URC Analysis - Voluntary Response Polling and the 75% Myth

Cassio · Jan 19, 2012

While this post is very critical of members of the URC, this is not meant to be a personal attack on its members. And while I believe in many of the goals of the URC, I also see its current structure and its membership as flawed, with its membership containing a poor cross-section of the community and not up to the task of analyzing high level play or analyzing data, as well as suffering from confirmation bias:

Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias, myside bias or verification bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.
As a result, people gather evidence and remember information selectively, and interpret it in a biased way.

Even though I will be using information from the meta knight ban, this thread is not about meta knight's ban, the focus is on the URC. I may or may not do other material some other time as theres certainly is a lot of content to cover with how the URC is run, but for now I begin by covering the voluntary response poll on the Meta Knight ban.

I admit it: I voted pro-ban just to see what kind of ****storm would happen if he got banned. But I don't honestly think he's bannable, lol. Then again, I don't play anymore, so.... don't give a ****.
~ anonymous user 1

"I admit it: I voted pro-ban just to see what kind of ****storm would happen if he got banned. But I don't honestly think he's bannable, lol."
I actually did the same thing. L
~ anonymous user 2

The voluntary response poll asking for the communities opinion on Meta Knight's ban is inaccurate and useless, and the URC was made aware of this before they made their decision on Meta Knight.

Imagine if, prior to a presidential election in which a particular candidate won by 63%, a voluntary response poll was taken showing this same candidate would only receive 43% of the vote. Would you consider this poll accurate? Would this poll be "good enough"? Would this poll be worth making decisions with? According to the URC's actions and responses, the answer to these questions are yes. The following explains why.

Immediately prior to the ban I was highly critical of the online voluntary response poll. I very vocally stated its unreliability and eventually one of my posts on the subject was posted in the URC. This was the response I recieved:

Player-1 said:
Casual players aren't voting because of the requirements to vote and if you mean non TO goers, Delux did some research and found some similar findings (I'm not sure if I'm suppose to tell you or not, as I would assume Delux would have put it out here if he wanted it out here and I didn't see it, so I'll keep quiet about it). The "passion" of something is one of the silliest arguments I've heard. The past couple of months we've seen quite an increase in the MK legality controversy meaning people should be more away. Not to mention the poll on AiB was about the same results as SWF, any non vocal anti ban should of been more away of how serious this is. If they don't think it's not an important enough factor go vote on then I don't care about your opinion if you're an anti ban

from elsewhere:

AlphaZealot said:
Yes, two such polls would make an accurate representation of the Smash community. Is it perfect? No. Is it a large enough sample to be statistically significant. Yes. Even better though? There are at least 5 polls which all came out showing the majority of people were in favor of banning. Spanning years.

This pseudo-explanation of statistics attempts to justify multiple voluntary response polls which no respectable statician would ever take seriously as even partially accurate or useful. However my recolletion of statistics basics wasnt getting through this pseudo belief. In addition multiple members of the URC would continue to cite the poll even after being corrected (see AZ's post above). Instead of taking my word for it I'll be referencing a statsitics textbook with specific examples. The following is taken from the 11 edition of Elementry Statistics by Mario Triola.

Elementary Statistics said:
Bad Samples Some samples are bad in the sense that the method used to collect the data dooms the sample, so that it is likely to be somehow biased. That is, it is not representative of the population from which it has been obtained. The following definition refers to one of the most common and most serious misuses of statistics.

Defintion
A voluntary response sample (or self-selected sample) is one in which the respondents themselves decide whether to be included.

Caution
Do not ever use voluntary response sample data for making conclusions about a population

