Talk:FiveThirtyEight/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Notability

The site is notable for its new polling methodology which gained attention for beating out most pollsters projections in North Carolina and Indiana in the heavily contested political primary race between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008. New polling methodology in the political world is of enormous economic and political impact. Page is often sited for its new, innovative polling prediction methodology in the Democratic Primary Election 2008. -Aaron Sawyer Aaronsawyer1 (talk) 23:49, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The site has been widely referred to as a source on the general election contest, and as of this date articles about it and its author (not just articles citing it) have appeared in The National Journal, Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. Since June 12, the daily polling report from the site has been mirrored (cross-posted) in the online The New Republic. (See citations in the body of the article.)--Mack2 (talk) 05:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Can anyone find/create a map with the actual results (including margin of victory) using the colors and fonts of the projection map on this page? This is the prettiest map I've seen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.116.212.15 (talk) 14:02, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Liberal leaning

Arzel has added this to the lede, and I fixed the cite formatting although I was unable to find a reference to the site itself having a left-leaning or liberal-leaning slant in the article. What is the exact sentence please? ► RATEL ◄ 06:14, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Nate has commented himself that he is a Democrat and that his comments are partisan. His data and polling analysis are not and are done with a set of non-biased criteria that Nate makes available for transparency. On the other hand, RealClearPolitics have also stated they are conservatives and biased for Republicans, but have not made the criteria they use on which polls to use(or not use) or the weight of the numerous polls they do include. While Nate's formula is public and open.

In other words, one can make the statement that 538 is a liberal-leaning website and be somewhat accurate. But if that same person tries to make the argument that RCP is not a conservative-leaning website, there is an obvious hypocrisy and bias that has to be in play.DD2K (talk) 02:07, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

So Nate makes left-leaning comments on a CNET blog, but his site merely carries statistics and analysis? IOW one cannot label it left-leaning, right? On the other hand RCP has an active right-leaning blog section within the site, correct? ► RATEL ◄ 02:11, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Q: The blog had an overt liberal position, but you always said the statistics were objective. What kind of feedback, if any, did you get from conservatives?
Silver: We had a pretty good balance. We had probably about a 2-1 ratio in terms of liberal versus conservative readers, based on the comment threads. Now that we're not in an election, I think it's swung more toward the liberal side, both in terms of my writing and what people are reading about.
We try and be fair. That's the main thing, we try and be forthright. There's so much commentary from conservatives, also from liberals, that is just entirely disingenuous about certain things. It's a lot of cheerleading and cherry-picking of data. We're trying to present a case that by and large is a liberal's case, because it's my case. It's how I see the world. But we're trying to use data to do it where a lot of people just make bad arguments

I personally don't think either should be labeled because OPINION should NOT be used to define someone or something. Even per WP:NAMING the self-descriptor should be used. Now because both of you seem hell-bent on pushing your POV regarding RCP I see no other alternative than label similar entities by the same logic. FWIW, Silver does have a blog, and that blog is liberal. RCP has NOT stated they are biased nor are their statistics biased, and I doubt that Silver's are either, the only bias that may exist is in Silver's mind since he accused them of using polls that he thinks are biased. Arzel (talk) 07:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

So Arsel, it seems your inclusion, which I won't remove, is the result of a little bit of interpretation on your part, a little bit of OR. Silver's comments about fairness and how his writing swings from one side to another hardly denote an entrenched political opinion. ► RATEL ◄ 08:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Interpretation? When the owner of the site states that he works from a liberal point of view you don't have to read between the lines. His statement of liberal leanings is FAR stronger than what you claim from RCP. Silver actively supported Obama during the election, and stated as much on his own website. So don't give me this BS about OR or interpretation. Here is a good article to read, and a nice find for the RCP article. When the NYT points out the liberal bent of Silver, and that Silver accused RCP of being conservatively biased you get the to the headwaters of the whole RCP is biased meme. Arzel (talk) 15:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Silver says he changes his stance from time to time. So if he supports an independent or a Republican at the next election, I take it that you'll be back to change the page? Note: we are not supposed to draw our own conclusions as you have done based on his one-time support for Obama. He says he swings from side to side; that is what the article should say. ► RATEL ◄ 16:04, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

