Tomorrow is the Bennelong By-Election, which promises to be much closer than Barnaby Joyce's run in New England a few weeks back. For one thing, the Liberal (former) incumbent is up against Labor's super-candidate Kristina Keneally. For another, the expected Liberal victory has been eaten away by numerous scandals and faux pas.
In 2016 John Alexander won (just) on the primary vote alone at 50.4%. Latest polling has his primary vote now at 41.3%. When asked to allocate preferences, the two-party-preferred result was a Liberal win of 53:47.
This leaves very little number crunching for the rest of us to do, but I will note that a lot has been made of the influence Bennelong's Chinese community will have in swinging this vote. It is possible that this community will have a different preference flow ratio to the general public which may be underrepresented in the polling. But, equally, if ReachTel have done their job, this might be over-represented too.
All that can reasonably be done is to sit and wait, while expecting a narrow Liberal victory and the Government to retain its one-seat majority.
Wednesday 13 December 2017
It's Bennelong Time Comming (Results)
(Backdated from 19/12)
Polling had indicated a Liberal victory with 41.3% of the primary vote and 53% on a two-party preferred count. There was no real surprise in the results; Liberal won with 45.1% of the primary vote, a little outside the margin of error on the polling, and 55.0% on a two-party preferred count.
This was a 2PP swing to Labor of around 4.7% and, although less than any polling had indicated, was hailed as a significant boon for the Labor party going forward.
Polling had indicated a Liberal victory with 41.3% of the primary vote and 53% on a two-party preferred count. There was no real surprise in the results; Liberal won with 45.1% of the primary vote, a little outside the margin of error on the polling, and 55.0% on a two-party preferred count.
This was a 2PP swing to Labor of around 4.7% and, although less than any polling had indicated, was hailed as a significant boon for the Labor party going forward.
Thursday 7 December 2017
Take the spin, now you're in with the techno set...
The New England by election went more or less as predicted with Barnaby Joyce receiving over 65% of the primary vote, and we have 9 days until the Bennelong by election.
In between, I'd like to take a slightly irregular look at another, off-brand event(?) in progress(?) in the same spirit as previous examinations of non-political(?) votes.
The thing is, this year has been a pretty bad for YouTube from the perspective of many creators and viewers, from the 'adpocalypse' where videos were demon(it)ised for being 'controversial' (sometimes by simply containing LGBTIQA+ material, covering politics etc.) to technical issues to flagrantly inappropriate content sneaking onto the site's supposedly child-friendly platform YouTube Kids.
Throughout it all, rightly or wrongly, YouTube management has been viewed as acting unprofessionally and yielding too much power to advertisers. Although, with the exception of the limited success of YouTube Red, advertisers pretty well carry the YouTube platform many appear to seem merit in the criticisms of the website's management. In retaliation, YouTuber EmpLemon proposed a deliberate effort to embarrass YouTube with poor ratings on their YouTube rewind video to counter what he sees as a publicity-driven, reactionary mindset where the YouTube donkey kicks the creators behind it in a knee-jerk reaction. His thorough list of reasons and call to arms can be found here (strong language warning), spawning the hashtag #TankTheRewind.
Although that video has only 36 thousand views at the time of writing (I did say I watched a gigaton of videos before that came up), other some other YouTubers have spread the idea to their fanbases. Responses to the idea on reddit and 4chan have generally been positive but very scarce. Steam has been less on-board.
After the internet-wide movement to stand up to the US FCC's attempts at removing net neutrality in the United States and the band-wagoning that made EA's justification of certain features in their game StarWars: Battlefront II the least popular reddit post in history, the response thus far must be underwhelming for the #TankTheRewind supporters. On the other hand, these recent movements have shown that the internet can mobilise when outraged, so perhaps time will tell a different story.
