spiral8888

spiral8888 t1_izivw2d wrote

Yes, you can look at the Y-axis. But if you think that just by having the Y-axis values available removes all misleading, then no suppression of zero is ever misleading. For instance, by your logic the OP's first graph is not misleading as the values are there.

Regarding the Fed graph, the thing that you named as anomaly is amplified when you suppress the zero. When you don't the effect of the stimulus is put more context of how much effect it actually had on people's disposable income.

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spiral8888 t1_izi4gl0 wrote

First, I have to say that there is something wrong with the data behind the graph. I can't believe the yearly disposable income could have 20%+ jumps in a month.

Second, yes the 5 year graph is misleading as it makes it look like the disposable income doubled in a month and then fell back to the old level.

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spiral8888 t1_izi3wng wrote

Two things. First, the stock prices are a bit like temperature in a sense that the absolute value of the share price has very little meaning. The share price of $10/share doesn't really tell you anything. It only tells you something in relation to the past.

Second, the relative change of the share price does matter. So, 50% drop in price is a different thing than a 1% drop. If you suppress the zero, they look the same on the graph.

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spiral8888 t1_izfurx3 wrote

  1. As someone commented. If you make the Y-axis such that the left one is 10% of the top and the right one 90%, you can make any change, big or small look exactly the same on the graph. In those cases the conveys zero information. You might as well give the values as numbers.

The only situations where it could make sense to suppress the zero are those where the absolute value of the plotted thing has no meaning, such as air temperature. So,.most likely you would never want to plot air temperatures starting from 0K. In most cases the absolute values have meaning, which is why the suppression of the zero just misleads the reader.

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spiral8888 t1_izfsxmw wrote

The problem is that in some plotting programs that's the default. That's why it's hard to know if the journalist presenting the graph is deliberately trying to mislead or is just incompetent and doesn't understand that if he/she doesn't tell the plotting program not to suppress zero, the graph will be misleading.

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spiral8888 t1_izf14o8 wrote

Why should police care about car accidents where nobody broke the law? Aren't insurance companies a more logical keeper of such data?

I'm sure police has better use for their time than going to accident sites when nobody broke the law. They could be needed if there is a dispute between people involved in the accident about whose fault it was in which case the police could investigate it and give their statement that the insurance companies then use as a neutral party.

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