Re: Debunking B.S. from the so-called debunker (was Re: monotonous posting)

2008-10-19 Thread William T Goodall

On 20 Oct 2008, at 02:05, Nick Arnett wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 4:24 PM, William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> >wrote:
>
> Or, and this is my preference, just drop it.  You are completely  
> wrong; the
> numbers don't lie.

Of course you prefer not be shown to be wrong. I think it's very clear  
to any reasonable person that I am right. Your blustering and  
posturing isn't going to convince anyone otherwise.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics Maru

-- 
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/

“Babies are born every day without an iPod. We will get there.” - Adam  
Sohn, the head of public relations for Microsoft's Zune division.

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Re: Debunking B.S. from the so-called debunker (was Re: monotonous posting)

2008-10-19 Thread Nick Arnett
On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 4:24 PM, William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:

>
> On 19 Oct 2008, at 22:48, Nick Arnett wrote:
> > During the weeks following my post, we had abnormally high activity
> > -- more
> > than two standard deviations from the mean.  One of those weeks, we
> > were at
> > more than five standard deviations above the mean.
>
> Obviously controversy always causes a flurry of postings. For a true
> picture one must wait until the list quiesces again.


How... convenient for you to imagine that the data isn't meaningful when it
contradicts you.  Running for office, are you?

Anybody else think that explains six weeks of high posting activity followed
by two weeks of normal activity, very little of which had anything to do
with the post William would have us believe discouraged activity?

William, you actually haven't documented a statistically significant
decrease in postings (because there isn't one).  Maybe it's time for a
review of basic statistics?  The reason that the last two weeks' posting
level doesn't represent a significant drop is that 90 percent of values in a
normal distribution fall within one standard deviation of the mean.  The
"decline," in terms of statistical significance, is a pink unicorn.  Shoo it
away.

I have started two companies and have four patents for this kind of analysis
and eight years of experience doing it.  My patents were bought by
Nielsen/BuzzMetrics and my second startup was acquired by one of the biggest
social media agencies in the world. So, what do you have to back up your
analysis?  Like, you know, numbers and stuff?

Or, and this is my preference, just drop it.  You are completely wrong; the
numbers don't lie.

Nick
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Re: Debunking B.S. from the so-called debunker (was Re: monotonous posting)

2008-10-19 Thread William T Goodall

On 19 Oct 2008, at 22:48, Nick Arnett wrote:
> During the weeks following my post, we had abnormally high activity  
> -- more
> than two standard deviations from the mean.  One of those weeks, we  
> were at
> more than five standard deviations above the mean.

Obviously controversy always causes a flurry of postings. For a true  
picture one must wait until the list quiesces again.

>  Even during the last two
> weeks, which have been lower than the previous six, we were still  
> less than
> one standard deviation below the mean,

One standard deviation below eh?

> which means that the activity level
> since my post has only been unusually high, not at any time  
> unusually low.
>

That's a whole lot of spin :-)

QED Maru


  "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product  
of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still  
primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." - Albert  
Einstein

-- 
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/



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