After roughly one day, the rewind video has received 26,382,332 million views. This seems like a fair sample-size, but given the infancy of #TankTheRewind may be unrepresentative. At present, there are 1,184,149 thumbs-up and 502,380 thumbs down, roughly a 2:1 split, which isn't great for an uncontroversial video. (By the way, accurate vote totals are available by hovering over the blue:grey ratio bar beneath the thumbs). Then again, a corporate entity producing a video while trying to join several long-since-abandoned trends may get a lot of down-votes for being #cringe. (Yeah, I'm #downwiththekids, #hip, #relatable, #psephologyiscool).
I'll update this with more data over the next few days, but in the meantime here is how the vote on 2017's YouTube rewind compares with previous years':
So a few things stand out. Firstly, we may be looking at only 10% of the votes counted despite over 26 million views this year.
Secondly, there is a downturn in approval (thumbs up/thumps up+down x 100%) but this is can easily change, and is not inconsistent with a general trend of lower approval since 2014. Perhaps people are fed-up with the rewind series, or having it thrust upon them.
Thirdly, 2011 was an anomaly. It could be because 2010 was the first attempt at a rewind and people were less receptive. Or it could be because Rebecca Black was hosting it.
Fourthly, for #TankTheRewind to claim any sort of victory, we need to be looking at approval figures in the low 80% range or it's indistinguishable from 2016.
If we want ignore the 2011 outlier, a statistically significant (p < 5% = z-score < -1.9603) reduction in approval would require the 2017 approval to remain below 78.8%:
So far, Rewind 2017 is on track to be statistically significantly worse than previous years excluding 2011. Debate as to how important #TankTheRewind was, however, remains to be held.
In between, I'd like to take a slightly irregular look at another, off-brand event(?) in progress(?) in the same spirit as previous examinations of non-political(?) votes.
#TankTheRewind
Basically, I have been spending way too many hours recently binge-watching a gigaton of YouTube videos, and yesterday saw the release of YouTube rewind, an annual, borderline-epilepsy-inducing montage of prominent YouTubers, this year with fidget spinners and a rendition of Despacito.The thing is, this year has been a pretty bad for YouTube from the perspective of many creators and viewers, from the 'adpocalypse' where videos were demon(it)ised for being 'controversial' (sometimes by simply containing LGBTIQA+ material, covering politics etc.) to technical issues to flagrantly inappropriate content sneaking onto the site's supposedly child-friendly platform YouTube Kids.
Throughout it all, rightly or wrongly, YouTube management has been viewed as acting unprofessionally and yielding too much power to advertisers. Although, with the exception of the limited success of YouTube Red, advertisers pretty well carry the YouTube platform many appear to seem merit in the criticisms of the website's management. In retaliation, YouTuber EmpLemon proposed a deliberate effort to embarrass YouTube with poor ratings on their YouTube rewind video to counter what he sees as a publicity-driven, reactionary mindset where the YouTube donkey kicks the creators behind it in a knee-jerk reaction. His thorough list of reasons and call to arms can be found here (strong language warning), spawning the hashtag #TankTheRewind.
Although that video has only 36 thousand views at the time of writing (I did say I watched a gigaton of videos before that came up), other some other YouTubers have spread the idea to their fanbases. Responses to the idea on reddit and 4chan have generally been positive but very scarce. Steam has been less on-board.
After the internet-wide movement to stand up to the US FCC's attempts at removing net neutrality in the United States and the band-wagoning that made EA's justification of certain features in their game StarWars: Battlefront II the least popular reddit post in history, the response thus far must be underwhelming for the #TankTheRewind supporters. On the other hand, these recent movements have shown that the internet can mobilise when outraged, so perhaps time will tell a different story.
After roughly one day, the rewind video has received 26,382,332 million views. This seems like a fair sample-size, but given the infancy of #TankTheRewind may be unrepresentative. At present, there are 1,184,149 thumbs-up and 502,380 thumbs down, roughly a 2:1 split, which isn't great for an uncontroversial video. (By the way, accurate vote totals are available by hovering over the blue:grey ratio bar beneath the thumbs). Then again, a corporate entity producing a video while trying to join several long-since-abandoned trends may get a lot of down-votes for being #cringe. (Yeah, I'm #downwiththekids, #hip, #relatable, #psephologyiscool).
