Some words about flashrity

Yesterday night, as President Trump gave his state to UnionThe Wall Street Journal reported In order for the ABC news to leave the remaining staff in 538 as part of the broader cutting inside the corporate corporate corporate. Who have experienced many rounds of it before, including Two years ago If the staff is cut over more than half and my tenure has expired againI know that this is a brutal process for all involved. It is also difficult to be in a business while there is always an anvil in your head, as we have many odd number of year from 2013 / filiwty. I don’t know all the staff from the most recent site’s recovery, but what I met or who I’ve overlapped in all the smart duties and often not replaced. My heart came out to them, and I was glad to give recommendations for the people I work there.

More then, I don’t say much more, but it feels the weirder that never tells. And more quickly to say something here than filter it through a reporter or something.

For the higher thoughts of Disney Environment – In addition to self-reflection / self-criticism – you can see the item under SBSQ # 12. But the basic issue is that Disney is never interested in running fimehrity as a business, even if I think it’s a good business. Although they are generous to maintaining the site for a long time and almost excluding our editorial process, the type of muscular memory of a media intending to attach it. We have a unique talented editorial staff, but we don’t have enough “product” people or strategy people to help the business grow and maintain himself. It’s always a long war under the conditions, especially when it comes to recruiting and maintaining staff, which are always targeted to outlets like New York Times and Washington Post.

It also doesn’t feel like the last, exactly. “Data Journalism” can be a dumb name for what we do – that one – And five foxes apart, the flashrietheight brand is never warm and cuddly. But it is often found a large audience, and scope of polls and political data is now much better. Compare the Best analysis of the waver that Nate Cohn did in New York Times, for example, in Vibes-based range on Era men on the bus. That trend will be more covered as previously 538ers form of a diaspora filtering the remaining media.

Also, I want to think we’re carrying a piece of flashrityeight torch here in bullentin silver. So, only two quick beats. A part of our almost-term plans here – in a small awkward time, we turn our trump approval ratings tomorrow. But first, a shout of one of the most precious tasks given to five given.

Collecting and maintaining a database of polls polls is a lot of work, which requires hard work, harmony, and deal with regular complaints about bases and pollsters. But it is also a public service. Polling has its challengesBut I believe it is important to a democracy. Only people vote every two to four years – if they are lucky living in a state where their vote is even the reason. While such “driven poll-glipn” has pitfalls, alternative should not be enlightened handling. However, the rest of their own devices, selected officials often follow some combination of (I) the strong voices in the room, and (III) strained opinion, which often does not match the broad opinion of the public.

Only in five days made the data available to the public by APIs and other tools. In Silver Bulletin, I hope we are together in tradition – even if a twist is also admitted. For example, it’s not just Pollster ratings (who applied the procedure first I developed for five years) Available to the public, but so is the significant database of more than 12,000 polls that explain to them. And for our The presidential election forecast last yearOur plot averages are free for everyone – yet, here’s twist, of course – the possibilities that the spat model has been released. However, there are literally twelve-data views and downloaded files more than Paywall – we didn’t give the cow (the code model), but you’re nearly all right.

I think there are only two options to give an adequate incentive for the hard work of saving a comprehensive public polling database:

• Either you need to have an improvement – most of the data is free, but premium parts and / or models require a subscription; That’s basically what we do.

• Or you need to have a type of structure not for profit. If a university or non-nonpartisan does not want to continue maintaining a consortium of poll polls, I am glad to have conversations and share ideas (and possible data). Although there are some benefits from copying – everyone finds some polls that others miss, and each has many different standards – also have a reduction in returning it.

Within the election last year, public databases are a significant source of data for NYT and other election reports or crunched numbers, including silver numbers. Primarily, our process is to prompt their data and then make different additions, humiliation, and changes. In balance, we have little 538 about what polls we consider to meet a standard “scientist” but there are cases of content running in two directions. (Eli is also a wizard to find polls faster than other people.)

Go forward, we will continue to ensure that the database of polls fed our models is available publicly, even if the outputs of models are not. It’s a greater than just because of the heavy overlap with 538 – actually, we use almost the same database structure because it’s my help to design my time there. But it’s not too much today. So we will work to improve awareness and formatting this data as we publish models and landing pages.

No that should mean we want to be the “polling aggregator of record” for the entire industry, as flashtyeight and pollster.com before. We have Trump’s approval ratings to launch tomorrow, and we may release our version of Generic Congressional Ballot Average starting in late this year. Eli can handle two categories of our own. Next year’s midterms can be more challenging, with large housing, Senate, and Gubernatorial polls. But the solution is simple: we will hire more staff next year as needed.

There are also some less sexy things that don’t fall into these buckets. For example, vice approval ratings, polls for special elections, and favorability ratings for other public numbers. We have been tempted by the idea of ​​running an Elon Musk Favorability Tracker, but if not, it’s not about our short run plans. However, as I don’t want to make any commitments, I don’t want to rule anything.

However, in the short term, there are some Plans for compulsion:

• Trump’s approval ratings are developing tomorrow and update several times a week going on.

• Our new SBCB basketball ratings are also ready unless for finishing charts, and start publishing on Friday or Saturday.

• After Sunday’s elite is March 16, and for a day or two, we also have the understandings of our wake up for men and male and female brackets.

• Meanwhile, I Hiring an Assistant Sports Analyst With an eye to pick up NFL and NBA models ready for next time.

It’s kind of a quirk that it all happens once. Now, we’re only two people, and I have to go through some trips and other bottlenecks. But we try to get a lasting trajectory here, even if it’s slow. We really appreciate your support and hope you stay with us for a long carrier.