Hi, > I think that's a way better number of people > participating than MOST commercial companies would ever dream of to make a > market research on. They usually do their researches based on a sample of > 2-3,000 people. Gnome would have 100 times that, and so I do take it that it > would be accurate "enough".
I'm sorry, but I have to step in here and defend the basic principles of statistics being violated here. Sample size is not the only thing that makes the outcome of a statistical "polling" accurate. Your sample also needs to be representative of whatever group you're sampling from. Ie, if you ask 1 million rabbits if a Macintosh should have three mouse buttons, you'd probably get a very reliable answer. But it would be an answer representative of what a rabbit is likely to think on the subject. It doesn't say *anything* about what a human would think. As such, these companies doing their research on 2000-3000 people probably have a much better selection process and take care to make sure the sample chosen is representative of their target audience. Getting 100 times that amount of people in your poll is likely to completely mess up your poll instead of making it more statistically sound. Defend mathematics ! Don't make statistics say something that you try to make it say - do the research properly. I now go back to taking my daily cough medicine. Thomas Dave/Dina : future TV today ! - http://www.davedina.org/ <-*- thomas (dot) apestaart (dot) org -*-> - It's late - can we finish this some other time ? - Oh - so you want to jump right to the kissing then. <-*- thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org -*-> URGent, best radio on the net - 24/7 ! - http://urgent.fm/ _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