I'll update this with more data over the next few days, but in the meantime here is how the vote on 2017's YouTube rewind compares with previous years':
| Year | Views | Up | Down | Approval |
| 2017* | 26,382,332 | 1,184,149 | 502,380 | 70.2% |
| 2016 | 205,690,647 | 3,194,362 | 498,594 | 86.5% |
| 2015 | 130,062,316 | 2,419,080 | 180,075 | 93.1% |
| 2014 | 121,351,480 | 1,351,662 | 68,273 | 95.2% |
| 2013 | 124,284,556 | 1,257,383 | 68,385 | 94.8% |
| 2012 | 185,717,354 | 1,202,992 | 76,606 | 94.0% |
| 2011 | 9,532,919 | 57,042 | 74,277 | 43.4% |
| 2010 | 3,900,723 | 21,520 | 2,145 | 90.9% |
So a few things stand out. Firstly, we may be looking at only 10% of the votes counted despite over 26 million views this year.
Secondly, there is a downturn in approval (thumbs up/thumps up+down x 100%) but this is can easily change, and is not inconsistent with a general trend of lower approval since 2014. Perhaps people are fed-up with the rewind series, or having it thrust upon them.
Thirdly, 2011 was an anomaly. It could be because 2010 was the first attempt at a rewind and people were less receptive. Or it could be because Rebecca Black was hosting it.
Fourthly, for #TankTheRewind to claim any sort of victory, we need to be looking at approval figures in the low 80% range or it's indistinguishable from 2016.
If we want ignore the 2011 outlier, a statistically significant (p < 5% = z-score < -1.9603) reduction in approval would require the 2017 approval to remain below 78.8%:
So far, Rewind 2017 is on track to be statistically significantly worse than previous years excluding 2011. Debate as to how important #TankTheRewind was, however, remains to be held.
... you're going surfing on the internet!
(Backdated from 19/12)
While I have to admit it was a bit of a long shot to expect much to come from the #TankTheRewind proposal, I could not pass up the opportunity to get in early just in case. As it turns out, the results were a lot less clear-cut than I expected.
At the time of writing the video has just over one-hundred and sixty-one million views (one-hundred and sixty-one million, three thousand, six-hundred and seventeen to be precise) with 3,209,209 thumbs up and 1,710,565 thumbs down. Wikipedia currently lists it as the 11th most disliked video in history (and 4th most disliked non-music video), but this has not been updated in almost a week and the 2017 rewind has since eclipsed two move videos to become 9th most disliked.
This thumbs up-to-down ratio equates to a 65.2% approval rating, well below the 78.8% statistically significant threshold outlined above; excluding the 2011 data, this year's Rewind has statistically significant disapproval.
In fact, even including 2011, the disapproval is highly statistically significant.
However, the role of #TankTheRewind in this is probably quite limited. The original video using the hashtag has garnered only 161,780 views--a minuscule fraction of the thumbs-down votes. A search of YouTube for the phrase lists only 4 other videos (1, 2, 3) with view counts non measured in the hundreds or less before suggesting alternate search terms, and one of these (4) has no connection to the hashtag. The three on-topic videos and the original have a combined 396,184. Assuming each view on a video was by a different person (which they would not be), none of these videos have an overlapping audience (which they probably would) and all of those who watched them were motivated to protest (also unlikely) that still only accounts for 1 in 8 down votes.
Throughout the week of data collection on the Rewind Video, top comments repeatedly complained about numerous prominent YouTubers being absent and the awkward focus of the video on tragedies, television personalities and out-dated fads. Just today I did find #TankTheRewind posts higher in the comments than any of these, though that may be dedicated TTR supporters lingering long after most viewers have clicked through.