[collapse=Example1]
Voluntary Response Sample Newsweek magazine ran a survey about the Napster Web site, which had been providing free accesss to downloading copies of music CDs. Readers were asked this question: "Will you still use Napster if you have to pay a fee?" Readers could register their responses on the Web site newsweek.msnbc.com. Among the 1873 responses recieved, 19% said yes, it is still cheaper than buying CDs. Another 5% said yes, they felt more comfortable using it with a charge. When newsweek or anyone else runs a poll on the Internet, individuals decide themselves whether to participate, so they constitute a voluntary response sample. But the people with strong opinions are more likely to participate, so it is very possible that the responses are not representative of the whole population.[/collapse]
[collapse=Example2] Why was the Literary Digest poll so wrong?
Founded in 1890, the Literary Digest magazine was famous for its success in conducting polls to predict winners in presidential elections. The magazine correctly predicted the winners in the presidential elections of 1916, 1920, 1924, 1928, and 1932. In the 1936 presidential contest between Alf Landon and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the magazine sent out 10 million ballots and received 1,293,669 ballots for Landon and 972,897 ballots for Roosevelt, so it appeared that landon would capture 57% of the vote. The size of this poll is extremely large when compared to the sizes of other typical polls, so it appeared that the poll would correctly predict the winner once again. James A. Farle, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee at the time, praised the poll by saying this: "Any sane person cannot escape the implication of such a gigantic sampling of popular opinion as is embraced in The Literary Digest straw vote. I consider this conclusive evidence as to the desire of the people of this country for a change in the National Government. The Literary Digest poll is an achievement of no little magnitude. It is a poll fairly and correctly conducted." Well, Landon received 16,679,583 votes to the 27,751,597 votes cast for Roosevelt. Instead of getting 57% of the vote as suggest by Literary Digest poll, Landon received only 37% of the vote. The results for Roosevelt are shown in Figure 1-1. The Literary Digest magazine suffered a humiliating defeat and soon went out of business.

In that same 1936 presidential election, George Gallup used a much smaller poll of 50,000 subjects and he correctly predicted that Roosevelt would win. How could it happen that a larger Literary Digest poll could be so wrong by such a large margin? What went wrong? As you learn the basics of statistics in this chapter, we will return to the Literary Digest poll and explain why it was so wrong in predicting the winner of the 1936 presidential contest.

What went wrong in the Literary Digest poll? Literary Digest Magazine conducted its poll by sending out 10 million ballots. The magazine received 2.3 million responses. The poll results suggested incorrectly that Alf Landon would win the presidency. In his much smaller poll of 50,000 people, George Gallup correctly predicted that Franklin D. Roosevelt would win. The lesson here is that it is not necessarily the size of the sample that makes it effective, but it is the sampling method. The Literary Digest ballots were sent to magazine subscribers as well as to registered car owners and those who used telephones. On the heels of the Great Depression, this group included disproportionately more wealthy people, who were Republicans. But the real flaw in the Literary Digest poll is that it resulted in a voluntary response sample. Gallup used an approach in which he obtained a representative sample based on demographic factors. (Gallup modified his his methods when he made a wrong prediction in the famous 1948 Dewey/Truman election. Gallup stopped polling too soon, and he failed to detect a late surge in support for Truman.) The Literary Digest poll is a classic illustration of the flaws inherent in basing conclusions on a voluntary response sample.[/collapse]
These are common examples of volutary response samples which, by their very nature, are seriously flawed because we should not make conclusions about a population based on such a biased sample:

Polls conducted through the Internet in which subjects can decide whether to respond

Mail-in-polls, in which subjects can decide whether to reply

Telephone call-in polls, in which the newspaper, radio, or television announcements ask that you voluntarily call a special number to register your opinion

With such voluntary response sample, we can only make valid conclusions about the specific group of people who chose to participate, but a common practice is to incorrectly state or imply conclusions about a larger population. From a statistical viewpoint, such a sample is fundamentally flawed and should not be used for making general statements about a larger population.

In short, the poll requesting MK's ban in the URS is a flawed and useless measurement. The URC was aware of this concern, yet still ignored it when making their decision. Suggestions were made to improve on community input, which were ignored in favor of the flawed poll. With frequent references to this information, the URC voted 14-0 to ban Meta Knight.

Cassio · Jan 19, 2012

Im posting this to contrast the voluntary response poll with a census I took at E4H: Champion in October for those who entered the tournament (at least a quick summary of it). Theres more stuff since people could write personal opinions on the sheet, but I didnt want to hold off on the release of some of the easier things to put up any longer.

****
This poll is anonymous.
Circle one option for every question.
Feel free to clarify or make notes as needed for use outside of the poll.

