The whole point of free speech is not to make ideas exempt from criticism but to expose them to it.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Tallying votes not Blogger's strong suit

A little over a week ago, we posted a poll asking “Whaddya wanna see on this blog?” The options and the votes for each (as automatically tallied by Blogger software) follow:

Politics-5
Science/Religion-7
Pictures-2
Cannabis Facts-2
[Go Away]-5
Total Votes-15 (go ahead, scroll down the page; the poll is still posted in the right-hand column)

Aside from Blogger’s apparent education in an Iranian vote-counter school, the facts are evident. Not a whole lot of people voted. (Thanks to those who did vote, by the way.) Science/Religion and Politics were eminently more popular among those who voted than were the pictures and cannabis facts. Then there is that troublesome “Shut the &#@% up.”

Well, not so troublesome. At least one of us will, for at least 45 days, soon. And that fact is tied to the fact that, conveniently, he won’t be posting much in the way of “cannabis facts” for a year (the other two don’t seem inclined much to do so anyway).

As for Politics/Science/Religion, it is obvious not only from the “discussions” on this and other blogs that those words are synonymous with one another to a large number of people inclined to comment on blogs.

Take note. The poll will come down soon, to make room for other fun and exciting exercises in pointless, incessant barking. And, as we suggested in the original post about the poll, we’re not liable to pay much attention to your wishes anyway. After all, a picture is worth more than 450 words, and a cannabis fact is apparently worth nothing.

5 comments:

Bill Fleming said...

Bob, maybe people could vote on more than one answer. I'll have to check, but I think the quizzmaker thingy has that option.

...or, maybe they're using that "new math" stuff.

Bill Fleming said...

p.s. If that's the case, the tally legend should probably read "Total Voters" not "Total Votes." Ahhh, software.

Bob Newland said...

Okay, you're right. People could vote on multiple options (I did). Notwithstanding, I stand by my denigration of Blogger software, because the facts are not an issue in a blog, anyway. Kinda like the 2000 & 2004 presidential elections.

Bill Fleming said...

Yup. That's it. In the "Whaddya Want..." poll, the box that allows multiple answers is checked. So the number of votes vs the number of voters won't necessarily match. The tally, I pretty sure is the number of "voters" not votes per se.

This is the same issue I had with the abortion stats, from the SD Dept of Health, by the way.

The interviewees were allowed multiple answers.

So the stats % are not necessarily indicative of anything other than the number of reasons given.

What's curious to me is that the *85% (or whatever) number that Ellis makes such a big deal of is not 100%.

But so it goes.

caheidelberger said...

Put the "Go Away" votes in this perspective: you got 14 check marks asking for more of something; that hugely outnumbers those who snarkily suggest you go away (even though they bothered to drop by in the first place).