Talk:Gallup's most admired man and woman poll

'Statistical ties' misunderstood

This article featured the second, third, etc. place finishers as equivalent to the first place winners if they were within the so-called "statistically tied" margin of error of the poll. This is based on a common misunderstanding of what a polling margin of error means. If person A has 20% in a poll and person B 18% and the margin of error is 3%, this does not mean that they are "tied". Person A is still ahead; it's simply that there is a greater than five percent chance (the standard cutoff for 'statistical significance') that B would actually be ahead if the entire population were

Your edit history shows you love Hillary so who it's understandable you don't want anyone else sharing her magesty's spotlight :-). SamanthaG (talk) 05:17, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Return to this

Simply because two percentages are within the poll's margin of error does not mean that the results are tied, or statistically tied. Although some sources mistakenly use this term to claim two people in first place, Gallup makes no use of the term and does declare a single winner. They are absolutely not tied, as 13% is greater than 11%. Even though statistics show that there may be a discrepancy between a sample and a population, it is still not a tie, and this misleading term is utterly unnecessary for this article. Here is another article for enlightenment on this misapplied term: [1]. Reywas92^Talk 20:48, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Obviously 13% is greater than 11% but the article doesn't claim those two numbers are tied, it simply states that they are STATISTICALLY tied. What's the point of using a scientific poll with margin of error if you're just going to ignore it? Given the poll's small sample size, we can't say with statistical certainty who is most admired when the margin of victory is only a few percentage points, and it's dishonest to pretend we know who the most admired man is in situations where we don't. As an encyclopedia we have to acknowledge the SCIENCE behind these polls. We also need to distinguish when there is CLEAR winner from the victory is uncertain and the statistical tie concept allows a reliabley sourced way to do so. Also, it would be a pretty redundant article if we ignored the statistical ties. The most admired man would simply be the sitting president virtually every single year. Adding the statistical ties tells a much more informative and variable story. And it doesn't matter what Gallup says. This article is ABOUT the Gallup poll and thus must rely on sources independent of Gallup and those independent sources use the term "statistically tied". We're not here to be stenographers for Gallup, we're here to be objective journalists. As for your Mother Jones link; it's fine that some people don't like the term (when their guy wins the poll), but the bottom line is we can't say with 95% confidence that person A is more admired than person B when they are well within the margin of error. 76.70.111.3 (talk) 08:45, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

The large majority of sources reporting on the Gallup 'Most Admired' poll devote their attention to who the winners are and do not give any kind of equivalency to runners-up within the margin of error. And this is true in retrospect as well - for example, when stories this year say that Hillary has won for the 11th time in a row and 17th overall, they don't qualify that by saying 'well, maybe some of those years she wasn't really the most admired, because someone else was within the margin of error.' I agree that the results of the poll tend toward dullness (although Hillary's consistently winning across three different jobs is kind of impressive), and I would be open to discussing perhaps listing the second and third place finishers each year, whether within the margin of error or not, but just in text, no images. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

if I can weigh in too, I prefer to include the statistical ties (with photos) because not only is it more interesting, it's also more accurate. For example Harris did a poll in 2000 that found that Colin powell was actually the most admired man in the world (by Americans) thus by eliminating the statistical ties, we eliminate Powell in 2000 even though he was actually the most admired. By declaring the wrong person the unambiguous winner even when their victory was just an error in the poll, we damage the poll's credibility. Only people who win the poll by a statistically significant margin deserve to have the title all to themselves, not people who may have won in error. The people who only won by the skin of their teeth must be forced to share the title. 38.108.87.20 (talk) 21:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Except on this article, we don't give a shit what Harris says. This is the Gallup's poll for the most admired people, and Gallup unambiguously declares one person the winner. They don't force anyone to share the title, and neither do we, unless you want to make a new article with the data from other pollsters. About the photos, I find them wildly redundant and cluttering the article. Perhaps there should be a table with the winners, with images on the side of the most common winners. Reywas92^Talk 23:25, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

but Gallup reports a margin of error so their statistics prove the winner is often uncertain, whether they draw attention to that uncertainty or not. I for one favor keeping the statistical ties because i agree a lot of the runner ups were actually more popular than the winners certain years. Sarah palin was an absolute god after her convention speech. Far and away the most popular lady in America especially in the heartland. Hillary only won that year because of sampling error so to pretend sampling error doesn't exist just makes a mockery of the poll. Much better to just admit we don't know who was most admired certain years and show all the suspects. 38.108.87.20 (talk) 02:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

