Timeline for Are people voting less than they used to on Physics SE?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 2, 2018 at 9:26 | comment | added | user191954 | Hehe more importantly it could use a label for the x axis... but I get the point that it doesn't indicate the deviations or anything, which makes my claim look a lot more statistically certain than it actually is. But the fact that you can still clearly see some annual trend shows that it isn't concealing too much, but it isn't very noisy either. Anyways, here: imgur.com/a/2GMbNP7 has standard deviations. I think it's ok that the errors are huge... if you think of it, even one person casting 40 votes in a day is going to be a pretty large signal in the raw data. | |
| Aug 2, 2018 at 8:11 | comment | added | Emilio Pisanty | @Chair That graph sure looks like it could use some error bars. | |
| Aug 2, 2018 at 5:37 | comment | added | user191954 | I used your SEDE query to gather data from 1-1-2011 to 22-07-2018, and then plotted 120-day averages on excel. Looks like there's been a noticeable decrease in average votes per day since 2016. Excel file on google sheets. Image on imgur (random x axis, and the last dot shows the average over 25 March '18-22 July '18, inclusive) Also, the peaks are usually in the april/may-august phase, which surrounds the US summer break. Strange. | |
| Jul 31, 2018 at 8:45 | comment | added | Emilio Pisanty | @VolkerSiegel The data is transparently reported (weekly averaging) and the basic data set is open to the public for inspection on SEDE if you want to do your own analysis. (But that does not seem to be what you want - thus far you've only advocated against any sort of analysis.) If you want to continue trolling, please do so elsewhere. | |
| Jul 30, 2018 at 11:00 | comment | added | Volker Siegel | @EmilioPisanty it is important because the interpretation is directly controlled by then author! He can reduce trends, or enhance them. The problem could be solved by publishing the frequency used. But that is too hard to understand. | |
| Jul 30, 2018 at 9:08 | comment | added | Emilio Pisanty | @VolkerSiegel Sure. If you blur your eyes enough then there is never any signal, it's all just noise on top of a flat straight line. I don't see how it's useful, but it's one way to see things. | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 19:54 | comment | added | Volker Siegel | There is clearly strong noise in the short term - which is per week. The noise per frequency is still high in low frequency. Look at a chart over less time - you will see wild variations. Looking at a large range you see a - You will need to go back to see all. And from very far you see a straight line. It only depends on the difference of the resolution of the chart and your eye. | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 19:36 | comment | added | Emilio Pisanty | @VolkerSiegel Luckily there are tools to extract trends from noisy data. For the voting data, the peak monthly averages for 2018 are definitely some >5% below the 2017 and 2016 maxima, probably at the level of $1\sigma$ or so (i.e. not something that rates at CODATA, but nothing to sneeze at in any data that deals with human behaviour). Throwing up one's arms at the slightest hint of noise is one way to deal with such data, but it isn't necessarily a helpful one. | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 19:33 | comment | added | Volker Siegel | It looks like noise to me. | |
| Jul 29, 2018 at 16:25 | comment | added | user191954 | @EmilioPisanty Would a query to find number of upvotes on posts that're less than 1 week old at the time of the vote solve that? | |
| Jul 28, 2018 at 23:55 | comment | added | Time4Tea | It seems to me from the lower chart that the voting rate is perhaps 10-15% lower than the same month (June) two years ago. The overall trend doesn't look too rosy. | |
| Jul 28, 2018 at 18:17 | comment | added | Emilio Pisanty | @Chair That information is accessible to analysis via SEDE. My gut feeling is that it won't play much of a role, but you never know. | |
| Jul 28, 2018 at 10:27 | comment | added | user191954 | An important thing to note is that although the number of votes per week has remained approximately stable over the last few years (according to those charts), the number of posts which exist, and hence the number of posts receiving those votes has increased, so the votes are more thinly spread. Of course, to a great extent, the older posts won't be receiving many votes now; most votes would be cast on new posts... but it's still something worth considering. | |
| Jul 28, 2018 at 9:50 | comment | added | Brock Adams | This show the number of votes as relatively flat, but we know that the cumulative number of users and posts are increasing. As users (and posts) increase, votes should increase too, not stay flat. Seems fishy. | |
| Jul 28, 2018 at 7:42 | history | edited | Emilio Pisanty | CC BY-SA 4.0 | added 272 characters in body |
| Jul 28, 2018 at 7:23 | history | answered | Emilio Pisanty | CC BY-SA 4.0 |