

Opinion Space - mshafrir
http://opinion.berkeley.edu/

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SamReidHughes
More interesting than flattening the set of opinions down to two dimensions
would be to see how many dimensions there really were.

Another problem is that people who answer the miniessay question with a
negative response get their answers rated lower, because saying "No" isn't as
attractive an answer as "Yes, because ...".

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dkarl
Exchanging ideas? No way. Interesting viewpoints, if they stand out at all,
will manifest as odd data points that are indistinguishable from user error.
This is only useful for studying large groups of people in aggregate and
characterizing them according to ideas already understood by the
experimenters.

I.e., it's just a fancy way of gathering and visualizing polling data, and it
doesn't seem very original. What are the odds that political consultants
_haven't_ already applied PCA to polling data (and probably been disappointed
with the results)?

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mapleoin
I hate RIAs. The feeling seems to be mutual as the app just went blank after
the first message box.

