Comments on: Dynamics of online polls. (Weblog awards!)

By: lucia

lucia — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:12:42 +0000

Thanks Zeke!

My husband gets EOS and brings it home. When I read the Susan Joy Hassol of Climate Communication article in EOS, I had an “Aha moment”.

By: Zeke Hausfather

Zeke Hausfather — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:53:58 +0000

Grats Anthony!

Even though we may disagree vehemently at times, I can’t help but respect the community you’ve built up over the past two years.

Lucia,

Look what we find over at Realclimate today: http://www.realclimate.org/ind.....ent-109123

“We’d also like to alert our readers to an insightful article on this topic published last year in Eos by Susan Joy Hassol of Climate Communication (linked in our blogroll for those who want to learn more about the organization)”

I think you called that one…

By: Mike C

Mike C — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:28:43 +0000

The fat lady sings… Anthony wins

By: lucia

lucia — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:09:03 +0000

Well, now I don’t have to email my Uncle Bill, and tell him whip his elderly Jesuit educated high school and college classmates into a frenzy to vote against Myers!

By: Mike C

Mike C — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:04:20 +0000

SDA is the only conservative blog that has been pushing Anthony. By the way, it looks like the surge of votes for Myers was created by his own blog posting. Now that Anthony has responded, the change in lead is slowing down.

By: lucia

lucia — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:31:50 +0000

Sean — Sure. I see no evidence this is happening.
What I mean is that I’m not sure how effective campaign might be in this race. Hypothetically, they could work. But as a practical matter, could such a campaign work?

I’m not sure. I also haven’t seen any evidence that anyone is trying to do this. I would imagine that few Christians have been staying up nights last week worrying about whether or not Myers might win a blog award!

By: sean egan

sean egan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:02:48 +0000

Christians are entitled to encourage folks to vote just like any interest group. But unless someone has seen a newsletter/Sermon urging folks to be behind Watts, I see no evidence they care for any of the candidates.

By: lucia

lucia — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:07:29 +0000

MikeC– You are correct that speculation doesn’t change observed events! Yes. Pharyngula got a lot of votes overnight. They are up to 27%.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:23:56 +0000

Lucia, your speculation will not change observed events.
But while we are on the subject, PZ Myers cut Anthonys lead by 500 overnight.

By: lucia

lucia — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:13:25 +0000

SteveM–
I agree with you.

Mike– Yes, Ace and SDA’s campaigning can affect voting, but there is a limit to how quickly people can spread the word. What happened last year was faster than what Ace and SDA are doing. Someone would pop into comments and say “Wow! 342 votes for CA in the last hour!”. Then someone else would say “Wow! 313 votes for blog BA in the last hour!”

Pharyngula is well behind Anthony. But suppose he were in the lead. I know Myers upset lots of Catholics by blogging about desecrating hosts. How quickly could any group of Catholics organize together to vote against Myers?

I know I could send an email to my Uncle, and he devoted to sending out email about this sort of thing to zillions. But would everyone read it? Vote? Forward it? Would those people vote? I have an email filter for my Uncle. The emails get stored, then in my own sweet time, I read them. So, the one he sends to me won’t get timely action. I’m sure there are people who just ignore the emails. So… How fast can anyone get out zillions of vote?

Science *already* gets more way votes than Law. How many more people would bother to vote? (BTW The Volokh Conspiracy was in the lead last time I voted.)

I doubt if we’d see 10,000 votes in a day as a result of some email lists.

By: Mike C

Mike C — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:56:00 +0000

Raven, because theur policy was to throw out the bad votes, not disqualify the blog.
Steve, If you’ve been watching Ace and SDA you would understand how the blogs themselves have been affecting the voting this year. It’s all been good.

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:43:47 +0000

This year, the vote patterns have been pretty much locked in stone since day 1, with ratios of remaining within a very narrow spread. So much so, that, In a way, each day has been a sample. If the last day this year is hugely anomalous, then I think that the blog organizers would have to assume that their system had been breached somehow.

By: Mike C

Mike C — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:14:09 +0000

And the difference last year between CA and BA was that the CA votes were following a predictable pattern. When a big blog would endorse him, the numbers would start climbing until the story fell off the lead of the blog, not just jump like the other side. And the votes for BA climbed after voting closed, it was bizarre.

By: lucia

lucia — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:55:06 +0000

Steve–

Yes. I remember that! I remember commenters reporting sudden batches of hundreds of votes appearing as if by magic on the last day.

I can’t imaging WUWT not winning at this point.

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:44:09 +0000

I can comment on last year’s. CA was nicely ahead when voting closed, but Bad Astronomy got about 2500 votes after hours, so there was no doubt that bot voting had happened on their side. Having said that, there were about 4 times as many votes for each party on the last day as in the entire competition. It was exciting to watch, but, in my opinion, it would have been absurdly complicated for the organizers to try to sort it out. Both Bad Astronomy and CA had been running evenly up to the last day. I sent a late email to Phil Plait suggesting that a draw would be in the spirit of the competition. I also suggested that the votes be arbitrarily set at a round number so that it would be clear that these had been agreed to and was not just a coincidence. Plait agreed somewhat grudgingly – I don’t think that he really understood that he had got about a couple of thousand votes after the contest closed. I communicated this to the organizers who were absolutely delighted with this resolution and adopted the solution in about 1 minute.

By: Raven

Raven — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:22:30 +0000

Mike C,

I was not watching the poll last year. I got the impression that they declared it a tie because both sides were using bots. If only one side was using bots then why didn’t they disqualify that side?

By: Mike C

Mike C — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:19:42 +0000

Raven, you claim that bots were used on both sides, it didn’t look that way to me… I was watching that race as close as I’m watching this one. Last year Steve’s supporters were campaigning way harder, many blog endorsements including Junk Science and etc, hittinng up mailing lists, text messaging and etc. This year Anthony is doing so well that the same people decided to stand on the sidelines.

By: Raven

Raven — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:03:38 +0000

Mike C,

Bots were used by both sides. The question is who started the bot war. The alarmists claim it was the “vast right wing conspiracy”. You claimed it was the alarmists. Does anyone really know who started it?

By: Mike C

Mike C — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:25:54 +0000

… 2900

By: Mike C

Mike C — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:24:32 +0000

Raven, consider the logic… the vast right wing conspiracy installs a bot to defeat the skeptics so they can cry foul? Rather than just win the award? Pardon me while I cough up a bowl full of jelly flavored laughter.
Licia… to create an impression that is not real.