A lot of sockpuppetry going on here. We've got Special:Contributions/76.70.110.224 and Special:Contributions/74.198.164.78 and Special:Contributions/184.94.55.222 and Special:Contributions/76.70.111.3 and Special:Contributions/38.108.87.20 who have all showed up to make the 'statistical ties' case in either edits or here on the Talk page. The ones in the middle of this group have mostly just edited this, while the first and last of these have also edited Black billionaires in recent days as well. Now let's look at the editing history of SamanthaG - lots of edits on Talk pages about Oprah's billions, and further back in the history, still more comments about her billions and others' billions. Conclusion: All these recent IP addresses and SamanthaG are one and the same, and consensus is in fact against the 'statistical ties' presentation scheme in this article. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:34, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

actually I found this article by looking at the contributions of someone from another article. The others could be the same person hard to say. 38.108.87.20 (talk) 04:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Going back to your wailing over Sarah Palin's loss, guess what, SamanthaG was also hung up on Sarah Palin not winning this and tried to introduce the 'statistically tied' assertion there, see this edit from the past (another editor yanked it from that article within a couple of weeks). Wasted Time R (talk) 04:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

It's a huge honor for any woman to be statistically tied with Hillary Clinton (the most intelligent first lady ever in my opinion) so Palin deserves to have her picture in the article, and I'm sure Hillary, being a strong feminist and mature progressive thinker, would be magnanimous enough to share the honor with other women. Unfortunately you Hillary fans are not so generous. It seems Hillary fans are selfishly trying to block those who statistically tied Hillary out of the article, wanting to hog all the glory for your heroine, even though there are many years where Hillary doesn't have to share the title with anyone. I kindly ask Hillary fans to reconsider, and generously allow women who statistically tied Hillary to be recognized for such a sterling achievement. It wont detract from Hillary's legacy (she's won the poll enough) and we make clear that the tie is only statistical (not absolute). And some day the shoe may be on the other foot, and it's Hillary who needs the statistical tie to stay in the limelight. SamanthaG (talk) 05:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for at least arguing under your name and not via IP addresses. It's true that I'm the lead editor of the Hillary article (that's the reason I came to know of this miserable article in the first place). But I'm also the lead editor of the articles on Mitt Romney, Joe Biden, John McCain, Ted Kennedy, Rudy Giuliani, Geraldine Ferraro, Nancy Reagan, and a bunch of others. It's safe to assume that some of these subjects I admire and some I don't. I don't care whether any of them appear in this poll or don't. At this point the article is more trouble than it's worth - I would vote to delete it, except that alas it always gets media attention for a day or two each year when the poll comes out and thus probably passes the notability criteria. But with your enthusiasm for this dubious enterprise ("huge honor", "glory", "sterling achievement", "limelight"), you could definitely work as a PR rep for the Gallup Organization. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:20, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

1976 - Link to SuperHeart.org?

Why no entry for 1976 and the recommendation to follow an offsite link? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.103.152.51 (talk) 17:17, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Organizing winners

Is there a better way than to have a giant list with 71 subsections? Perhaps a table like List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Wqwt (talk) 19:48, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that would be better. There's no need for a section for every year and there is certainly no reason for a picture for every year, especially given that the same people appear on the list over and over. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:20, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Someday, when I've reached a certain boredom threshold, I'll refactor this into a table. Wqwt (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:31, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

OK, it took me about 15 minutes with a python script (plus some time to learn wikitables). Conveniently, when copying from the Gallup webpage the table comes out as a tab-separated list. I also removed the redundant pictures. If anyone cares enough I can add them back somehow. Wqwt (talk) 22:37, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

1967 and 1976

Is it known why no poll was conducted in 1976 and the question for "most admired woman" was not asked in 1967? It seems strange that they would ask only the male question one year and then later skip a year entirely. I've looked at the Gallup site with the poll data, and it just says that it was "not asked" but doesn't seem to provide a reason. Folohsor (talk) 02:00, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

No specific reason provided. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 21:02, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Why was there no poll released in 2021?

Because Trump won? 79.161.64.163 (talk) 17:08, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Looks like there's no poll for 2022 either (it's usually put out in late December). For whatever reason, I get the feeling that Gallup has stopped doing it. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:29, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I've updated the article to say no poll in 2022 and to indicate that its status is in doubt. (I sent an email to the Gallup folks a week or so ago inquiring as to this but never heard back.) Wasted Time R (talk) 23:19, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

No poll conducted in 2021 or 2022

Did Gallup stop doing the poll to avoid Trump placing first?

That's what it looks like.. 81.166.189.90 (talk) 12:59, 27 February 2023 (UTC)