5 ms·

Isn't there quite a bit of selection bias involved in who is willing to walk up and vote at a kiosk?

by koboll 8y ago

TeMPOraL 8y ago
That's a good question. I remember some stats professor tried to popularize the phrase "voluntary response data are worthless" (see also: 'tokenadult on that point, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322237). Point being, there's a strong self-selection happening with voluntary polls - people who are opinionated enough to be bothered to answer a poll are not a good sample of the population. Another thing I wonder about: since this is a kiosk that's going to stand out there for some time, what happens if a group of interest decides to game a poll, by telling its members to go there and vote (possibly multiple times a day)?
- koboll 8y ago
  Right. Even worse at an unguarded physical location. What's to stop me from calling my 30 friends from a student political group for some ballot-stuffing?
lionpixel 8y ago
The stations are mobile and can be attached and placed almost everywhere. Some cities have special rules or restrictions.
- peterdb 8y ago
  Ok, but what is your answer to the obvious selection bias with physical polling? Also, how do you deal with coordinated gaming of polls by organized groups? Would love to hear your thoughts. Great project though!!!
  - lionpixel 8y ago
    Thank you! Currently when someone hits the button 20 times a sec or hits it every second for 2min our algorithm finds out and highlights the suspicious area. The user can decide to exclude the data or not. Not 100% reliable but we’re experimenting a lot. So I call it beta feature. :)
    - l9k 8y ago
      Did you think of adding a camera to make sure people only vote once and for security? Or is it too problematic from a privacy (legally) point of view?
l9k 8y ago
You can strategically install the polling station. I would imagine something like this at a music festival, business or academic convention, etc... That way you already have an idea of the respondents, who could be your customers/users, and then account for the bias they share because of their location.
- l9k 8y ago
  As an example: organizers of an electronic festival use this to know if the 2018 festival-goers prefer Trance or Drum'n'Bass (or between artists). With the results, they can book artists for 2019 accordingly. And it doesn't matter much if the results are not representative of the population. The bias of the respondents / non-respondents inside the festival can be mitigated by advertising the polls.
  - koboll 8y ago
    Okay, sure, that sounds like a legit use case. Maybe you should use that on your site instead of examples like "Presidential Election 2020" or "place the station near a university to get insights from academic people", which are clearly not going to yield sound, actionable results.

Isn't there quite a bit of selection bias involved in who is willing to walk up and vote at a kiosk?

by koboll 8y ago

Isn't there quite a bit of selection bias involved in who is willing to walk up and vote at a kiosk?

That's a good question. I remember some stats professor tried to popularize the phrase "voluntary response data are worthless" (see also: 'tokenadult on that point, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322237). Point being, there's a strong self-selection happening with voluntary polls - people who are opinionated enough to be bothered to answer a poll are not a good sample of the population. Another thing I wonder about: since this is a kiosk that's going to stand out there for some time, what happens if a group of interest decides to game a poll, by telling its members to go there and vote (possibly multiple times a day)?

koboll 8y ago
Right. Even worse at an unguarded physical location. What's to stop me from calling my 30 friends from a student political group for some ballot-stuffing?

lionpixel 8y ago

The stations are mobile and can be attached and placed almost everywhere. Some cities have special rules or restrictions.

peterdb 8y ago
Ok, but what is your answer to the obvious selection bias with physical polling? Also, how do you deal with coordinated gaming of polls by organized groups? Would love to hear your thoughts. Great project though!!!
- lionpixel 8y ago
  Thank you! Currently when someone hits the button 20 times a sec or hits it every second for 2min our algorithm finds out and highlights the suspicious area. The user can decide to exclude the data or not. Not 100% reliable but we’re experimenting a lot. So I call it beta feature. :)
  - l9k 8y ago
    Did you think of adding a camera to make sure people only vote once and for security? Or is it too problematic from a privacy (legally) point of view?

l9k 8y ago

You can strategically install the polling station. I would imagine something like this at a music festival, business or academic convention, etc... That way you already have an idea of the respondents, who could be your customers/users, and then account for the bias they share because of their location.

l9k 8y ago
As an example: organizers of an electronic festival use this to know if the 2018 festival-goers prefer Trance or Drum'n'Bass (or between artists). With the results, they can book artists for 2019 accordingly. And it doesn't matter much if the results are not representative of the population. The bias of the respondents / non-respondents inside the festival can be mitigated by advertising the polls.
- koboll 8y ago
  Okay, sure, that sounds like a legit use case. Maybe you should use that on your site instead of examples like "Presidential Election 2020" or "place the station near a university to get insights from academic people", which are clearly not going to yield sound, actionable results.