If Silver backs the Republican candidate in 2012 then sure. There is an easier solution. Simply remove the labels from both and add statements of opinion with both of their statements of independence. Arzel (talk) 22:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem labeling FiveThirtyEight a liberal leaning website, because it is. Most of Nate's comments and posts come from a Democratic or Liberal point of view. The same should be said(about their conservative perspectives on RCP) about both John and Tom, as well as most of their contributing writers. On the other hand, there have been no accusations directed towards Nate concerning his polling data analysis, while Nate outlines the flaws with RCP's weighting and polling aggregation methods. If RCP published their formulas as Nate Silver and other polling websites do, then perhaps those accusations could be answered totally. Myself, during election time I go to RCP, FiveThirtyEight and Pollster.com. DD2K (talk) 16:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

You make a bad assumption. You assume that Silver is correct but forget that Silver is a competitor of RCP. He has a financial stake in trying to take down RCP's analysis. Silver doens't seem to like what RCP is doing, that dosn't make it wrong. There are no correct pieces of information to include into a forecast model, just as there are no incorrect pieces of information. There are only pieces of information that show some degree of correlation with past history which provide some level of degree of predictive ability. The proof is in the pudding, if what RCP was doing wasn't useful then they wouldn't be in business because noone would be citing their numbers. Arzel (talk) 16:56, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

No, you are making excuses and seem to purposely misleading. Everything I stated was 100% correct, and you are using spin to defend RCP. I don't know if RCP skews the way they compile their polling data or not, but I don't think so(at least most of the time). That doesn't mean that what Nate outlines in his post doesn't have merit, because it absolutely does. The cases of bizarre inclusions and exclusions are definitely something that leads to suspicion of poll skewing. If RCP would publish their criteria for which polls get included and which do not(like every other credible polling organization), then there would be less suspicion. Also, for you to claim there is no correct criteria to include polling data or incorrect criteria is absolutely concerning. I don't know any statistician, any serious compiler of data, that could ever believe that. It's a very telling statement. DD2K (talk) 04:26, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It is not uncommon to come across situations where a seemingly unrelated variable is a good predictor by proxy of some event. It is quite common that it is difficult or impossible to obtain information of certain types. It is then neccessary to use other more easily obtained information to create a proxy of the information that you cannot get, but what is likely to be highly correlated to the primary variable of interest. Check out Structural equation modeling Arzel (talk) 05:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Per RCP I added a similar lead for 538.com. I wasn't able to find an independent RS to make the case that the polling aggregation is nonpartisan, but I would be very suprised if they were. Arzel (talk) 02:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Use logic, Arzel. If the polling aggregation was partisan, it wouldn't have given the most accurate projections of the 2008 election outcomes. Partisan ones got the results wrong.~Mack2~ (talk) 16:03, 5 February 2010 (UTC) 14:07

'Liberal leaning' is a joke right. I mean this fails to separate the News from the Analysis. When NBC News uses an pollster analyst that is liberal, then NBC News become liberal. That is not such an important distinction, nor is it neutral point of view for wikipedia. It is not really a fact that is germane to the article on 538 at all. It is just a method to 'tar' 538 with a liberal bias tag without focusing on the numbers and the issues that 538 site addresses. Nice try though to cherry pick a few words and deem all the findings at 538 are 'liberal leaning'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.166.162 (talk) 21:50, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that 'with a liberal-leaning[2] blog' should be removed. It is not germane to the site at all. Should a site be judged by the group of fans or followers and what they say? No. This is not an important fact or piece of data. I think it should be removed or moved to the bottom of the article, since no one cares about who comments of what site on the internet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.166.162 (talk) 21:54, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

POV/Vandalism

Removed a POV paragraph that had snuck into the article: someone with an axe-to-grind with the subject matter of the article. While the insertion was essentially vandalism Some of the material is appropriate, but needs to integrated more appropriately. A job I will not take on

Rasmussen affiliation

It is mentioned that 538 and Rasmussen established an affiliation in 2008. What is the current status of this affiliation? Recent 538 posts have noted a less than desireable 'house effect' for Rasmussen.Mukogodo (talk)

It doesn't appear there is any such affiliation now -- not on Rasmussen Reports website nor on FiveThirtyEight website, nor has it been referred to in recent months on the 538 website.~Mack2~ 18:36, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Still using an extrememly high number of primary sources

This article has over 100 hundred citations to Silver or his blog. The entire aritcle is almost complete primary sourced. This really needs to be fixed. Arzel (talk) 20:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Up to your same old crap, Arzel. Don't you have anything better to do? There is NO rule against primary sources. This is an article about a blog and it appropriately links to the blog and tells the history of it. Have you counted the number of SECONDARY sources? By a quick count I see 72. More than you'll find in 99% of the articles in the Wikipedia.~Mack2~ 21:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Still trying to use WP as a promotional vehicle for 538.com eh MacK? Apparently you do not understand WP:PRIMARY Arzel (talk) 17:32, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

