Are forums representative of users?

[RHGreen]

Just because those users do not post does not mean they do not share the opinions of the people who do post, including those with strong views.

I do not post, in general, unless I think it is worth someone bothering to read it. (I object to having my retinas burned out slogging through a 50 page thread where 90% of the posts are threadcrapping and innane pap like "I hope you have a good christmas.") I have strong views sometimes, but don't post about those views because by the time I get to the thread my views have been pretty much covered.

But that doesn't mean that I don't have the same feelings sometimes as the trollish/flamey rage posters. The difference is I'm not so arrogant as to believe my opinion really matters that much - at least not enough to bore a stranger about it.

Have a good Christmas. Ta ta.

 

[RHGreen]

I think you may be using a different definition of "bias" than I.

A statistical bias comes from systematic error in measurement and/or calculation. Bias is something that is introduced by how you take your data or crunch your numbers. It is not in the subject of your measurement.

Say I have a box of toothpicks, and I want to know their length. I could measure all of them, and take an average, and find it to be 2.5". I would not say the toothpicks have a bias toward being 2.5" length.

Colloquially, we may say that a person or group of people is "biased", but that's a bit different than what I was talking about above.

There are errors that can arise in statistics that are not biases, and some of those can arise even if your sample is the entire group, yes.

Almost everyone has more than the average amount of legs.