver. Don't be obnoxious.

538 didn't fail to read data properly re Trump's nomination. Trump was a new phenomenon with no history to build a model from. 538's mistake was guessing instead of admitting they had insufficient data -- which is bad behavior, but not because their preferred methodology is bad.

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

#52

Post by dom0 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 10:03 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #43

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.

Well technically yeah. The old saying goes "an old theory isn't thrown over by convincing people, but because their proponents die of old age" for a reason.

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

#53

Post by hilop » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

monksy wrote: post #49

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.

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?

NYT is not liberal. It is just left of extreme right wing. NYT was a leading cheerleaders for Bush's Iraq War

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

#54

Post by aetherson » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #43

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.

No, but if Hawking tells me that there are two theories, "a" and "b," that compete to explain a given phenomenon, and "a" is right and "b" is wrong, and "a" is a theory that Hawking himself came up with, then I'll note that.

Even if, as in this case, I think that despite the bias, Silver is right.

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

#55

Post by hilop » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

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…

Of the NYT wanted to swing the election, they might have publishedthis article before Trump imploded at the debates.

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

#56

Post by MrZongle2 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 10:09 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #50

MrZongle2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't this the point of having a discussion site, however: to discuss issues rather than simply downvote them to oblivion?

Note my first post. I intentionally left it open-ended to spark discussion. In an election cycle where online propaganda and sockpuppetry have been confirmed, I don't think my question is in the same league as those posed by flat-earthers or 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

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

#57

Post by TillE » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 10:16 PM UTC

hilop wrote: post #53

monksy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

NYT is not liberal. It is just left of extreme right wing. NYT was a leading cheerleaders for Bush's Iraq War

It's probably roughly in line with the centrist Democrat view (which is also generally pro-war), if you don't look too hard at the prominent columns given to people like David Brooks and Ross Douthat which would drag their aggregate editorializing to the right.

So in common American usage, not liberal. If you're a socialist though, "liberal" would accurately describe the whole Democratic party, who favor somewhat regulated capitalism and mild social liberalism.

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

#58

Post by mmanfrin » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 10:47 PM UTC

jakub_g wrote: post #48

Side rant: what the heck did they implement on NYtimes.com ?! When I quickly click the text (which I compulsively do to select a paragraph etc.), it changes the font size (sigh)

I am a compulsive selector and I absolutely hate websites that try to add functionality to selections. No, I do not want to share this selection, website, especially when your JS code hangs for a moment as it loads a stupid twitter image.

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

#59

Post by succstressful » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 11:03 PM UTC

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #47

Will the era of click-bait titles come to an end?

As soon as it stops working, it will stop being employed.

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

#60

Post by rsoto » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 11:09 PM UTC

jakub_g wrote: post #48

Side rant: what the heck did they implement on NYtimes.com ?! When I quickly click the text (which I compulsively do to select a paragraph etc.), it changes the font size (sigh)

Ugh, what were they thinking? I can't even imagine what this feature would be for!