By Pepper Parr
June 24th, 2022
BURLINGTON, ON
Another way for the public to express their views of what happens in Burlington.
The Gazette has created a poll that will run frequently – asking readers for their views on matters of public interest and concern.
The first was published yesterday asking people if they felt the Mayor owed Councillor Stolte an apology for the way she attempted to force the Councillor to read out an apology.
The polling questions will be inserted into stories that are relevant and related.
This is a bit of an experiment on our part – let’s see how it goes.
Related news:
The kafuffle at city Council on Tuesday
Mayor presses councillor to apologize.
Joe has a good point in his first sentence as it has implications for judging the result of the poll.
It’s called “selection bias”. People who choose not to comment bias the result as a good representation of what the population thinks.
However, at 86% to 14% out of 198 votes at my reading right now, this sample size is probably large enough to have acceptable validity absent any other bias.
Given some readers choose to not comment on an article. The idea of polling readers, whether it be part of an article, or whether it seeks our opinion on a matter that is not accompanied by an article has merit. Possible examples of polls are: Is the Federal government’s handling of passport renewals acceptable? Yes No, or Could the Provincial government have done a better job of communicating the need to renew our automobile license plates? Yes No.
Editor’s note: The original intention was to focus on local issues – we are going to experiment a little and read over the comments that come in and revise as we go along.