Be wary of online polls!!

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Ruger480

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I got an email titled "scarier than the tiny gun that killed Lincoln" which should have tipped me off, but it didn't. So I opened it and scrolled down to the bottom to take their poll which looks like this:

Do you think Congress should close the "Printable Gun" loophole?

Yes, 3-D printed guns should be fashioned with permanent metal parts.

No, don't trample on my right to bear arms any further.

So I clicked No, whereby I was redirected to another website to view the poll results (or so I thought).

And this is what I saw!!

You voted no, 3-D printed guns should be fashioned with permanent metal parts!

The results have been quite astonishing to us here at Wall Street Daily.

To view the results of the poll, just enter your email address below. You'll immediately gain a 100% free subscription to Wall Street Daily's e-letter, the world's leading independent financial publisher that's totally free and always will be!


From the way I read it, it looks like I voted to ban printable guns! :mad:
 
The other day, a pollster called by phone.
The questions seemed neutral, things like are you registered to vote, are you going to vote in the next election, what party affiliation if any, things like that.
Until they came to which party candidate are you going to vote for.
I must have picked one they didn't like, 'cause they promptly hung up on me.
You just know which ones they are going to count.
So much for fair and unbiased polls.
Our local newspaper is about the same.
The only poll results they ever publish are the ones that support their views, no matter how old they are, or how many other polls out there contradict them.
 
Having worked for a company that did surveys here's my suggestion for future phone surveys:

Ask the company name conducting the survey (contractor usually). If they won't tell you hang up.

The example for g.willikers was actually more likely a fund raiser than an actual survey. Any company using the "survey" excuse to sell products or raise money is violating the ethics of actual survey research firm organizations.
 
The fallacy of online polls is that there are programs you can download that will add as many votes to the poll of your choice as you like.
Some online pollsters have gotten slightly smarter in ensuring only humans vote, however there is a company in India that can get you 10,000 human votes per day on any poll you like for a very modest price.

So what should we believe that's online?
 
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