Where are you from?
a. Socal 82%
b. Nevada 12%
c. Norcal 0%
d. Arizona 0%
e. PacificNW 2%
f. Other (optional to say where) 4%

Should Meta Knight be banned in the Unity Ruleset?
a. yes 40%
b. no 60%

Should Brinstar be banned? (Regardless of other ruleset changes)
a. yes 78%
b. no 22%

Should Rainbow Cruise be banned? (Regardless of other ruleset changes)
a. yes 70%
b. no 30%

Should more stages be added? (Regardless of other ruleset changes)
a. yes 30%
b. no 70%

Should a ledge grab limit be in place? (Regardless of other ruleset changes)
a. yes 84%
b. no 16%

Should there be a timer increase to 9 or 10 minutes? (Regardless of other ruleset changes)
a. yes 44%
b. no 56%

Should Meta Knight be banned with your preferred ruleset? (Clarify ruleset changes on back)
a. yes 34%
b. no 66%

Should Meta Knight be banned on January 9th, 2012? (Regardless of ruleset)
a. yes 44%
b. no 56%
*******

I think census data from tournament attendees can be useful especially for a region or popular tournament series opinion.

Cassio · Jan 19, 2012

Actually dont need this one...maybe later.

Steam · Jan 19, 2012

How does the URC have a bad cross section of the community? They're all prominent TOs... Aka without them there is no community.

Gea · Jan 19, 2012

I'm slightly confused at the point of the second post, unless you mean that these polls should be compiled by TOs at events instead of just online.

Cassio · Jan 19, 2012

For the record the first part up until the quotes is my personal analysis.

When I say bad cross-section I mean that the community is not 100% TO's. The statement itself is an observation not an argument.

And Gea yeah, that was my suggestion. Itd still have a lot of limitations, but the online poll is literally useless.

To a lesser extent I wanted to show an example of a community that wasnt so gungho about the MK ban. While its technically possible for other tournament attendees to be so strongly in favor of the MK ban overall opinion would reach 75%, socal would need to be incredibly outside the norm. But this point isnt as strong or important.

Gea · Jan 19, 2012

My followup question to your poll questions would be, "Why does brinstar and rainbow cruise need to be banned" and see how many responses include MK. Unless you did something like that.

Anyways, thank you for the clarification.

Cassio · Jan 19, 2012

The question was asked 'regardless of other ruleset changes'. It was isolated to ask just about Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise, without other ruleset considerations. Theres certainly a lot of other information to consider overall though, if I could sit people down for an hour to gather the information I wouldve :laugh:

Steam · Jan 19, 2012

Cassio said:
For the record the first part up until the quotes is my personal analysis.

When I say bad cross-section I mean that the community is not 100% TO's. The statement itself is an observation not an argument.

And Gea yeah, that was my suggestion. Itd still have a lot of limitations, but the online poll is literally useless.

To a lesser extent I wanted to show an example of a community that wasnt so gungho about the MK ban. While its technically possible for other tournament attendees to be so strongly in favor of the MK ban overall opinion would reach 75%, socal would need to be incredibly outside the norm. But this point isnt as strong or important.

People who aren't TOs don't deserve a say in the ruleset... If they want one they can host their own tourneys. Jussayin the TOs would be making the rulesets... URC or not.

Ghostbone · Jan 19, 2012

With the MK ban poll, wouldn't it be similar to an election of sorts, because players knew it would have an effect on the outcome, so it is safe to assume that those who didn't vote don't have an opinion. (or I guess didn't know that the poll would result in anything, though ignorance is no excuse)

And your post itself says that those polls you had mean nothing, since the sample was extremely biased.
I do think the URC should be gauging people's opinions on stages such as Rainbow Cruise and Brinstar in a similar manner as they did with MK. (If >66% of the community wants them banned they really shouldn't be legal).

John12346 · Jan 19, 2012

The next time a poll like that voluntary one at that tournament is held, ask a question like this:

Preferred Ruleset?
- MK Legal, RC/Brinstar Legal
- MK Legal, RC/Brinstar Banned
- MK Banned, RC/Brinstar Legal
- MK Banned, RC/Brisntar Banned

Because we already know at this point in time that most anti-bans want RC and Brinstar banned at this point because they want MK to stay legal, and most pro-bans want RC and Brinstar legal to keep MK banned.

This layout of question would provide more data; giving an better idea of how the stagelist should be modeled in either case of MK's legality.
.
.
.
.
.
And on that note, I'm going to leave this here, which was, yes, a "voluntary" poll of the Top 100 ranked players, and it had a grand slammin' 90 players respond to it.

