This is not a scientific poll

[tytlyf]

Just an oddity I noticed today while trolling the FoolsNation. Why does Fox need to add the 'disclaimer' at the bottom of the poll mentioning that their poll isn't scientific based?

Is it something that needs to be disclosed prior to voting in the poll?

 

[Quintessence]

Why do they need a disclaimer? Because the poll isn't done in such a way that constructs any kind of meaningful sample frame, therefore results are not representative of any particular population. In other words, it's darned near worthless. It might be representative of visitors to the FOX News web page, but even that you can't know because of how it is conducted. Some idiot who doesn't know anything about proper survey sampling might have the brilliant idea to use these values as if they actually mean something. The disclaimer tells them not to.

 

[Alceste]

Why do they need a disclaimer? Because the poll isn't done in such a way that constructs any kind of meaningful sample frame, therefore results are not representative of any particular population. In other words, it's darned near worthless. It might be representative of visitors to the FOX News web page, but even that you can't know because of how it is conducted. Some idiot who doesn't know anything about proper survey sampling might have the brilliant idea to use these values as if they actually mean something. The disclaimer tells them not to.

Yes, that is the space where a scientific poll would give you the margin of error. That disclaimer just sounds better than saying "this poll has a 100% chance of being entirely inaccurate at all times".

 

[YmirGF]

Yes, that is the space where a scientific poll would give you the margin of error. That disclaimer just sounds better than saying "this poll has a 100% chance of being entirely inaccurate at all times".

Yeah, the radio station I listen to does "Poll of the day" and always stresses that the results are not scientific. What is amusing is that governing dynamics predetermines the results due to the demographics. Who knew?

 

[Quintessence]

Yeah, the radio station I listen to does "Poll of the day" and always stresses that the results are not scientific. What is amusing is that governing dynamics predetermines the results due to the demographics. Who knew?

You can also predetermine results based on how you frame a question.