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Weighting is done to make the sample more representative, because voluntary samples are always demographically biased. You can argue that the way they weight is
by thejohnconway 8y ago
Weighting is done to make the sample more representative, because voluntary samples are always demographically biased. You can argue that the way they weight is wrong in some way, but it’s purpose is exactly to address representativeness of the survey.
- lolc 8y agoWhen the lone 80-year old that participated is weighted against the hundreds 20-year olds (I'm exaggerating, I hope) we still don't know whether her opinion is representative for the other 80-year olds that didn't respond. There is no point of weighing her more than a 20-year old. My glib comment was about the fact that before weighing, I could have at least attempted to imagine who would typically respond to such an online-survey. It's a biased sample. But it's a sample. I could say: Well at least this many people out of the whole population answered this or that way. Once weighing mixes things up I don't even know how people responded anymore.