In this case, I can tell you that those who did not vote on this didn't vote not because they didn't want to, but rather because they never actually saw the blog in time.

First off, let me point out a few things about the poll, because some people aren't going to catch this:
- The blog itself indicates 86 voters, but 4 more votes were cast after the blog died; 3 against, 1 for, bringing the count up to 53-37.
- I know that Vinnie has since changed his viewpoint from pro-ban to anti-ban, so I'll take that into account and change the count form 53-37 to 52-38.
- According to one of the URC members(I do NOT remember which one; you're going to have to ask them for confirmation on this one), 4 users had a voting discrepancy; they had voted yes in the anonymous poll, but voted no in the public poll. To compensate for this, since we don't know what these 4 users' true intentions were, the count must be brought to a RANGE of 52-38 to 56-34.

Now, with this in mind, if we assumed that the 4 discrepancy votes and the 10 unvoted votes were in anti-ban's favor, the count would be 52-48(52% in favor of the ban), and if we assumed that these votes were all in pro-ban's favor, the count would be 66-34(66% in favor of the ban).

So we're looking at a range of 52% to 66% of the 100 top players in favor of the ban; an average of 59%.

I don't know what that means to any of you, but I'll leave it at that.

Cassio · Jan 19, 2012

^John even thats a voluntary response poll. Notice all the names that are missing and how drastically that could change the percent. Its still useful but not for the reason you think it is.

Steam said:
People who aren't TOs don't deserve a say in the ruleset... If they want one they can host their own tourneys. Jussayin the TOs would be making the rulesets... URC or not.

Im didnt say anything about this. Its clear that if every TO were part of the URC they could force the entire community to use the ruleset they wanted regardless of how much the community may disagree with it. The hope is that this wouldnt happen, but this level of forceful power is exactly why the URC, members of the URC have said so themselves.

With the MK ban poll, wouldn't it be similar to an election of sorts, because players knew it would have an effect on the outcome, so it is safe to assume that those who didn't vote don't have an opinion. (or I guess didn't know that the poll would result in anything, though ignorance is no excuse)

And your post itself says that those polls you had mean nothing, since the sample was extremely biased.
I do think the URC should be gauging people's opinions on stages such as Rainbow Cruise and Brinstar in a similar manner as they did with MK. (If >66% of the community wants them banned they really shouldn't be legal).

Im not trying to draw larger conclusions from my census than what Im able to. However keep in mind the census I took was not a voluntary response poll.

Also every reference Ive ever seen to the poll has always been about guaging community opinion, not an election. However if it were an election, especially with the way it was run, it would be exceptionally silly for reasons I could make an entire post about on its own.

John12346 · Jan 19, 2012

Cassio said:
^John even thats a voluntary response poll. Notice all the names that are missing and how drastically that could change the percent.

~~Notice how, even if every uncasted vote went in anti-ban's way, we still hold the majority...~~
~~Edit: Actually, don't respond to that yet, I think there's a different way for me to phrase this.~~
Edit: Nah, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that above 50% of the Top 100 is in favor of the ban even if every uncasted vote goes in anti-ban's way.

>___>

Still doesn't sound structurally right, w/e
.
.
.
What about the poll with the 4 options at the top of my previous post? What's your take on that one?

Cassio · Jan 19, 2012

First, even though I know its unavoidable to an extent, since we have other MK discussion threads Id heavily prefer discussion on MK remain there. The focus here is the URC and its flaws. Literally every member I brought this up with ignored the concerns about the poll and several used it as a major reason for making decisions. The URC doesnt represent a good cross-section of the community, many of its members dont understand the game at a high level, and their supposedly good attributes of data analysis and judging community opinion appear to fall short. Like seriously, the URC at this point is an uninformed bully pushing the community around. It may not exactly be the fault of individual members (to be honest I rather like some of them), but I think it should be clear that theres a serious concern here. I thought about making a longer post with more stuff but I thought this was already a lot of information at one time.

I said this somewhere else and I honestly mean it, I wouldve disagreed but wouldve been 100% fine with the MK ban if it had been done in a proper way. But this is BS.

