Adam more influential than Gates

At 07:12 07/06/06 -0700, Robert Movin wrote:
>Adam is number 3 on the list.

I like it. However, I am compelled to point out Reid's Second Law: Never
Underestimate the Power of Selection. The article is good as far as it
goes, claiming only to be an "attempt to track the perception of power and
influence". However, even this is missing the most critical qualification
-- "among those who chose to cast a vote". TidBITS is an online
publication, and the voting was done online: selection at work.


[The MDJ Power 25 isn't done via a Web form that's open to anyone. Ballots are sent via email to a select group of Macintosh industry insiders, instead. So as much as it has its own faults, it isn't open to the same kind of abuses as an open poll. -Adam]


It takes nothing away from Adam's accomplishments to point out that this
result cannot be extrapolated to any other population -- not even to all
Mac users on the web, much less to the Macintosh community as a whole.

Edward
Art works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org

>[The MDJ Power 25 isn't done via a Web form that's open to anyone. Ballots
>are sent via email to a select group of Macintosh industry insiders,
>instead. So as much as it has its own faults, it isn't open to the same
>kind of abuses as an open poll. -Adam]

Ah, I missed that. Nonetheless, it is a hand-selected sample, and the
announcement doesn't even indicate the response rate. "Never Underestimate
the Power of Selection" still applies. The list is "the opinions of those
people picked subjectively by MDJ who chose to return their surveys". It is
still (unfortunately!) invalid to extrapolate from it.

Edward
Art works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org

Adam,
You're #3 because you deserve to be that high. Thanks for all you
give us.
Dan Hardt