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I would like to begin, by stating I dont wish to offend or upset anyone with this thread. I have used the example of all the polls in this forum in order to demonstrate a point. In recent times, I feel that there are far too many polls made on everything. Turn on the news each morning to here of another ridiculous poll having taken place proving that over 80% of the male population want study taxidermy (exagerating to prove point lol), but some polls really are this ridiculous their population is infact 12 people from Bristol*, they then use this poll as a basic fact. I am just getting frustrated with endless polls in society, that are completley unecessary. It appears that the ideal of direct democracy has reach such extremes that people feel there must be a concensus on absolutely everything! Indivduals cant have oppinions, it has to be 'general oppinion', 'overall majority'. Placing anyone with a differing oppinion into a minority.

The worst of all these polls, are those on programmes such as GMTV* when viewers are asked to text in yes or no, as to whether they feel someone should have been convicted and on other daytime TV* programmes where viewers are asked to text in whether or not the 'Craig is the biological father of Britney'. What right do these people have to decide!!!!??

I realise this is a completley random rant (hence being placed in grotto) and understand that polls are useful to a certain extent, for example many of the polls on these forums are interesting as people are giving justification for their oppinion, not making sweeping generalisations. If you've read up to here, thankyou, I understand you're probably really bored by now :D but if not Id be interested in other peoples oppinions, to get an overall oppinion on polls (being ironic just in case you thought I was being completley contradictory :D)

*GLOSSARY OF TERMS- I wrote this, including certain terms that could confuse those outside of UK. Heres a brief explanation of some nationaltiy specific terms:
Bristol- City situated in the south/ central East England
GMTV- Television magasine show on every morning
Daytime TV- In the Uk this consists of Jerry Springer type shows and magasine shows
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
Wow, uh, ok. I agree with you, but I really wouldn't have thought of it in terms like that before. Come to think of it, there's always a poll on on the morning news, the evening news, the evening radio show question is always something like "In a survey, 24% of men say they would do this to skip work," and people are always asked to text crap in on all the entertainment shows. You're right, the whole freaking thing has gone too far!
 

admin

Retired Administrator
Statistics can be made to say anything you want really, and thats exactly what polls can do. A decently worded poll with a large number of votes, eg a general election (!) is a good poll, these TV polls that are completely biased to a certain answer and only sample a small daytime unemployed audience are clearly a complete waste of time. They can get annoying, but I guess its a way of comunicating with an audicene of people.
 
General elections, in the UK certainly, arent the same really. Due to their nature as representative democracy rather than direct, they adopt a different structure, particualry in the sense that there are a number of different possible outcomes however unrepresentative our electoral system may be (thats for a different discussion though). I do agree though that certain polls/ votes are necessary in order to prevent dictatorship. However many of these polls dont acknowledge that we live in a pluralistic society, insisting on putting people into groups and deciding on the general oppinion.
 

samboo1

New member
Whoops. i didnt read the thread before voted so i thought you meant polls wihtin the mitmvc so i voted more becasue they are cool in the boards, but you should egnore that because i would of voted yes.:D
 

Emrysgirl

New member
Deweyrules! said:
If you've read up to here, thankyou, I understand you're probably really bored by now :D
Does it count if I skipped the second paragraph and half the first one:D?

Yes, there are to many polls. Even worse are the polls in disguise - surveys.

Even during elections (especially during elections), there can be too many polls. Sometimes they'd say one of the candidates was leading by 1% with an error rate of 3%. Then why bother talking about it...just say it's too close to call!
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
Re: Can you be bothered with polls?

I don't feel comfortable about being polled about how I feel about polls.
 

tjpeople

Site Administrator
Staff member
Re: Can you be bothered with polls?

isnt it said that 99% of statistic are made up?
 

NeCoHo

Retired Mod
samboo1 said:
Whoops. i didnt read the thread before voted so i thought you meant polls wihtin the mitmvc so i voted more becasue they are cool in the boards, but you should egnore that because i would of voted yes.:D
There, I fixed it for you samboo1.
 
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