To answer your question I actually did try that in my poll and it was really confusing. I could probably do it better, but itd have to be for another time. So far the only thing that sort of covers that is the "preferred ruleset" question, going in depth into what the preferred ruleset is definitely a good question though.

Steam · Jan 19, 2012

The URC is more qualified to make rulesets than anyone else though... Because they actually run the tourneys... It seems like you're suggesting we should admit non TOs to the urc

Cassio · Jan 19, 2012

You say qualified when what you mean I think is ability to enforce. If you really mean qualify then give examples, because atm theres big holes in their credibility.

Having the ability to enforce decisions has never qualified someone to make decisions. We dont let militaries and police forces make decisions about government and cities, the ability to enforce has never given anyone some magical ability to make good and logical decisions.

JTsm · Jan 19, 2012

Steam said:
The URC is more qualified to make rulesets than anyone else though... Because they actually run the tourneys... It seems like you're suggesting we should admit non TOs to the urc

Just because they are TO's, that shouldn't mean that they should dictate the WHOLE community. Top players, TO's and etc to come to an agreement so that EVERYONE should be happy.

John12346 · Jan 19, 2012

Well, you're right, actually, because I'm pretty sure that poll I linked up happened after the ban was decided on... w/e.

But I would still like you to ask this question:

John12346 said:
Preferred Ruleset?
- MK Legal, RC/Brinstar Legal
- MK Legal, RC/Brinstar Banned
- MK Banned, RC/Brinstar Legal
- MK Banned, RC/Brisntar Banned

The next time you get a tournament with a big-*** turnout like last time.

I feel that it's important to just confirm, even if we know this already, that MK and RC/Brinstar should not be legal at the same time(which would be indicated by the 1st and 4th options receiving very few votes). But more importantly, I want to see if people actually are/are not okay with RC/Brinstar in a MK banned environment(indicated by option 3 receiving more votes that option 4), and I feel that this question would provide quite a few answers, y'know?

Steam · Jan 19, 2012

JTsm said:
Just because they are TO's, that shouldn't mean that they should dictate the WHOLE community. Top players, TO's and etc to come to an agreement so that EVERYONE should be happy.

Top players don't give the community life, they just take all its money... They really have the most to gain from a biased or bad ruleset. All TOs have to gain is higher attendance...which usually comes with a wider accepted ruleset.

Comparing the police to TOs is a bad comparison, police don't make life itself possible. But TOs make tourneys themselves possible. They run the tourneys, they should decide the rules.

Inle~Orichas · Jan 19, 2012

Assuming that the MK ban poll's purpose is to capture the majority's opinion, I present another flaw inherent in the filtering out uninformed SWF users.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16206336
(Uninformed vital for democracy)

JTsm · Jan 19, 2012

Steam said:
Top players don't give the community life, they just take all its money... They really have the most to gain from a biased or bad ruleset. All TOs have to gain is higher attendance...which usually comes with a wider accepted ruleset.

Comparing the police to TOs is a bad comparison, police don't make life itself possible. But TOs make tourneys themselves possible. They run the tourneys, they should decide the rules.

It wouldn't hurt to hear their opinions. You can easily tell if they're being unreasonable or not.

I didn't say they were the police. I would actually compare them to US congress however.

JTsm said:
Top players, TO's and etc

Etc means pretty much anybody who's valuable to the smash community.

Steam · Jan 19, 2012

Cassio compared them to the police. Lol

JTsm · Jan 19, 2012

Steam said:
Cassio compared them to the police. Lol

Cassio is bad at comparing.

Cassio · Jan 19, 2012

I compared their ability to enforce to the police. The point being that simply having the ability to enforce doesnt qualify you to govern a group of people. No ones disagreed with this, Steam just went on a separate tangent about TOs having the ability to govern because theyre life givers or something.

Steam · Jan 19, 2012

Cassio said:
I compared their ability to enforce to the police. The point being that simply having the ability to enforce doesnt qualify you to govern a group of people. No ones disagreed with this, Steam just went on a separate tangent about TOs having the ability to govern because theyre life givers or something.

