Zero Hedge loses whatever credibility it once had

The word has a specific meaning in the context of polling. Which is what they were talking about.

Of course that meaning does not fit with your narrative, so you look for a way for the word to mean something different. Something that does fit with your narrative. You need to Google "confirmation bias".

 

Wrong. As stated in my very first post, it has SEVERAL meanings in polling as a matter of fact one can discern from a 2 minute google search.

Irony. I'm writing a book on cognitive bias and legal practice. The only bias displayed here is yours and OP's in insisting that a single definition of a word is the only one (most words have several acceptable definitions)... because that single definition happens to fit YOUR narrative.

Neither you nor OP (nor I admittedly) know squat about sophisticated polling techniques. But at least I'm not arrogant or personality disordered enough to REGURGITATE a common LW sewer pipe theme as if it's my own original thinking here. The term "oversample" has been used colloquially, and correctly, in this campaign, to describe the process of including more of one political party or other demographic in polling towards getting a certain result. It's blatantly obvious that this is going on in several of the polls.

Trying to discredit that complaint by honing in on a manosphere blog entry is transparent also. In essence, the argument runs, "All GOP complaints about polls including more Democrats to skew results are discredited because they aren't using the right term to describe that practice in this obscure blog."

A reasonable (but still debatable) argument would be "Zero Hedge is using the term 'oversampling' in a different way than Podesta did in the wikileaked Emails," but that's not the argument OP or you are making, and you know it isn't.

 

This alone wrecks your argument.

As I noted (and you have ignored), Zero Hedge itself EXPLICITLY tied the two uses of the word together. They claimed poll-skewing "oversampling" in one poll, then linked to the Podesta email (it's not a Podesta email, but never mind) and said it showed that this was something Democrats were deliberately doing. They were clearly saying that "oversampling" meant the same thing in both instances.

Heck, their headline says "New Podesta Email Exposes Playbook For Rigging Polls Through 'Oversamples' ".

Even in your reading, Zero Hedge is WRONG about what the Podesta email meant. And thus was wrong to try to tie it back to their claim about the poll they were looking at.

Never mind that their post doesn't actually show any evidence of oversampling in the poll in question. They just don't like the published Dem/Rep/Ind split. They give no real reason why we should consider it a sign of rigging, other than the vague and off-point claim that "Of course, while democrats may enjoy a slight registration advantage of a couple of points, it is nowhere near the 9 points reflected in this latest poll."

That is a weak assertion with no evidence to back it up.

As I have explained before, party preference is remarkably fluid during an election campaign. Plus, they confuse party REGISTRATION with party preference. They are not the same thing. Pollsters generally ask about preference, not registration, for two very good reasons: registration doesn't necessarily reflect current preference, and only 31 states even have party registration.

It's an amateurish shambles from start to finish.

 

tldr You titled your thread hyperbolically as usual "loses all credibility" based on claiming that a definition that fits your narrative is the only valid definition of a term with several valid definitions. Please demonstrate that Podesta intended your definition of the term as above all others via words in the Emails. "Well Pew says it means this one thing, so that's what Podesta meant" does NOT suffice. No one "loses all credibility" based on one of several possible uses of a term when the intended use is not specifically spelled out, and Podesta didn't do that. You could have made (or regurgitated more accurately) a reasonable argument, but chose not to intentionally out of partisan zeal, making you the one with little credibility.

 

tl;dr? Really? How short is your attention span? FFS.

There is no other reasonable explanation for the use of the term in Podesta's emails.

They were discussing INTERNAL polls, so "poll rigging" makes no sense.

The Pew definition is the normal definition and usage of that term, in polling circles. It also happens to be the only definition that actually makes sense in context.

Your hand-waving about "several possible uses of a term" is just that: hand-waving. It is ridiculous on its face.

 

zero hedge is one of the few sites i've found that doesn't moderate it when you connect hillary to pederast heroin cartels in aghanistan. therefore i think this tread is evidence of left partisan free speach supression.

 

Wow. Banned after just four posts. Surely that's some sort of record.