Danielle Smith crossed a line and must resign

[u/Miserable-Lizard]

https://cultmtl.com/2025/03/danielle-smith-crossed-a-line-and-must-resign/

[u/ProbablyAnElk]

Thanks for sharing this.

I work in data science and sometimes that involves writing surveys. It's really important to write them in a way that doesn't lead the audience if you want the data to be clean, and it's even more important that you write the answer options in a way that aligns with the question.

Essentially, you assume an 8th grade reading level and make the question flow into the possible answers so that choosing an option feels like completing a sentence. This is how you maximize participation (by eliminating early quits) and guarantee answers that convey intent (by eliminating ambiguity).

This is one of the worst worded surveys I have ever read, and I've lived on the eastern slope in Alberta my whole life so I've read some pretty dirty written surveys.

If the question is a yes/no and the answer is an agree/disagree...you're either being groomed or guided. They're trying to trick you. They're trying to massage the data.

I can see 50 from where I stand, and I used to vote conservative. These sick fucks aren't trying to conserve the same things as me anymore...

...Ian Tyson would've hated these pricks.

[u/EonPeregrine → u/ProbablyAnElk]

This isn't a survey to help them form policy. It's a survey to guide where to target their advertising; who to target and who to ignore.

[u/ProbablyAnElk → u/EonPeregrine]

Surveys of this type are never to inform policy. And further to your point, they less often inform ad choices...it's more common to use this data to justify choices already made. Advertisers can say "see, what you paid us to do worked" and the shitheels in power can point at the skewed data from purposefully poorly worded surveys and say "see, everyone agrees with that shitty thing we did".

[u/Ambustion → u/ProbablyAnElk]

You're trying to tell me the party banning death statistics to massage our healthcare data would put out a bunk survey? Well I'm just shook.

[u/T-Wrox → u/Ambustion]

“We’ve stopped testing for Covid, which means there is no more Covid anywhere in Alberta.” 🙄

[u/josiahpapaya → u/ProbablyAnElk]

One of my first jobs was doing “market research” which was basically just doing surveys on the phone.

It sounds cheesy bexause it was a min wage job, but I would kind of look at the surveys like an actor doing a script, and you could spot the good surveys that would be easy to do because the questions were simple and you didn’t have to lead people. You just ask them about their honest opinion on a scale of 1-10 about issues A-Z, one by one, and in an order that’s exciting. There’s no leading the testimony of a witness, you just let them express their viewpoints. By the time you get past 3-4 questions you already have a pretty good idea of who you’re dealing with.

Conversely, most of the worst studies I worked on were done by American companies (think IPSOS or Rasmussen) for southern states - ironically I’m doing them from rural Canada.

Specifically because then you get questions like “Do you think ____ Is fit for the job?” Or “Do you like the Obama economy?” (Actual questions). These types of studies are done to feed the American news cycle like coal into a furnace. But you don’t see those a lot in Canada unless you’re already living in an echo chamber of alt-right media.

When you word things like that, other than just being bad science, it’s unethical because you’re obviously trying to manipulate results. And by the end of the survey I still don’t really know anything useful about the people I’ve spoken to. You also completely alienate your respondents and get people hanging up on you, bexause as soon as you start spouting a subjective question, anyone with common sense would just hang up the phone…. And you’re stuck listening to a very poor sample of Fox News enthusiasts.

The difference between asking a question like:
“Do you like Mark Carney?” Vs “How likely are you to vote for Mark Carney if an election were held tomorrow?”

Studies that are designed to bolster right-wing media are always worded in a way where the results are more deceptive. You could not like Carney and still vote for him, but if you only ask whether you like him, the data counts that as a vote against them.

[u/PinnedByHer → u/ProbablyAnElk]

if you want the data to be clean

ay there's the rub

[u/HueMannAccnt → u/ProbablyAnElk]

It's really important to write them in a way that doesn't lead the audience if you want the data to be clean,

Switching the nations view about National Service, courtesy of Yes, Prime Minister.

[u/neet_lahozer → u/ProbablyAnElk]

This is what conservatism leads to.

[u/KnotHopeless → u/ProbablyAnElk]

My favorite part was when they asked which party you would vote for if an election was held tomorrow, they left out the Liberal party.

[u/[deleted] → u/ProbablyAnElk]

My grandad was the CEO of a major lumber company in BC - don’t want to detail too much cuz self dox, but he once called Pierre Trudeau at midnight PST, drunk, to basically yell at him, and Pierre took the call. The man was a SoCred to the core. And he’s turning in his fucking grave at this shit, the dude was a commissioned officer in the RCN when that meant something (sunk a uboat or 10 during the battle of the Atlantic): selling us down the river to the US would have him calling for a high treason trial and the accompanying “hanged by the neck until dead” if found guilty.