Breaking down the statistics: SDN vs SFJ polls.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Now, what I'm about to do is analyze and compare the polls posted here and SDN. Obviously, if you really think that there's a significant difference in the honesty levels of the two boards, you don't need to read any further, as this post will be mostly useless to you.

Polls are about finding the MOST of a category. What the hell does it mean if a community has mostly undergraduates, if there's one genius on them? Absolutely nothing. The thing most of you kids don't realize is when Mike asks for people to show credentials, it's not because he thinks you need anything more than high school to do this... simple thing of Star Trek versus Star Wars. It's because he doesn't want to waste his time, and there happens to be a lot of morons in high school. That's it.

That's not it - nor, incidentally, have I seen any displays of scientific genius on SDN, for all that some people occasionally display brief moments of scientific competence.

It has been claimed that only "uneducated kiddies" - in those words - disagree with SDN's conclusions. It has been claimed that SDN's opponents are universally uneducated, and that the educated universally are found on one side of the VS debate. This is part of a pattern of propaganda supporting the main force of the argument offered by SDN, which is about a third ad populum, a third appeal to authority, and a third ad hominem.

Leaving aside the obvious handful whose credentials are known, up to and including people producing EU material as well as an award-winning science fiction author who did his undergraduate work at Caltech and has a Ph. D. in physics. He has worked for NASA, worked as a physics professor, consulted and served with practically everyone who is everyone. It may not take a rocket scientist to talk about Star Wars, but he is qualified as a rocket scientist.

On SDN, of course, he has been called a "spectacular moron," and it seems to be claimed that he knows nothing about science fiction or literary criticism - fields he is even more widely recognized in. On SDN, it is claimed that Karen Traviss, who both served in the British military and also worked as a defense correspondent, knows absolutely nothing military tactics, logistics, or even about Star Wars, which she is actively writing. It is claimed that Kennedy, who teaches physics to high school students every day, does not grasp the high-school level physics common to the VS debate.

Examples like those demonstrate fairly clearly that the propaganda about educated individuals all claiming SW will win is false. The statistics further suggest, more specifically, that the average SDN resident can't claim a superior education to the average SFJ resident.

As of the time I went over, checked, and copied and pasted, 78 respondents have answered SDN's poll, and an astounding 21 have answered ours here on SFJ. That's about as good as we can expect here for the time being. I'll assume that not too many ill-willed trolls [or propaganda-minded moderators] have influenced the results on either board, at least yet.

We may assume, of course, that any percentage on the poll is a random variable, approximately normally distributed with a standard deviation of around ~sqrt(p(1-p)/n) (about 10% smaller in the case of SFJ, because we have a significant fraction of the population answering).

The difference between those two is normally distributed with a mean equal to the difference of the means, and a standard deviation equal to the square root of the sum of the squares (assuming that they're independent; a few people like Opecoiler are registered on both boards.) We can check what the probability is that the sign will be positive or negative by asking a calculator, spreadsheet, or table of values to spit out the appropriate cumulative distribution function for 0.

I predicted we would have no statistically significant differences between the two polls. Was I right? Let's look at the percentages from the distributions. (+/- are the standard deviations of the distributions.)

Probability that SDN has a higher percentage with a bachelor's or higher education: 32% (+/-11%)
This actually starts to resemble statistical significance here to the assertion that SFJ has slightly more educated people.

Probability that SDN has a higher percentage with a lower-than-bachelor's education, discounting "other" category: 52% (+/- 11%).
No statistical significance here whatsoever.

But is there any large difference?

Probability that SFJ has more than twice percentage of "educated" individuals: Negligible accounting for error.

Probability that SDN has more than twice percentage of "educated" individuals: Negligible accounting for error.

Very unlikely. Anything else interesting? Well, assuming that "below high school" level or "in high school" level education corresponds universally to kids:

Probability that SDN has more "uneducated kids" than SFJ: 77% (+/-7%).

I was, in other words, a bit off here. It seems that the polls do suggest some minor differences in the populations of the two boards - most notably, SDN seems to do a better job reaching out to youth - but, ultimately, these demographic differences aren't very significant.

[Praeothmin]

up to and including people producing EU material as well as an award-winning science fiction author who did his undergraduate work at Caltech and has a Ph. D. in physics. He has worked for NASA, worked as a physics professor, consulted and served with practically everyone who is everyone. It may not take a rocket scientist to talk about Star Wars, but he is qualified as a rocket scientist.

Who would that be, just out of curiosity?

