I have modified the information provided on the Survey form and hopefully I leave no ambiguity regarding my purpose in conducting this survey. I'm really looking forward to having many R users fill out the survey.
I apologize once again to the many respondents whose genuine questions I seemingly was trying to evade. I misinterpreted their comments and feedback as unfounded criticism and reacted inappropriately loosing sight of the essential asks. The survey can be found here goo.gl/jw1ig Regards, Harsh Singhal On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 3:51 AM, Greg Snow <greg.s...@imail.org> wrote: > Thanks Hadley, > > Your response here and some I received offline made me look back at what I > said and others and I could have phrased things better. My phrase of > "voluntary response" was a bit vague (but is what is used in the course > materials I teach from, so that is what came to mind). > > I specifically meant surveys without random selection where the respondents > go to some effort to select themselves into the sample. I feel that this > survey fits that category, though definitely not as bad as those where > people have to call a phone number and pay a fee to respond. Hash's survey > still looks like it is going to suffer from undercoverage and there could be > serious bias from that. There are methods for adjusting for undercoverage, > but I don't see how Hash will have the information needed to do those kinds > of corrections (however I am still learning and would be interested if there > is the type of info and methods available for his). > > Also looking back, I mistakenly assumed that he was planning on doing > inference, but I don't see anywhere in his posts that he stated that, so > that was my fault and I came on a bit strong based on that mistake, I > apologize for that. Offline he told me that he is planning on just doing > descriptives and as long as he is up front about the limitations of the data > and limits himself to descriptive, then the survey could be reasonable. > Statements like "at least 3 people from region X use R" don't require > probability samples (just assumptions that those 3 people were honest about > being from region X), inference about how many others in region X use R > would need more/better information. > > Hopefully that clarifies my position and people can start liking me again, > > -- > Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D. > Statistical Data Center > Intermountain Healthcare > greg.s...@imail.org > 801.408.8111 > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: h.wick...@gmail.com [mailto:h.wick...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of > > Hadley Wickham > > Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 1:28 PM > > To: Greg Snow > > Cc: Harsh; r-help@r-project.org > > Subject: Re: [R] R usage survey > > > > > Ok, I am very interested in what methods you plan to use that would > > be fit under the description "suitably analyzed" for voluntary response > > data. From my training and experience the only suitable thing to do > > with voluntary response data is to put it through the shredder, into > > the recycle bin, or use as an example of what not to do in introductory > > textbooks. Treating voluntary response data (especially given the > > responses to your post you have seen so far) as if it came from a > > proper random probability sample does not fit the idea of suitable > > analysis. > > > > Come on, that's a bit strong. In real life, it's not always possible > > to take a perfectly random sample and assume (at best) that missing > > responses are completely at random. Even descriptive analysis on a > > flawed sample is better than nothing at all. Of course you need to be > > extremely careful about making inferences about the wider population, > > but it's not true that the only thing you can do with survey data is > > to throw it in the trash. > > > > Hadley > > > > -- > > Assistant Professor / Dobelman Family Junior Chair > > Department of Statistics / Rice University > > http://had.co.nz/ > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
