71–80 of 132 posts
Here's a histogram of ages, as they appear right now in the poll. It seems they follow a poisson distribution peaking around 27. ------- --------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ ------------------ -------- ------ ----- - - -
Why would you call it poisson?
I just turned 24 today :D
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The key issue is being good at statistics, not math. The data can't be relied on to make such an inference because they are not from a random sample of the relevant population. VOLUNTARY RESPONSE POLLS One professor of statistics, who is a co-author of a highly regarded AP statistics textbook, has tried to popularize the phrase that "voluntary response data are worthless" to go along with the phrase "correlation does…
Surely it's incorrect to make a blanket statement that voluntary response data is worthless. Worthless means there is zero information in the data, which would only be true in extreme cases.
http://aurora.wells.edu/~srs/Math151-Fall02/Litdigest.htm
is a spectacular historical example of a voluntary response poll that didn't give a correct picture of reality at all.
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So, doesn't that just mean that a statistically significant portion of the regular HN users would have to respond? Of course, you'd have to figure out how to define "regular HN users" and what would be a significant portion of them. If this poll were to get that much response, it would also tell you something interesting: that HN users respond to polls in statistically significant numbers :) So, voluntary response po…
> So, doesn't that just mean that a statistically significant portion of the regular HN users would have to respond? No. If 50% of HN visitors voted but 99% of those over 40 didn't (due to whatever confounding factor you like - say embarrasment), you'd still wouldn't be able to extrapolate from the sample to the category of "HN visitors".
Someone better than me at math should say how many votes we need to have a 95% accuracy.
The key issue is being good at statistics, not math. The data can't be relied on to make such an inference because they are not from a random sample of the relevant population. VOLUNTARY RESPONSE POLLS One professor of statistics, who is a co-author of a highly regarded AP statistics textbook, has tried to popularize the phrase that "voluntary response data are worthless" to go along with the phrase "correlation does…
If nothign else because the youngsters here are more likely to respond (and also respond correctly) even though it is anonymous :)
But even allowing for that I would reckon we can use the data to extrpolate a few guesses. For example the high number of under 20's votes (I imagine these beign the most accurate numbers because of the deomgraphic too).
Plus of course this place is probably more likely to generate valid responses because of the general demographic. I would expect the data to be more accurate than a similar poll on, say, welovebritneyspears.com :)
So, yes (and to abuse a much overused maxim :D), voluntary poll data is untrustworthy. But some are more untrustworthy than others ;)
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Surely it's incorrect to make a blanket statement that voluntary response data is worthless. Worthless means there is zero information in the data, which would only be true in extreme cases.
No information is better than misinformation.