Because without TOs there are no tournaments. Without tournaments there is no community

JTsm · Jan 19, 2012

You can have a community w/o TO's. Just no tourneys. lul.

kailo34ce · Jan 19, 2012

the flaw is when you automatically assume 'top players" know better than everyone else. its be like if kobe bryant and everyone who circlejerks kobe bryants posts on an NBA forum, made the rules for the NBA.

here lies the flaw with this community. balancing a bad game.

sbr and the whole way its designed and its slow progression over the years has turned into just failure elitist circlejerk clubhouse stuff

DeLux · Jan 19, 2012

Cassio

I appreciate the feedback and critique, and as usual, I will do my best to make sure we perform due diligence toward improving the URS.

Admittedly there are things that I wish that I had the power to change within the committee or would do differently on my own, but I assure you that despite possible shortcomings we will continue working towards being a positive impact in the community.

zmx · Jan 19, 2012

kailo34ce said:
the flaw is when you automatically assume 'top players" know better than everyone else. its be like if kobe bryant and everyone who circlejerks kobe bryants posts on an NBA forum, made the rules for the NBA.

here lies the flaw with this community. balancing a bad game.

sbr and the whole way its designed and its slow progression over the years has turned into just failure elitist circlejerk clubhouse stuff

1. That is indeed cognitive bias.
2. No fighting game is balanced. Ever. That includes melee and if you think otherwise you're a hypocrite.
3. Maybe but that is irrelevant to this topic.
4. lol u mad

kailo34ce · Jan 19, 2012

zmx said:
1. That is indeed cognitive bias.
2. No fighting game is balanced. Ever. That includes melee and if you think otherwise you're a hypocrite.
3. Maybe but that is irrelevant to this topic.
4. lol u mad

1. idk if ur new around here(and i say this because i honestly dont know) but ive been around for the last 8 years so you can call it whatever youd like but ive watched the scene grow since i was 14
2. im aware. me and everyone else are aware, thankyou for your supreme knowledge. melee has a TON of rules to (help) balance it and it works out better because its a better game but who cares
3. idk what that refers to but they were discussing the "powers" in the community and sbr is a power, i stated that because maybe people shouldnt blindly follow "top" players
4. GOOD ONE!

#HBC | Red Ryu · Jan 19, 2012

Isn't polling by nature voluntary, or at least in this case in a method where you can't force people outside of hard core forcing of it with incentive?

John12346 · Jan 19, 2012

Real talk, the best way to do this would be to poll the Top X(1000?) players by asking them in person/via IM devices, until we get like, a ridiculously high proportion of the voting pool, denoted as Y(950/1000?) votes.

Perhaps give up the surveying Z(7?) days after Y votes are reached so the remaining X - Y people still have time to be contacted or something?

Bobwithlobsters · Jan 19, 2012

Red Ryu said:
Isn't polling by nature voluntary, or at least in this case in a method where you can't force people outside of hard core forcing of it with incentive?

This is exactly my concern. I'm curious as to how you conducted your census cassio. Did you force filling this form out as a requirement to participate in the tourney or was it an optional thing that you handed out. Also do you know what kind of fill out rate you had? Did a lot of people just take the survey and throw it out? I do really like that you are trying to collect data. so many people just tell us the numbers are wrong with no data. Its nice to see an argument with real evidence.

-edit- at john, wouldn't it make more sense to not poll the top 1000 people but a random sample of 1000 people to try and get a more representative sample of the community as a whole. Possibly a certain number from each region to try and account for differences in each area?

Sorto · Jan 20, 2012

@john#
The results were 60:40 pro ban. That is a majority, but it is by no means a super majority. Often a 2/3 vote or something of that sort is considered a super majority. A lot of previous proban discussions used the super majority reasoning as a point (not the whole argument, just a point) when discussing banning. Yet at the higher levels of play the results seem to even up a little. It goes back to the concept of "proving without a doubt". A super majority helps further remove the doubt (especially if the super majority comes from top players). 60:40 shows preference, but is not 75:25 or even 67:33 for that matter and makes the community as a whole seem doubtful in the ban (even though a preference exists). Now, if you believe that the uncasted votes would slightly even up the numbers, then that just hurts the case even more. Also, there is a DIFFERENCE between do they WANT a ban and do they think he DESERVES to be banned. Because I remember reading a post by Ally where he said he voted ban because he believed without MK the game more enjoyable, but in actuality he did not find MK banworthy. The question was posed as for or against when the question should have been posed, "do you believe MK deserves to be banned or does not desereved to be banned(aka banworthy or not banworthy)?"

