Reality check request

[firecat]

A steering committee for a weekly event polled the membership asking whether it should make a policy change about who can attend the event. This was the result of the poll:

No, I do not want to change the policy - 30%
Yes, I would like to change the policy - 41%
Yes, I would like to change the policy, but only for one meeting a month - 18%
Yes, I would like to change the policy, but retain the current policy once a month - 27%

These poll results were described as "The community was fairly evenly split about this idea" and the decision of the committee was "For the time being we will not be making changes."

These figures add up to more than 100%, so it's hard to gauge, but it seems to me that the membership is not in fact "fairly evenly split" at all. What I see is that at least 70% of the votes are in favor of changing the policy.

However, I'm strongly in favor of changing the policy, so I am biased. What do you think?

Comments

[eagle]

I'm very confused by the >100% total, which makes me think this was multiple choice and makes me wonder how many people didn't express an opinion. But even with some unknown and weird voting system beneath this result, I can't imagine a voting system in which 30% negative out of 116% total amounts to "evenly split."

If I were being very ungenerous, I would point out that having one "no" option and multiple "yes" options and then interpreting no single "yes" option having achieved straight majority as a "mixed result" that's equivalent to "no" is a very... common form of amateur voting shenanigans, and doesn't inspire confidence in the people interpreting the vote.

[jazzfish]

^This.

[firecat]

Thanks!

[firecat]

Thank you for your analysis!

[stardreamer]

I mentally grouped this into "those who are mostly/entirely against changing the policy" (results 1 and 3) vs. "those who are mostly/entirely in favor of changing the policy" (results 2 and 4). That gives a combined result of against = 48%, in favor = 68%.

If I were in charge of this group, I would implement option 4 for a trial period of 6 months, at the end of which there would be another vote. But in any event, describing this as a "fairly even split" seems disingenuous to me.

[firecat]

Thanks for your comment!

[boxofdelights]

I think you are right.

[firecat]

Thanks for the reality check!

[lilacsigil]

I think the results are muddled, but more than two-thirds are in favour of change at least 3 out of 4 weeks. Not an even split, but a cautious vote for change.

[firecat]

Thanks, I agree.

[sebenikela]

I did some math, because I am a nerd.

The total of these is 116% so I normalized everything by dividing by 116 so things add to 100% and retain the same proportions. And so I stop going ????? why????? At which point you get:

No = 26%
Yes = 35%
Yes, once/month = 16%
Yes, 3x/month = 23%

To simplify it further, 74% (normalized so things add to 100%) or 86% (with the weird adds-to-116%-numbers) of people want to change things at least once a month. 58% (normalized) or 68% (raw numbers) want to change things at least 3x/month.

Calling that "fairly evenly split" is disingenuous.

[firecat]

Thank you for the math and the reality check!

[redbird]

It seems pretty clear that either a majority of the steering committee, or the person who wrote the report, is opposed to the change, but that's all that's clear to me.

Not only is it unclear whether that reported > 100% includes everyone polled, but I don't know whether someone who wanted to change the policy for some but not all of the meetings would choose both 2 and 3 or 4, or only 3 or 4.

One possibility is that half the members definitely want to change things, with almost all of that half wanting to try a change for only some of the meetings; 30% definitely want no change; and the rest either don't care, or didn't respond for some other reason (like being busy when the poll arrived and then forgetting about it until they got the results). Or that everyone voted, or that only a quarter of the membership did.

I assume you saw the original poll, and know whether there was an "I don't know/undecided" option. Do you know what percentage of the members answered at a;;?

As eagle suggested, this could well be voting shenanigans, designed to produce results that look like whatever the organizers wanted. The same numbers could have been presented by someone else as "86% of the members want a change" or as "most of the members like the current policy and want to keep it for at least 1/4 of our meetings."

[firecat]

There was no "undecided" option and I don't know what proportion of the members answered the poll. Thanks for your comments.

[outlier_lynn]

This is either some form of ignorant poll creation or some form of strategic plan to prevent change. This should have started out as a straight up or down poll for change.

I agree with you that 70% want some change. That should have been enough for committee to say, "We are going to change the policy. Now, let's work out the details of the change."

This lumping of aspects of the policy into one poll is almost always going to create governing paralysis. Maybe the intent, but I no longer assume that people are that strategic. Rather, I assume they are just shooting from the hip of ignorance. :)

[firecat]

Thanks for your comments (I agree they're not being strategic, just flailing)

[jesse_the_k]

You're right.

[firecat]

Thanks for the reality check.

[snippy]

I think the poll should be tossed out and redone with better construction. I don't think the results shone are useful and would be very cautious about taking any action (including keeping things the same) based on these results.

[firecat]

Thanks for your comment.

[azurelunatic]

This reminds me of the poll on the new helldesk software from old-work. There were very few uncomplicated positive feelings about it. There was a lot of grouchiness. The results were presented as though most of everyone was thrilled!

Most of everyone was not thrilled. Purple went and transcribed the images into Excel and interpreted them a little more sensibly and shared this interpretation in the same public forum where the results had been presented. It was like Valentine's Day and Yule all in one.

[firecat]

Go Purple!

[jinian]

Agreeing with everyone: this is not a "take no action" result.

[firecat]

Thanks for sharing your viewpoint.

[silveradept]

This does not look like an even split to me, terrible questions notwithstanding. Considering the only straight up "no" answer all only garnered a thirty percent mark, I think it's safe to say that there's a request for at least some changes. Unless someone has secretly assigned more importance to certain people and their votes count more than others.

[firecat]

Thanks for the reality check! I suspect something like that might be going on.

[keryx]

You are so obviously correct that I initially thought the poll-taker was deliberately obstructing the group. But! I suspect I've probably done something like your poll-taker at some point. Let's assume they don't want to change, or even just have no real feelings about the policy, right?

They hear that others would like a change, so they ask. Except they give everyone enough options that the group is divided between "yesssss, let's TOTALLY change" and varying degrees of smaller change. Your poll-taker has no idea what to do, and now they don't have a clear set of orders from the group (because they designed their poll badly). From their perspective, they wanted someone to tell them what to do exactly, and the group is evenly divided on what that exact thing is.

They're completely wrong, of course - actually the group is very much in favor of change! - but lacking any kind of vision for change, they're just flailing & settled on what they'd most like to do... which is nothing. I wonder if you (or someone) can give them a precise suggestion like "try the 50% policy change for 3 months" that would better guide them?

[firecat]

That's a good suggestion, thanks!

[polydad.livejournal.com]

Looks to me like roughly 3/4 of the membership wants the policy changed. If this is an "even division", I think I'd like to divide their salaries with them. I'll take the big half, thanks.

[firecat]

LOL!

[beatgoddess.livejournal.com]

I think by the looks of it, the poll demonstrates that about 3/4 of the respondents would like some form of change to the event.

However, I think the poll wasn't entirely well-written. Not just because of the fact that the percentages don't add up to 100, but also because the final two options seem to be part of a subset of "yes - policy change." These are my two cents and I also strongly support the change in question.

[firecat]

Thanks for your input! I agree it wasn't well written.

[frankiejlh.livejournal.com]

If you look at it as "roughly 75% of the people want to change the policy", there's that obvious majority, at least for some kind of change.

If you look at it, overlaps notwithstanding, as "48% of the people want between zero and 1 week's worth of policy change" and "68% of the people want between 3 & 4 week's worth of policy change, or complete policy change", there's still a majority. It's a less obvious one, but OTOH the 68% (ish) want most or all of the time spent with the thing changed?

In any case, *nothing* here seems to translate to "don't change the policy"!

[firecat]

Thanks for the reality check!