[Jedi Master Spock]

up to and including people producing EU material as well as an award-winning science fiction author who did his undergraduate work at Caltech and has a Ph. D. in physics. He has worked for NASA, worked as a physics professor, consulted and served with practically everyone who is everyone. It may not take a rocket scientist to talk about Star Wars, but he is qualified as a rocket scientist.

Who would that be, just out of curiosity?

David Brin, of course. He has also been called, on SDN, "a mentally unbalanced weenie," "fuckwit," "fucktard," "can't form a logically consistent argument," "pestilential dickhead," "sad little git," "on crack," et cetera.

The more you read about him, the more impressive his credentials get, too. I skimmed just a few points from the list. Sarli, Brin, and Traviss are all quite public figures who are attacked with the same language in the same fashion as anonymous opponents who are presumed to be "uneducated" for saying things that SDN, as a community, disagrees with - in fields that they have reason to be considered authorities.

All the talk about education is, as I've pointed out in other threads, nothing more than a red herring in argumentative terms, and empty propaganda in practical terms.

[Who is like God arbour]

• • • Honi soit qui mal y pense

• Wikipedia:
  
  • David Brin
    
    • Glen David Brin, Ph.D. (October 6, 1950) is an American author of science fiction. He is the winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He lives in southern California.
    Biographical timeline
    
    • • 1950 - born in Glendale, California
      • 1973 - received Bachelor of Science in astronomy from California Institute of Technology
      • 1978 - received Master of Science in applied physics from University of California, San Diego
      • 1981 - received Doctor of Philosophy in space science from University of California, San Diego
    Work
    • Fiction
      
      • Science Fiction authors are sometimes best-known for groups of stories or novels set in a common "universe" or projected future history. Although they make up a minority of David Brin's works, his Uplift stories have won a large following in the SF community, twice winning the international Science Fiction Achievement Award (Hugo Award) in the Best Novel category. This future history depicts a huge galactic civilization responsible for "uplifting" all forms of life which are potentially capable of building and operating interstellar spaceships for themselves. The stories focus almost exclusively on oxygen breathing species but make it clear that there are other "orders of life", of which hydrogen-breathers are the most important. In the "Uplift" novels humans are economically and technologically the weakest spacefaring race, and are an anomaly since they have no "patron" species responsible for their uplift from animal pre-sapience. As a result several races are eager to force humans to become their clients, but galactic law saves humans from this fate because they are patrons themselves, having already made considerable progress in uplifting dolphins and chimpanzees before developing faster-than-light space travel and thus attracting the attention of galactic civilization. Some of the more aggressive races regard as heresy the humans' claim to have evolved naturally to their current level of intelligence, and therefore wish to exterminate them; while many of the others see humans' lack of patrons as an opportunity to bully them mercilessly. It does not help that humans have a relatively non-hierarchical society with rather informal habits of speech, while most of galactic society is rather feudal and very particular about etiquette, especially deference.
        
        The Uplift Series
        
        • Sundiver (1980)
        • Startide Rising (1983)
        • The Uplift War (1987)
        • The Uplift Storm Trilogy:
          • Brightness Reef (1995)
          • Infinity's Shore (1996)
          • Heaven's Reach (1998) ISBN 0-553-57473-6
        • Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's Uplift Universe written with Kevin Lenagh
        Additionally, Aficionado, currently published in the limited-edition collection Tomorrow Happens, is a short-story prequel to the novels. This story was originally published as "Life in the Extreme" in Popular Science Magazine Special Edition, 8/98. This story is freely available on Brin's website for reading.
        
        There is also an Uplift supplement for the roleplaying game GURPS allowing players to play out adventures in the universe described in these novels. Although Brin did not write the GURPS supplement, he did contribute information to it.
        
        Brin has contrasted the Uplift saga -- in which humans find themselves one minor species among a universe of many thousands of more advanced races -- with his short story The Crystal Spheres (available in the collection The River of Time), in which humans begin searching for extraterrestrial life only to learn that the universe is empty of other sentient life . . . almost.
        
        Other well-known works by David Brin include his book that completes and ties up all of the loose ends in the legendary Asimov's Foundation Universe:
        
        • Foundation's Triumph (1999)
        and his stand alone novels:
        
        • The Practice Effect (1984)
        • The Postman (1985) Originally appeared, in substantially different form, as a three-part novella in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. (Filmed by Kevin Costner as a major motion picture with disappointing box-office numbers; Brin has spoken kindly of the film, a generosity shown by few of his fans, who found it deeply disappointing.)
        • Heart of the Comet (1986) (with Gregory Benford)
        • Earth (1990) (Hugo Award 2nd place, with many Predictive "hits" http://earthbydavidbrin.pbwiki.com/
        • Glory Season (1993)
        • Kiln People (2002)
          • Kiln People (published in the UK as Kil'n People) had the dubious distinction of finishing second in four different awards for best SF/fantasy novel of 2002--the Hugo, the Locus, the John W. Campbell Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award; each time finishing behind a different book.
        • Forgiveness (2002) (Graphic novel set in the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe)
          The Life Eaters (2003) (Graphic novel published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics, art by Scott Hampton)
        His short fiction has been collected in:
        
        • The River of Time (1986)
        • Otherness (1994)
        • Tomorrow Happens (2003)
        Brin wrote the storyline for Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future.
        Several of his novels refer to the fictional Anglic language, a future variety of English.
        