Cassio · Jan 20, 2012

@Bob and Ryu The terminology is a bit confusing, voluntary response polling is a specific type of poll where you basically put out or send out a mass poll and wait for people to respond to you. As opposed to going to people yourself and taking the poll. Not to be confused with being able to accept or deny taking a poll when presented with one. Its true that people who refuse to take a poll are an issue (called a non-response), but its not the same issue as a voluntary response poll. Dont get too caught up on the word voluntary though.

I didnt force anyone to fill out mine, but everyone fortunately did. It wasnt a requirement as it wasnt my tournament. Like any census or poll though, I would say its far from perfect and certainly has its own criticisms.

@ John sorry I forgot to respond to your post earlier. Yeah I screwed up on one of the questions or I definitely wouldve had that. I think its still a strong statement on Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise itself, but were not certain what ruleset people prefer with MK on the roster. Potentially their preferred ruleset with MK could be Wario Ware only items on, which obviously wouldnt work out when considering the merits of MK.

As for the best way to gauge community opinion Im not sure. Some things are just too much, like my census still has its limits about what it can say about socal. I think one thing we have to be aware of are the caveats and limitations of our data and what our capabilities and work ethic are. I considered doing a poll from all of socals players that entered a tournament twice in the last year with a random sample, but it was just too much especially since people dont always use the same tags. I couldnt say what the best method is for our particular situation, although as far as I know Bob is correct that a good sample is better than trying to bite off more than we can chew. I took the easy way out and relied on a census for tournament entrants.

@Delux Thank you, I think you were the only person who acknowledged my criticism at the time, though I think it wasnt considered as much as it shouldve been. And honestly I really dont blame the members so much as the structure and those who created it, though I can't help but think that as a collective several URC members could have some leeway in its structure if they felt like it or tried.

#HBC | Red Ryu · Jan 20, 2012

So a Census taking, which still isn't mandatory. Hense the thing I keep saying, even if you approach people, it's not mandatory they have to comply.

Cassio · Jan 20, 2012

I know its not intuitive, but taking a poll to someone and having them refuse to respond; and setting out a poll and hoping a good sample will respond are two separate issues. The latter is a lot worse than the former, although both are issues when doing a poll.

Orion* · Jan 20, 2012

Steam said:
Aka without them there is no community.

na chill
East coast will definitely be fine if URC TO's dropped dead LMAO.
not sure about tx or socal (depends if you include mike or is he even URC anymore loool) but I would be willing to bet events would pan out.

Steam said:
People who aren't TOs don't deserve a say in the ruleset... If they want one they can host their own tourneys. Jussayin the TOs would be making the rulesets... URC or not.

Regardless of my opinion on this, saying that doesn't change a ruleset from be good or not. If URC decided to change the standard rules to like All Brawl for example I doubt I would see this argument.

#HBC | Red Ryu · Jan 20, 2012

Sorto said:
@john#
The results were 60:40 pro ban. That is a majority, but it is by no means a super majority.

Which ones?

The more recent ones even the top 100 were super majorities if I recall.

Cassio said:
I know its not intuitive, but taking a poll to someone and having them refuse to respond; and setting out a poll and hoping a good sample will respond are two separate issues. The latter is a lot worse than the former, although both are issues when doing a poll.

The reason why the US census works is because it is illegal to not fill it out, and even worse to lie on it. This adds incentive for people to answer it.

In addition hiring people to do it for them with gathering it. Your method would account for more people, but at the same time still lack the mandatory factor you want to add to it.

I mean yeah it sucks some people don't vote, but remember, that is also their choice to not vote.

Steam · Jan 20, 2012

Orion* said:
na chill
East coast will definitely be fine if URC TO's dropped dead LMAO.
not sure about tx or socal (depends if you include mike or is he even URC anymore loool) but I would be willing to bet events would pan out.

Regardless of my opinion on this, saying that doesn't change a ruleset from be good or not. If URC decided to change the standard rules to like All Brawl for example I doubt I would see this argument.

If URC did all brawl then most people would get fed up and probably start hosting their own tournaments.

URC Analysis - Voluntary Response Polling and the 75% Myth

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