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Subject:Re: Mac vs. PC survey From:Eric Haddock <eric -at- ENGAGENET -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 19 Aug 1996 08:04:24 -0500
Wow! I've been flamed for the first time! And by a fellow TW! Who'dve
thought I would say anything to make someone _livid and appalled_ at the
same time--and over something like this?
>highly unscientific sampling, without saying so by
>way of qualification
*---- but I said in the post you're responding to: -----------*
| |
| Since more technical writers prefer Macintosh, according to |
| those who responded to my survery, |
| |
*-------------------------------------------------------------*
Aside from a typo--I was clear.
>I'm also livid that you would imply "more of us"
>prefer *anything* without making sure that your statistics
>and method are
>objectively defensible.
Objectively defensible? It was just a mailing list survey!
And I wasn't going for statistically defensible data for peer review by
a committee of learned, long-toothed statistical masters of the world--it
was just a fun informal survey on a small mailing list! That's all it was
intended to be, that's all it could've been and <gasp!> that's all it
turned out to be.
If all the respondants were looking for statistically defensible data then
they would've gone somewhere else, hmm? Perhaps to a realm of data
behavior and interpretation where casual mailing list surveys are designed
for critical review by actuaries.
>Your out-of-the-mainstream personal web page
Um...how can you have a _mainstream personal_ web page? Doesn't "personal"
mean out-of-the-mainstream? Why, that's the very definition of "personal
web page," isn't it?
But anyway....
>web page is NOT the place to gather statistically defensible data
I didn't get the survey responses _through_ my personal web page. I asked
the questions here in the list. I posted the results on my personal web page.
>And you owe all of us an apology
>for inferring that we all prefer *anything* based on your
>sampling.
No I don't--it was just a fun survey for goodness sakes!
"Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words."
-- Mark Twain
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