Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Scott Tribe's breakdown doesn't make sense - did he fudge the numbers?

First off; I never was great at math. And I don't have a great sense for stats either. But have a look at this "Membership breakdown at Prog Blog". It doesn't make sense.

He claims the following:

And stop trying to paint my motives for not listing the BLogging Tories (note plural, EA) who are amongst our group. I deemed them such a small percentage I didn’t bother listing them. I didnt bother listing the 1 or 2 sites that put themselves under the banner of the Progressive Canadian Party either, and as in the BT member’s case, it wasn’t out of spite. They were all part of the 0.1% “Other” category.. which I didnt originally mention.


Since there are 359 bloggers (Scott's numbers), some quick math would show that a single blogger = 0.3% of the whole ProgBlog community (1/359 *100). So how does the 0.3% per blogger account for the 0.1% "Other" category?

It doesn't make sense.

Scott writes:



Am I doing something wrong here or is Scott Tribe fudging the numbers? Who's the Lord of Statistics out there? I bet I'm just being too serious.

6 comments:

Steve V said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Steve V said...

1 Comment - Show Original Post

Steve V said...
".84 is a whole lot more than .28"

If you are an anal, hair splitter, I guess it would be, to the rest of the world it's statistically irrelevant. Move on, this post is useless.

BTW, Scott has done a lot for the blogging community. Just thought I'd mention that to balance all the crap he is taking. Thanks Scott!

Erik said...

You don't seem to get it, Steve.

The numbers don't make sense. Only one blogger from Blogging Tories accounts already for 0.28 percent, not 0.1 percent.

So a handful can easily account for 1 - 5 % that does not match up with the numbers he gives in his breakdown, as proven in my post. Where you really worse in math than me?

I'm not saying it's deliberate, only question it's validity.

I'm sure there's someone out there that can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Oxford County Liberals said...

You're REALLY splitting hairs Erik if you're trying to attack me over whether my addition is right or not. If you think I made a counting mistake.. its very simple for you to double-check my numbers.

- Click on affiliates at the Prog Blog menu.

- Look at the side panel where all of them are listed.

- Click on each affiliate and see if they have a particular Blogging affiliation (also note that some have multiple blogging affiliations and then try to decide whoch one they really belong to or put them in both)

- Add all of them up

- Get back to me if your #'s are different then mine.

Erik said...

If you think I made a counting mistake.. its very simple for you to double-check my numbers.

This is my problem with your way of arguing. You counter my arguments without giving any facts.

So my statement remains: how can you say there is a 0.1% category named "others" when a single blogger already accounts for 0.3%?

You put the ones on me, while it would be fair (and a lot easier for both of us) to simply give the complete outcome of your membership breakdown, as suggested earlier.

Is that too much to ask?

Is there any particular reason for not publishing these figures?

Why can't you be more transparent?

NB: it's my birthday today!

Erik said...

You put the ones on me, while it would be fair (and a lot easier for both of us) to simply give the complete outcome of your membership breakdown, as suggested earlier.

Is that too much to ask?



I guess it was too much to ask from Scott - whatever.

Post a Comment