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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

#91

Post by boneheadmed »

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…

Hacker news has been left wing hack news for a long time. I'm still waiting for them to downvote me out of existence. It's taking too long. :)

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

#92

Post by notfromhere »

imh wrote: post #41
conistonwater wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nate Silver's reputation stakes on being accurate, so anything outside of a perfect result isn't great. This is different than Exxon Mobil's stance on global warming, where they make money when the truth about global warming was obfuscated.

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

#93

Post by matt4077 »

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.

Considering the universe of facts is endless, it seems that it's impossible to report without "bias" then – you necessarily have to make decisions and there is no objective standard to judge stories by.

(and, btw, the leaks have three stories in the "top news" block on the top left, and an above-the-fold story in the politics section right now)

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

#94

Post by tiatia »

matt4077 wrote: post #89
tiatia wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nate Silver has been criticized a lot by Mish ( http://mishtalk.com/ ) and Mish was more often correct with his predictions than Nate. (What was Nate's prediction of Trump becoming the candidate? "Trump's chance of becoming the GOP nominee at 2 percent.") Nate is strongly biased in favor of Hillary. That is fine but that is not scientific. Nassim Taleb said about Nate: "55% "probability" for Trump then 20% 10 d later…

538 didn't give any predictions on the primaries. Yes, they wrote articles saying that he had no chance, but those are separate from their statistical predictions. And, regarding the volatility: the probabilities reported by 538 are closely linked to betting/prediction markets. Anyone with a better model could parlay into money quite easily.

"538 didn't give any predictions on the primaries."

They gave predictions for every state during the primaries. Also see: https://mishtalk.com/2016/05/19/nate-silvers-self-serving-co...

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

#95

Post by gozur88 »

matt4077 wrote: post #88
gozur88 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't the feat people make it out to be. In US elections there are only a handful of states that could go either way.

It adds up pretty quickly. For 2008 and 2012 combined, he only got one state wrong. Say there are 10 swing states close to 50/50 chances, and all others are fixed. The chance of getting them all right, twice, are 0.5^(2*10) = 0.000000953674316. (that's actually not the best method to evaluate him, because he provides estimates of chances and could be better evaluated with something like the https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

There aren't ten swing states. It's probably closer to half that. And they aren't 50/50 either. I got 49 right the last election just by looking at the public polls in the days leading up to the vote.

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

#96

Post by eatbitseveryday »

matt4077 wrote: post #90
eatbitseveryday wrote: post #47

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

Can you come up with a better one? Because it's as fair a summary as I could write within that space, and the article was pretty much what I expected before I clicked. I see no harm in headlines that create interest as long as they are not misleading.

The article has almost nothing to write about the "19-year-old Illinois man" but everything to do about the "U.S.C./LAT poll" and its characteristics. The poll chooses weights and as such this random person's decisions are given higher precedence.

The title should reflect the _poll_, not the man. HE himself is doing nothing. The title is misleading as I assumed the article would discuss grassroots activities by this man and how he's making great strides to influence polls. I would learn who he is, what he is doing, and how his actions have been effective. But, this is not the case. He has no idea and in fact this man is entirely irrelevant as an individual.

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

#97

Post by kahrkunne »

throwaway729 wrote: post #35
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.

I think it will be really interesting to see what happens in election forecasting if Trump wins this election -- doubly so if there's no major scandal for Clinton between now and election day.

>doubly so if there's no major scandal for Clinton between now and election day.

Unlikely, considering there's one every other day

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

#98

Post by inimino »

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…

Nate Silver is a recognized expert in an obviously highly complex area, so the grandparent comment is making an argument from authority. Given that, the disclaimer about that authority's possible conflict of interest is warranted. It's not a criticism but it is relevant in evaluating an authority's opinion.

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

#99

Post by Scarblac »

kahrkunne wrote: post #97
throwaway729 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be really interesting to see what happens in election forecasting if Trump wins this election -- doubly so if there's no major scandal for Clinton between now and election day.

>doubly so if there's no major scandal for Clinton between now and election day. Unlikely, considering there's one every other day

Repeating the same thing every other day doesn't count.

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

#100

Post by inimino »

throwaway729 wrote: post #35
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.

I think it will be really interesting to see what happens in election forecasting if Trump wins this election -- doubly so if there's no major scandal for Clinton between now and election day.

If the polls stay as they are and the election goes the other way, it means that polling as practiced is somehow fundamentally broken, which would be very surprising.

If there's a gradual shift in the polls, I'm not sure what that would mean. Which scenario did you have in mind?

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