Let's take a closer look at those polls.

Althouse without comments.

Like many of her polls, Althouse's choices here are incomplete, in a way that rigs the results.  The reader is forced to choose the answer that comes closest to what they consider right -- to choose the best of several bad options.  With careful wording, she can herd results into whatever column she wants to see come out on top.

As Althouse has pointed out before, when she composes polls like this, she doesn't like to hear the complaint that someone's best possible answer wasn't included, because she couldn't possibly include every possible answer.  I believe she's stated that such complaints are "boring".

But let's look at these possible answers:  There are only two that could be chosen by someone who thought Althouse made a mistake by closing comments.  Of those, one includes the overwrought "I feel aggrieved", promises that the reader will continue to read Althouse, and says that they'll do this "only grudgingly."

The other is, as she points out herself, contradictory, and could logically be chosen by no one.

More discussion after the jump.


Does Althouse actually suppose that 17% and 12% of respondents respectively would choose these two answers because they actually reflect how they feel?  I hope not.  All she should conclude from this is that at least 29% of her readers are, to one degree or another, pissed off about the comments being closed, or the way they were closed, or the events that led up to it; and/or they think that it's hurt the blog.  It's likely that many people saw the manipulative choices and chose not to participate.

In constructing a poll like this, if they're after valid results from which they could draw conclusions, the pollster should strive to partition the space, so that no one would say "I can't choose between A or B, I think they're both true" or "I don't see my answer here and none of these are wholly true."  Althouse might say that she's trying for more interesting poll results, and that her possible choices might be more idiosyncratic or creative in order to get those interesting results.  I'd call the results not interesting but invalid, if the answer space isn't partitioned.  (A set is partitioned when it's divided into subsets, the pairwise intersections of those subsets are empty, and the entire set is included in their union.)

I put up an example of an Althousian poll earlier.  There's not much to choose from there, if you're a Rangers fan.  Yes, I know, such barbarians don't deserve a choice.  But what should I conclude, if 60% of respondents choose A, and predict a cup for the Wings?  Not one hell of a lot, if I'm honest with myself.

And:  Confirmation bias much?  I haven't been to Althouse's blog much since the shut-down -- not because I no longer like her writing, or no longer find her interesting; but because it's like a big empty hall full of echoes as one very lonely person talks to herself.  It's desolate.  I'm sure many people disappointed by the closing of the comments, or pissed off by the seemingly endless stream of insults rained down on them in the final days (sad beta little men, whining about your meager money, no one cares about you nor should they, your porn and your masturbation, splooge stooge, I laugh in your scrunched up crying little face, let me taste your tears, you losers, blah blah blah blahhhh...paraphrasing) have not been back much lately either.  So you're not going to capture many people who are upset about the closing of comments in that poll.  If 29% chose one of the two negative responses, there's probably another 29% of former readers that would have, had they even known about the poll.

Some of Althouse's readers are anti-Althousians.  Not many of us here -- that's not what I'm talking about.  There are at least a dozen (and probably many more) leftist blogs out there that watch Althouse like a hawk and read her devotedly in the hope of catching her in some misstep.  These people would like nothing better than to pee on the smoldering wreckage of her blog.

I wonder how they voted.  That thought should take some of the luster from the 36% in the top two categories.