{"id":848,"date":"2010-06-03T07:50:42","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T11:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/?p=848"},"modified":"2010-06-01T11:11:54","modified_gmt":"2010-06-01T15:11:54","slug":"poll-data-poll-dancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/2010\/06\/03\/poll-data-poll-dancing\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll data, poll dancing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"UK<\/a>
UK elections poll data | Information is Beautiful<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What works<\/h3>\n

In the words of the creator of this graphic, the point here is that “there is no pattern”. The YouGov pollsters seemed to be a little more accurate, but then, as was also pointed out by the graphic’s creator, they only had one year to give it a go. Low N on that group, but maybe we can call them ‘one to watch’. <\/p>\n

There is always a tendency in science – bench science, social science, any kind of science – to show positive results. It sort of sounds like: “Look! I found something!” Or, more likely, “After controlling for everything I could think of, including maternal grandmother’s underwear size, I have found a statistically significant correlation in the predicted direction.” But there is almost no support for saying, more or less, “I was looking for something but I found nothing.” In this particular case, a non-finding is of interest because it suggests action. We can stop paying attention to prediction polls (or chance it and continue to pay attention to YouGov, with a grain of salt). What works best here is the rigorous reporting of no pattern. Multiple polling companies, multiple elections, still no pattern. <\/p>\n

What needs work<\/h3>\n

Seriously needs a key. Red and blue are always political colors, yellow not necessarily so, and the meanings of each cannot be assumed. <\/p>\n

Love the title ‘poll dancing’ but wish it would mention ‘UK’ and ‘elections’ somewhere. We can deduce from the listing of the Guardian as a source that it probably has something to do with the UK, but information is global now, and we cannot assume national origins anymore. I often make this mistake myself, easy to forget to mention the nation-state. The good news is that our audiences are no longer only our neighbors. Or at least that’s how I like to think of it.<\/p>\n

References<\/h3>\n

Suggestion from<\/u>
\nMomin, a young fellow who contacted me by email suggested I post this one.<\/p>\n

Graphic<\/u>
\nMcCandless, David and Key, James. (2010) “Poll Dancing: How accurate are poll predictions?”<\/a> from Information is Beautiful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See also:
\nMcCandless, David. (2010, May 6) General election 2010: Information is Beautiful goes poll dancing<\/a> at The Guardian<\/a>, Data Blog.<\/a><\/p>\n

Data<\/u>
\nhttp:\/\/bit.ly\/polldancing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What works In the words of the creator of this graphic, the point here is that “there is no pattern”. The YouGov pollsters seemed to be a little more accurate, but then, as was also pointed out by the graphic’s creator, they only had one year to give it a go. Low N on that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1009,154,109],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-europe","tag-political","tag-voting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":851,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}