Interestingly there is a general increase in the dislikes to likes ratio over time:
Unsurprisingly, as views declined so did votes, but the favourable votes dropped off much quicker, until almost on par with negative votes.
Interestingly, the number of viewers casting a vote dropped of dramatically too, possibly due to repeat viewings of the video.
All of this tends to suggest an early support for the video which reduced over time. This would be consistent with people changing their votes as the #TankTheRewind movement became more prominent, but could also be the result of peer pressure, a die-hard rewind fandom that jumped in early or other phenomena. There is no real way to separate the real causes of the voting trend, but it would seem that support for the video is not independent of when it was viewed. That, in itself, is interesting.
While I have to admit it was a bit of a long shot to expect much to come from the #TankTheRewind proposal, I could not pass up the opportunity to get in early just in case. As it turns out, the results were a lot less clear-cut than I expected.
At the time of writing the video has just over one-hundred and sixty-one million views (one-hundred and sixty-one million, three thousand, six-hundred and seventeen to be precise) with 3,209,209 thumbs up and 1,710,565 thumbs down. Wikipedia currently lists it as the 11th most disliked video in history (and 4th most disliked non-music video), but this has not been updated in almost a week and the 2017 rewind has since eclipsed two move videos to become 9th most disliked.
This thumbs up-to-down ratio equates to a 65.2% approval rating, well below the 78.8% statistically significant threshold outlined above; excluding the 2011 data, this year's Rewind has statistically significant disapproval.
 |
| Previous years' data duplicated from previous post and may be marginally out of date. |
In fact, even including 2011, the disapproval is highly statistically significant.
 |
| Previous years' data duplicated from previous post and may be marginally out of date. |
However, the role of #TankTheRewind in this is probably quite limited. The original video using the hashtag has garnered only 161,780 views--a minuscule fraction of the thumbs-down votes. A search of YouTube for the phrase lists only 4 other videos (1, 2, 3) with view counts non measured in the hundreds or less before suggesting alternate search terms, and one of these (4) has no connection to the hashtag. The three on-topic videos and the original have a combined 396,184. Assuming each view on a video was by a different person (which they would not be), none of these videos have an overlapping audience (which they probably would) and all of those who watched them were motivated to protest (also unlikely) that still only accounts for 1 in 8 down votes.
Throughout the week of data collection on the Rewind Video, top comments repeatedly complained about numerous prominent YouTubers being absent and the awkward focus of the video on tragedies, television personalities and out-dated fads. Just today I did find #TankTheRewind posts higher in the comments than any of these, though that may be dedicated TTR supporters lingering long after most viewers have clicked through.
Interestingly there is a general increase in the dislikes to likes ratio over time:
 |
| Data captured at ~24 hour increments |
Unsurprisingly, as views declined so did votes, but the favourable votes dropped off much quicker, until almost on par with negative votes.
| Date | Views | Up | Down |
| 7/12/2017 | 26,382,332 | 1,184,149 | 502,380 |
| 8/12/2017 | 27,523,277 | 728,995 | 396,677 |
| 9/12/2017 | 22,349,734 | 344,981 | 232,357 |
| 10/12/2017 | 27,035,001 | 447,958 | 251,046 |
| 11/12/2017 | 13,458,970 | 149,449 | 114,885 |
| 12/12/2017 | 8,882,526 | 62,901 | 51,559 |
| 13/12/2017 | 13,303,067 | 109,330 | 59,592 |
Interestingly, the number of viewers casting a vote dropped of dramatically too, possibly due to repeat viewings of the video.
All of this tends to suggest an early support for the video which reduced over time. This would be consistent with people changing their votes as the #TankTheRewind movement became more prominent, but could also be the result of peer pressure, a die-hard rewind fandom that jumped in early or other phenomena. There is no real way to separate the real causes of the voting trend, but it would seem that support for the video is not independent of when it was viewed. That, in itself, is interesting.
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