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YouGov allows everyone to register but selects panels based on approximate population distribution rather than surveying everyone. Disclaimer: used to work in

YouGov allows everyone to register but selects panels based on approximate population distribution rather than surveying everyone. Disclaimer: used to work in that sector.

michaelt 12y ago
Assuming support for Scottish independence is randomly distributed among the Scottish population, what criteria would you use to select a representative panel?
- allegory 12y ago
  I'm not sure what they would use myself but based on the prequel questions they ask people plus some heuristics they can determine roughly were you sit within the populous on a number of aspects between age, class, income, location and political inclination etc. If a poll is biased towards political inclination they can exclude that from the selection criteria to avoid result bias.
- justincormack 12y ago
  The assumption is among other things that it is correlated with past voting for the SNP, eg see (a few months old) http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/07/who-is-right-yougov-or-survation/ http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/07/who-is-right-youg...
justincormack 12y ago
That is surely a huge bias in cases like this. Eg I see they are under represented in young males so if the Yes campaign gets young male yes voters to sign up it will bias results significantly...
- allegory 12y ago
  Actually no. The yes campaign gets people to sign up but it doesn't mean they will be surveyed. It's invitation only i.e. you sign up and wait until you are invited based on your personal information. They are gated polls. Also based on experience there are "shill traps" in the surveys as well.
  - justincormack 12y ago
    I see they also have a quite complex compensation based on previous voting history, which they have for longer term respondents. It does seem odd though that none of the other polls show a sudden shift in intentions.
    - allegory 12y ago
      Some notes on this (from experience): This is because the non-YouGov polls are quite slow to aggregate data. For example Ipsos Mori is mainly scheduled physical panels and not online (some of it is still paper collection!?!) so any shift in behaviour isn't immediately noticed. It can take a week or so for anything to become apparent. Opinion changes very rapidly when there are political items on the table. Sometimes within hours. YouGov wins here as it can constantly obtain data almost in a stream-like format and adjust rapidly. They had a thing called BrandIndex that did that a few years ago as well with brand opinions based on advertising and press scraping. Usually the last minute swings are because there has been a lot of focus on this subject recently in the press which means people are likely to commit to firmer decisions based on research, actually decide to communicate their decisions or are relatively conservative at making decisions. If you look at how these things are worded, they are always in the form of NO to the status quo and YES to change as well. This means that people less conservative with their opinions will be apparent up front and people more conservative (and usually more intelligent) will lag behind. The nature of the vote depends on which group goes which way. Watch these stats over the next few major political events - it's really interesting!
      - justincormack 12y ago
        Thanks. I might sign up to YouGov to get a better idea. I was on a phone poll for something years ago but of course I moved and they lost continuity. Phone polling accuracy is falling sharply it seems.
blueskin_ 12y ago
It's not that accurate then. I'm a YouGov member and keep getting polled on most of their topics most of the time,including scottish independence more than once even though I don't get a vote (which infuriates me, that I don't get a vote on if the people my tax money subsidises get to run off with my hard earned money...).
- allegory 12y ago
  Just because you don't get a vote doesn't mean they bundle you in with the voting statistics. That and public opinion are separate.

YouGov allows everyone to register but selects panels based on approximate population distribution rather than surveying everyone. Disclaimer: used to work in that sector.

michaelt 12y ago

Assuming support for Scottish independence is randomly distributed among the Scottish population, what criteria would you use to select a representative panel?

allegory 12y ago
I'm not sure what they would use myself but based on the prequel questions they ask people plus some heuristics they can determine roughly were you sit within the populous on a number of aspects between age, class, income, location and political inclination etc. If a poll is biased towards political inclination they can exclude that from the selection criteria to avoid result bias.
justincormack 12y ago
The assumption is among other things that it is correlated with past voting for the SNP, eg see (a few months old) http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/07/who-is-right-yougov-or-survation/ http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/07/who-is-right-youg...

justincormack 12y ago

That is surely a huge bias in cases like this. Eg I see they are under represented in young males so if the Yes campaign gets young male yes voters to sign up it will bias results significantly...

allegory 12y ago
Actually no. The yes campaign gets people to sign up but it doesn't mean they will be surveyed. It's invitation only i.e. you sign up and wait until you are invited based on your personal information. They are gated polls. Also based on experience there are "shill traps" in the surveys as well.
- justincormack 12y ago
  I see they also have a quite complex compensation based on previous voting history, which they have for longer term respondents. It does seem odd though that none of the other polls show a sudden shift in intentions.
  - allegory 12y ago
    Some notes on this (from experience): This is because the non-YouGov polls are quite slow to aggregate data. For example Ipsos Mori is mainly scheduled physical panels and not online (some of it is still paper collection!?!) so any shift in behaviour isn't immediately noticed. It can take a week or so for anything to become apparent. Opinion changes very rapidly when there are political items on the table. Sometimes within hours. YouGov wins here as it can constantly obtain data almost in a stream-like format and adjust rapidly. They had a thing called BrandIndex that did that a few years ago as well with brand opinions based on advertising and press scraping. Usually the last minute swings are because there has been a lot of focus on this subject recently in the press which means people are likely to commit to firmer decisions based on research, actually decide to communicate their decisions or are relatively conservative at making decisions. If you look at how these things are worded, they are always in the form of NO to the status quo and YES to change as well. This means that people less conservative with their opinions will be apparent up front and people more conservative (and usually more intelligent) will lag behind. The nature of the vote depends on which group goes which way. Watch these stats over the next few major political events - it's really interesting!
    - justincormack 12y ago
      Thanks. I might sign up to YouGov to get a better idea. I was on a phone poll for something years ago but of course I moved and they lost continuity. Phone polling accuracy is falling sharply it seems.

blueskin_ 12y ago

It's not that accurate then. I'm a YouGov member and keep getting polled on most of their topics most of the time,including scottish independence more than once even though I don't get a vote (which infuriates me, that I don't get a vote on if the people my tax money subsidises get to run off with my hard earned money...).

allegory 12y ago
Just because you don't get a vote doesn't mean they bundle you in with the voting statistics. That and public opinion are separate.