probably a couple weeks of politics first though

 

Pretty much  

They will give craptastic characters like drift a toy, but not characters that we actually want like Wheeljack, Jazz, Soundwave, [insert name]. etc.

 

Holy shit, did you just quote yourself?

I'm not going to argue about it, there is always somebody on these damn boards that wants to argue about something. I chose the names that get thrown around the most as needing a classics figure. If you don't like it, go make your own damn poll.

 

Ignoring all the bickering, I'm glad these two made it into the final bracket. Both really need updates. Sure there are stand-ins for both characters but NONE of them are good substitutes for properly done updates.

 

I wish I could ignore it. But after working so hard on the brackets and maintaining this poll daily, I get a bit pissed when someone just casually comes along and calls the results crap. If anyone can name a deluxe size bot that could have beaten Wheeljack, let's hear it. Otherwise, these results are valid.

 

I say its invalid because of all the Autobot lovers on this board!!! Blitzwing should have won 

but Wheeljack works to. This G1 toy sucks

 

it doesnt matter were you put wheeljack.. wheeljack slaughter every opponent ..

 

Don't worry about the naysayers. It sounds like someone took a semester of Statistics and now thinks they're the authority on polls of all kinds.

 

Well whether or not it would pass as a Gallup-sired poll, I've really enjoyed this. Thanks for the effort you put into it.

 

I thought the poll was fun, and I'm genuinely surprised Wheeljack came out on top.
Now we just need to send the results to Fansproject.  

 

To the point, a valid poll does not consist of a random sample. It consist of a sufficiently size random sample of a pre-determined pool of targets. As such, all polls are inherently self-selecting. This poll is to measure the most wanted Classics Toy for us so by it's nature polling the members on TFW is valid. If we wanted to see what Hasbro should produce for its target group (kids + collectors) then this poll would be incomplete but by no means invalid. Most of the arguments for Jazz over Wheeljack is that Jazz doesn't have a representation but Energon Downshift is a good substitute. This argument is completely wrong. A pro-Jazz argument is that since Jazz appears in both the 1st movie and Animated he has more name recognition then Wheeljack and would sell better.

 

I'm confident Hasbro can give us a very nice classics Wheeljack. Their track-record on triple changers is not so good, so I am all for FansProject jumping on the Blitzwing bandwagon!

 

I say Hasbro should make them all, but I don't get to decide that. I'll be happy with whichever Classics they make. As long as they aren't repaints of previous lines (outside Classics and Classic like Universe/Generations).

 

This. I may've been thinking it'd all come down to Wheeljack vs. Jazz at the start, but it was still fun going through the whole thing  

 

But valid for what, exactly?

Don't you think you're taking this a bit too seriously? You made a poll to choose a character on a TF site and a winner was chosen. Congrats - but it doesn't really mean anything. It's not official and it's not going to get Hasbro to produce anything that they weren't going to do already.

No need to blow a gasket.

 

Yes, true, a random sample is not a sufficient condition in and of itself to produce a valid poll. However it is a necessary condition. That necessary condition is not met by this pool.

Yes, those are necessary conditions, but again, not sufficient conditions.

No. What do you mean by "self-selecting"? What I mean is the subjects in the poll, selected themselves to be a part of it. That methodology is also true for TV show call-in polls which are worthless. It is not true for actual polls used to predict elections.

Yes, I did quote myself. Because you seemed to not pay attention/understand it when I said it the first time.

There is nothing to argue. I'm not talking about opinion here. It is a fact that such self-selected polls are biased.

You chosing the names, etc. are a debatable problem, but I'm not even talking about because I don't want to argue about it either.

If I don't like it go make my own poll? Go look at all these public polls you ran. Do you see any votes that I cast? No. Because these polls, whatever you chose, etc. are not valid statistical methods. So I must refuse to vote in them, I must refuse to give even an appearance of approval to them. Making a valid poll is a lot more involved. I'll make a valid poll when someone pays me to do so. It's a lot of work, but choosing 16 figures, making a bracket, and creating 15 threads is not "hard work".

When I first brought up this topic, I tried to soften my words by saying "appreciate it for what it is", a "fun discussion topic". Please do that. I had fun following the polls and it was interesting discussion fodder.

However, when you claim "hard work", and start claiming valid results comparable to predicting elections, I have to say something because by doing so you are insulting me much, much further than I have insulted you. I don't want to offend you, and I'm sure you're not intending to offend me, so I haven't resorted to words like "shit" and "pissed". But I have to say something when people talk about these polls being "valid".

I am a statistician. I've worked as a statistician for almost 10 years. I spent 6 years in school for it. Besides the classes, I spent everyday for a month studying for an 8-hour test. That is hard work. These polls are not.

What books did you read when deciding on your poll methodology?

This is the book I read, I did the work from, that I own and is sitting on a shelf 3 feet from me right now.

And I am not highly trained in survey methodology, I specialize in other areas of statistics, I've just had the one course on it. But that's enough for me to know these are not rigorous, unbiased statistically valid results.

So all I had wanted to say was: "Enjoy the polls for the fun, interesting, discussion topic they are. But do not confuse them with real, unbiased, valid statistical results." I don't think that's offensive. But you seemed to be offended by that, so I've just tried to say the simple fact(it is a fact, not something to argue) that such polls are not valid due to the basic method.

I wanted to avoid going into how you claiming they were, were an insult to me professionally, because I'm sure it wasn't intentional and it didn't really bother me personally. I just was compelled to try to stop the beliefs in statistically invalid results. Hey, look at general discussion sometime... any thread about some new study with statistical results has naysayers disbelieving anything with stats. That happens because statistical methods are sometimes used improperly. Thus I can't just let improper statistics slide when being talked about and represented as valid.


Look, your polls/threads are/were fun and interesting. They were not serious. What's wrong with that? Who's the girl going to want to date? The serious guy or the fun and interesting guy?

 

I'm not surprised Wheeljack came out on top, but the best match-up was Kup vs Soundwave! Cinderella got robbed!

 

I think what it comes down to is this isn't a poll, its knock out competition where the competitors were preselected, regarldess of what was taken into consideration when selecting them it is by no means a fair representation of what the fans want either as a whole or just here on TFW.

It was fun to take part and ignited a lot of interesting debate and discussion, for which I thank bradforj. However for the reasons pointed out above none of this really means anything other than certain characters are more popular with those who participated than the ones they were pitted against.

 

It's not about that. The "self-selection" that invalidates the poll(as rigorous, unbiased, scientific, statistical data collection) is that the voters selected themselves to be the voters in the poll.

But, yes, fun and interesting!

 

Agreed on both counts. what I was getting at was that these candidates were preselected by an individual and not those the 'poll' is said to represent the opinions of. Also the way in which the 'poll' was constructed meant candiates were not competing on a level playing field. Therefore like you said the results as fun as it was reaching them are not in anyway valid as an accurate opinion poll.