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Sorry for breaking in . . .

Posted by: CRConrad
Date posted: Thu Jun 19 6:55:25 PDT 1997

Alan Laing writes:
[Somebody else writes:]
> > "Nice phrasing. However, it was restricted to only print readers. "
> How, if 60% of the print readers who responded were also IWE readers?

Because all IWE readers included _were_ print readers. No non-readers of print IW were included -- it _was_ restricted to only readers of the print issue.


> You would have been accurate to say IWE readers who were not also IW subscribers were excluded but that is not what you said.

Yes, he did. His "only print readers" means (I assume) "only those who read print", not "those who only read print".


> Then you say " They wern't excluded, but they wern't represented. "
> Again, how, if 60% of the print readers who responded were also IWE readers?

Precisely because they _were_ print readers exclusively, no non-readers of the print issue were included. Now, _i_f_ there is a difference in "demographics",
so that IWE-not-print readers have differing opinions and preferences from IWE-and-print readers, then sampling only the latter gives a very skewed picture
of the _whole_ population of IWE readers. It is not a representative sample, so IWE readers as a whole were not validly represented. You see now?


> Your analogy about tabby and cats is also wrong and not appropriate because all tabby's are cats whereas all IWE readers are not IW subscribers.

Which is exactly what he said -- just because some of the tabbies (print readers) they sampled
were also cats[1] (IWE readers), not all cats (IWE readers) are tabbies (print readers).


> I think Rachel and/or Sandy were wrong when they stated that the poll accurately represented the opinion of IW and IWE subscribers.

Yes indeed, they (whoever) were _v_e_r_y_ wrong!


> They should have more accurately said the poll accurately represented the opinion of IW subscribers and 60 % of those surveyed were also IWE readers.

No, not even that would help, because it might imply to some (You yourself seem to have _almost_ fallen into this trap?) that it is still "kind of" representative of IWE readers. A careless reader could, for instance, mix it up to think that 60 % of IWE readers were represented which is not necessarily true at all.


Sincerely,


Christian R. Conrad



[1]: Yeah, so the analogy breaks down because not only _some_ but _all_ tabbies are cats, in the real world.
But come on, man, be a little flexible -- or do you know a saying that fits _perfectly_?


No problem (Alan Laing) Today

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