[FRC Blog] Two Championship Survey Results and Path Forward

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by efoote868

There are means to get a statistically accurate picture of the opinion of a community, but voluntary online survey is not one of them.

We agree. To close the loop on your earlier comments, then:

Originally Posted by efoote868

Whose opinion matters more, the 10% that took the survey or the 90% that didn't take the survey?

Of course the respondents' opinions matter more, at least in the context of providing FIRST some insight into the community's collective view of the topic at hand. The non-respondents had the opportunity to matter just as much, but chose not to use that opportunity. It's great fun to imbue those non-respondents with opinions and motivations for not sharing those opinions, but it's all fiction until measured.

Originally Posted by efoote868

Because individuals without a strong opinion do not invest their time in voluntary surveys.

Because there's no measurement to refute this, I am free to claim that the survey is biased in the opposite direction: perhaps some of those 90% were just so upset at the decision that they refused to fill out the survey. Certainly some number of those people exist-- who's to say how many?