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ClimbinDdRT t1_ir2qxra wrote

Reply to comment by 123mop in An anonymous polling site for sensitive topics, with live stats and a heatmap (NEW: add your own questions!) by bowelcrusher

Hi. Could you explain this to me please? Like, if it’s a random person survey and assuming the randoms are telling the truth about how they feel, why wouldn’t it be useful somehow?

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DoesHeSmellikeaBitch t1_ir2rn0f wrote

I believe the concern is that the sample of respondents is not random, and indeed, not really representative of any particular population. Thus, the data reflects the bias not of the population of that specific area alone but also the channels via which this program is disseminated.

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DetBabyLegs t1_ir34uhb wrote

Also self reported data is often flawed in and of itself

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ClimbinDdRT t1_ir2ry8r wrote

Oh for sure. I get that. My own bias showed even though I tried not to.

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fart-o-clock t1_ir3kkvl wrote

> My own bias showed even though I tried not to

Maybe so, but that’s not the entirety of the issue here.

The other main problems are sampling bias (ie, the survey is sent to folks who are not representative of the broader population), and non-response bias (ie, the types of people who elect to respond to such a survey are not representative of the broader population).

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thedeadliestmau5 t1_ir2soku wrote

Bots, Brigading, Poorly structured questions, Typical public survey manipulations Also the slide to vote if not done correctly could present false positives for selecting your vote

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bowelcrusher OP t1_ir34go1 wrote

Thanks for the list - I tried to make it trickier for bots by using invisible captcha. I couldn't find any real solutions for the rest

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Midget_Stories t1_ir36pyt wrote

At this point it's a survey of reddit opinions. Everyone knows reddit opinions aren't representative of normal people.

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123mop t1_ir49lqf wrote

The key is that it's not random at all. Sort of like if you posted a survey on your facebook page, or asked college students at a sports game. There are several layers of bias, and the end result is that you don't really learn anything.

In the first case, you learn what 'your friends' 'who use facebook' and 'who will open the survey and fill it out' think. That's at least 3 layers of selection bias.

In the second case you learn what 'college students' 'at that university' 'who would go to a sports game' and also 'be willing to respond to the survey' think. Also at least 3 layers of selection bias.

If you asked "are sports entertaining?" In your survey, it's pretty obvious the group at the sporting event would have substantial deviation compared to the general population. But those kinds of group deviations can be more subtle or less blatantly predictable as well.

In this case, if this is the only place he's posted this, the survey group is going to be primarily 'redditors' 'with r/internetisbeautiful as a sub' 'who found this interesting enough to click it and fill it out' and so on down the line with a variety of other layers of selection bias. Even if the only flayer of selection was 'redditors' you would find a tremendous deviation from the general population in a wide variety of things.

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Terkala t1_ir35zmh wrote

Sites like this get shared among super liberal places like reddit. But can you imagine grandmothers on Facebook using it? No.

So you get skewed distributions of things. It only represents those people that take the survey, and by the nature of the site those people will all strongly think the same.

Also the questions aren't useful. Should abortion be legal? Simply a yes/no doesn't give any meaningful information. The debate is basically down to 'if it should be legal, when should it be legal'. The current left wing stance is that it should be legal up to 1second before labor happens. The right wing stance is 'sometimes legal, often before heartbeat'.

But according to that poll site everyone supports abortion.

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DastardlyBoosh t1_ir38pst wrote

>The debate is basically down to 'if it should be legal, when should it be legal'. The current left wing stance is that it should be legal up to 1second before labor happens. The right wing stance is 'sometimes legal, often before heartbeat'.

Lol what absolute horseshit of a take, nonsequitur to boot. 🤡🤡

Edit : surprise surprise they're also a bigot

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Terkala t1_ir3lk0j wrote

That's... the actual legislation the Democrats tried to pass (H.R. 8296), compared to the actual legislation as passed in 80% of the American Midwest states.

If that wasn't the party stance, why would they write and vote for a bill that contains it?

Edit: As you've blocked me, and I see a automod deleted comment beneath this one, I don't think anyone saw your response. But I assume you're pivoting to personal attacks rather than discussing the facts, because the facts are not on your side.

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