ChristianKl comments on Lesswrong 2016 Survey - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Elo 30 March 2016 06:17PM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 27 March 2016 07:48:26PM 0 points [-]

Having more data is good regardles of the semantics.

Comment author: Lumifer 28 March 2016 01:05:05AM 3 points [-]

Not if the "data" is noise.

Comment author: Transfuturist 28 March 2016 11:59:00PM 1 point [-]

Most of those who haven't ever been on Less Wrong will provide data for that distinction. It isn't noise.

Comment author: gjm 27 March 2016 09:15:17PM 1 point [-]

If what you want to know is "what characteristics do LW participants and ex-participants have" then you want to survey LW participants and ex-participants, and responses from other people will not help to answer that question. And if their survey answers don't clearly distinguish the other people from the participants and ex-participants, they will make the answers less useful. I forget how clearly the questions ought to make it possible to distinguish, but given that people make mistakes and don't fill everything in I suspect that in practice they distinguish much less than perfectly.

Comment author: ChristianKl 27 March 2016 09:42:27PM 1 point [-]

If what you want to know is "what characteristics do LW participants and ex-participants have" then you want to survey LW participants and ex-participants, and responses from other people will not help to answer that question.

I don't think that's true. Having a control group quite often does help you to know more.