Tampering with surveys "In God We Trust"

[Themightytom]

I recieved the following email from my mom and immediately pointed out that skewing survey resultts is useless, foolhardy and dishonest:

Subject: Fwd: Will NBC be surprised?? They want to change in God we trust



Will NBC be surprised??

Here's your chance to let the media know where the people stand on our faith in God, as a nation.

NBC is presently taking a poll on "In God We Trust" to stay on our American currency.

Please send this to every person you know so they can vote on this important subject.

Please do it right away, before NBC takes this off their web page. Poll is still open so you can vote:

CLICK ON BELOW, VOTE & THEN FORWARD TO FRIENDS

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/

If you agree forward it, if you don't, delete it.

By my forwarding it, you know how I feel.
I'll bet this is going to be a surprise to NBC.

After clicking the link and voting it seems that the "people of faith" faction are losing the survey rather badly. I pointed out to her that strategically, polls like this should be a wake up call, not a clarion call. You don't assume "Oh well not enough people are voting" and spread the word to "tell only people who will vote on our side" because an opinion poll doesn't result in action, but rather illustrates the geography of support, something people of faith should absolutely be paying attention to rather than trying to misrepresent.

[McC]

After clicking the link and voting it seems that the "people of faith" faction are losing the survey rather badly.

You might want to check again.

[Rochey]

Well, looks like their email spam idea worked. The "keep it" vote is now at 88%.

[whackadoodle]

Shouldn't this be in the Library with this one:

Will NBC be surprised?

Here's your chance to let the media know where the
people stand on our faith in God, as a nation.

NBC is presently taking a poll on "In God We Trust"
to stay on our American currency.

Please send this to every Christian you know so they
can vote on this important subject.

Please do it right away, before NBC takes this off
their web page. Poll is still open so you can vote:

htt+p:++www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/

This is not sent for discussion.
If you agree forward it,

if you don't, delete it.
By my forwarding it, you know how I feel.
I'll bet this is going to be a surprise to NBC.

Note that both letters have the same wording. I still stand by my assertion that someone at nbc.com sends these out so all of the christbots will pump up their traffic.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

This is why online polls are typically credited with zero reliability or accuracy, since it is trivial for an interested party to game the system to create whatever outcome they feel is desirable; and the participants in the poll tend to self-select based on how much they give a shit about whatever is being polled about.

[Themightytom]

After clicking the link and voting it seems that the "people of faith" faction are losing the survey rather badly.

You might want to check again.

Wowwwww it was a 70-30 loss last I checked..

[Darth Wong]

America is one of the those places where aggressive suppression of Christian rhetoric in government is more necessary than it is in many other countries which have similar rhetoric in government. For example, the Canadian national anthem actually mentions God, but few (if any) Canadian atheists really care because we don't have the same influential subgroup which is using legacy material like that to "prove" that our government should be run as a de facto Christian theocracy.

In America, slogans like "In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God" are not innocuous or harmless, because the Christofascists routinely use them as evidence for the Christian supremacist argument, and they're not just one of many special-interest groups: they are the most powerful special-interest group in the country.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Wow, the phrasing after "Yes" and "No" will in no way influence people's decisions.

[Stuart]

This is why online polls are typically credited with zero reliability or accuracy, since it is trivial for an interested party to game the system to create whatever outcome they feel is desirable; and the participants in the poll tend to self-select based on how much they give a shit about whatever is being polled about.

I hate to tell you this but pretty much all polls can be rigged to give specific answers. I'd refer you to the first episode of Yes, Prime Minister where Sir Humphrey shows Bernard how to get opposing answers to the central poll question inside a couple of minutes just by changing the surrounding questions. In each case, the operative question "Do you approve of the reintroduction of conscription" was the same. It was the four questions before it that were different.

Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister should be compulsory viewing for everybody who wants to get involved in politics

[Steel]

Devious aren't they those civil servants?