The article talks a lot about the 2008 North Carolina election, but the 538 site today is exclusively about political opinion. There should be some discussion about why a sports site suddenly decided to add a political opinion site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.83.3.102 (talk) 20:11, August 30, 2016

Actually, it's always been a political site. Read the article, specifically the history section. Elisfkc (talk) 02:00, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

2016 US Presidential Primary section

I have added:

1. 538's Methodology

2. Commentary from NYTimes and FAIR on their polling data

3. For every race: 538's "polls-plus" average vs. actual result

4. Distribution of their forecast "error" (derived from 3) anyone interested should be able to reproduce this from the data

--Invopuat (talk) 11:49, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The Alexa rank is wrong

The archived link says 388. I think making it "538" was someone's prank. The current alexa website says 239, although that's probably a temporary bump.

Groucho Marx

The Groucho Marx reference does not make sense without the background knowledge of what Groucho said that makes the allusion relevant. The link to the article ABOUT Groucho is no help. It seems to me that the appropriate place to address this is in a footnote, say to [1], but it's not exactly a "reference"---

What's the appropriate way to deal with this issue? Thmazing (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps instead make a link to https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Groucho_Marx#Quotes, which shows: "PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER" ? I'll try to add that. UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 22:54, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Oops, nevermind, that attempt shows up in the article as an external link, can't get it to just link to the quote page. UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 23:01, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

External links modified

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Too much election coverage

I don't think we need a separate section with detailed assessments of 538's coverage of every election it covers. Any recommendations/thoughts on reducing that content? Power~enwiki (talk) 06:54, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Italicize the title?

I think this is a clear case for italics per MOS:ITALICTITLE:

Website titles may or may not be italicized depending on the type of site and what kind of content it features. Online magazines, newspapers, and news sites with original content should generally be italicized (Salon or HuffPost).

Objections? ―Mandruss ☎ 00:44, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Done ―Mandruss ☎ 00:23, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Mascot

Since i wrote a section about the sites redesign which also includes reactions to Fivey Fox, do we also need a separate section about the mascot? Is there a way we can consolidate it? (I am still new at this whole Wikipedia thing) ~𝓜𝓙𝓛'𝓼 𝓔𝓿𝓲𝓵 𝓢𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻 (talk) 02:39, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Origin of the name

I can't find the origin of 538 anywhere, not on Wikipedia and not on fivethirtyeight. Can someone enlighten me and perhaps add this to the page? Blonkm (talk) 19:29, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm surprised it's not in there. I'll see if I can find a source for it.

538 is the number of Electoral College votes in the US presidential election: one for each US Senator (100), one for each Representative (435), and three for Washington DC (3, the number of senators and representatives it would have if it were a state). TJRC (talk) 20:07, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Here we go. TJRC (talk) 20:41, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Why is 2012 highlighted but not 2016 or 2022?

He incorrectly predicted the winner in 2016 which I see no mention of in this article and he was off in multiple states in 2020... That's just at the presidential level. He's missed many times on gubernatorials, senate elections, congressionals, etc. This wiki page is laughably biased in favor of 538 and Nate Silver. His model has incorrectly predicted virtually every major sporting champion for the past several years. 2600:6C5E:107F:701:F8D9:8BAE:7F6:18C (talk) 17:53, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

So the short answer is: the article is not protected, you're free to make any changes you feel need to make to make the article adhere to our policies of Neutrality, which you seem to feel this article lacks. Keep in mind, however, that any criticisms you make of the mathematical legitimacy of FiveThirtyEights models and their succes and usefulness (or lack thereof) will need to be backed up by Reliable sources.

Personally, I suspect you are misunderstanding what their models purport to do. Let me ask you this, perhaps it will make you see how I believe their model is supposed to work: would you criticize the weather forecast if it predicts 90% chance of rain, for 2 hours, and instead it rains for 4 hours? What if they predict a temperature between 21 and 25 degrees, and instead the temperature is 19 degrees? But who knows, maybe I'm the one misunderstanding the model? I'd be happy to be convinced by a more mathematically thorough critique.

Regarding the structure of the article, I would agree that it is a bit of a mess, and has many elements of a Proseline. It could do with some cleanup to present a clearer story. Like I said, you are free to do so. David12345 (talk) 21:27, 26 October 2022 (UTC)