Hello Andrew >On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 10:55:10 -0500, "John Hayes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >said: > > > > > > > > Such a poll would be useless given selection bias issues inherent to > > nonrandom sampling.... > >Would you expand on this a little? > > > Besides, do you really need a straw poll to conclude > > that the majority of list readers are against this war? > > > >Given that the most active posters appear to be, excuse ommissions, Keith >Addison, >Motie D, Hakan, Steve Spence, Murdoch, csakima, girl mark... that leaves >I guess >rather a lot of people who aren't saying much.
There are a LOT more posters than that, probably about 200-250 fairly regular contributers, many more if you extend it to occasional. It shifts, people leave, they're replaced by newcomers. but it's usually well above 10% of membership, which I think is about the average for mailing lists. A lot of the lurkers are less silent than they seem - many of them communicate with me and with other people off-list. >In addition there is an >amount >from time to time redneck opinions. So, well, no it isn't so obvious >to me who is or isnt the majority. Not too bothered either. I'm very much >against >the war; stinks of hypocrisy. A couple of pro-war Brits maybe, though they seem to be a rare breed, perhaps an Australian or two, perhaps not. I think virtually everyone else would be against the war except Americans, who're not a majority of the list membership, and most of them are anti-war anyway. I'd say John's almost certainly right. "Rednecks" (is that an abusive term or not? - I dunno) seem to be generally intolerant of other views than their own and inclined to be noisy and chauvinistic about it. A bit like this: Which Side Of The Media Is Inclusive? - Conservative Media Don't Want To Hear From The 'Other Guy' http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7355 So their opinions here might be disproportionate to their numbers. Best Keith >-- >Andrew Preston ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Your own Online Store Selling our Overstock. http://us.click.yahoo.com/rZll0B/4ftFAA/46VHAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