        Brin also wrote a number of articles criticising several science-fiction and fantasy series, such as Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings. On Star Wars Brin focused on what he called an "agenda" on the part of George Lucas, describing how he believed the basis of the Star Wars universe was profoundly anti-democratic. These essays inspired a debate-format book: Star Wars On Trial which clashed "defense vs prosecution" testimony covering a dozen political and philosophical and storytelling charges against the Star Wars Universe. Brin also criticised The Lord of the Rings for what he perceived to be their unquestioning devotion to a traditional elitist social structure, their positive depiction of the slaughter of the opposing forces, and their romantic backward-looking worldview.
      Concerns and themes of his work
      
      • Brin's work focuses on a number of themes common to contemporary North American science-fiction literature. Speaking of Brin's 'original' works (works not set into pre-existing series or "universes"), his primary focus is the impact on human society of technology man develops for himself. This is obviously most noticeable in The Practice Effect, Glory Season and Kiln People. His Uplift collection, while embracing a wide set of concerns, can also be so characterised: ultimately, the story of the series is Humanity's re-ordering and reconception of the universe through the genetic engineering of dolphins and chimpanzees to sentience.
        
        Also interesting to note is the impact of Brin's Jewish heritage — especially, the concept of Tikkun Olam ("repairing the world" — the notion that persons have a duty to make the world a better place to live in). While originally a religious concept, Brin, like many non-orthodox Jews, has reconfigured this into a secular notion of working, as one can, to aid the general status of the human condition, increase knowledge, and to prevent long-term evils from occurring. Brin has confirmed that this notion in part underscores the notion of humans as "caretakers" of sentient-species-yet-to-be, as he explains in a concluding note at the end of Startide Rising. Another interesting motif is the importance of laws and legality in many of his novels, whether intergalactic law in the Uplift series or the more mundane law of near-future California in Kiln People.
        
        Unlike some sf writers who revel in the extremity of their imagined human societies, while Brin's novels feature profound, fundamental changes to the human condition (wrought by technology change and various events), these changes are always mediated by an intrinsic human instinct towards moderation. In short, these are different worlds but ones where the basic subjectivity of human experience, belief and rationality are easily recognizable as those that have governed most of the liberal West since the Enlightenment.
      Nonfiction
      
      • • The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? (1998) ISBN 0-7382-0144-8 - won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association
        • Star Wars on Trial : Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Debate the Most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time (2006) ISBN 1-932100-89-X
        • Various scientific papers have punctuated the years since his doctoral and postdoctoral work in space physics, cometary studies, optics and spacecraft design for the California Space Institute
        Brin consults and speaks for a wide variety of groups interested in the future, ranging from Defense Department agencies and the CIA to Procter & Gamble, SAP, Google and other major corporations. He has also been a participant in discussions at the Philanthropy Roundtable and other groups seeking innovative problem solving approaches

and

• Wookipedia:
  
  • David Brin
    
    • David Brin is the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of numerous science fiction books, including The Postman (1985), Earth (1990), the Uplift trilogy (1980-87), and its sequel, the Uplift Storm trilogy (1995-98). His most recent work is Kiln People (2002).
      
      He wrote a pair of articles written for Salon.com that were highly critical of George Lucas and the Star Wars films, and also edited Star Wars on Trial, a collection of essays formatted as a debate over the merits and faults of the fictional universe in question.

[Praeothmin]

Now why am I not surprised... :)

[Mr. Oragahn]

Now, what I'm about to do is analyze and compare the polls posted here and SDN. Obviously, if you really think that there's a significant difference in the honesty levels of the two boards, you don't need to read any further, as this post will be mostly useless to you.

Wong already considers that the poll is already a bunch of lies, that we're kiddie liars.
I mean, at this, all you can expect from the person is ad hominems and appeal to authority to dodge the possibility that he may have to revise some of the data he penned.

It has been claimed that only "uneducated kiddies" - in those words - disagree with SDN's conclusions. It has been claimed that SDN's opponents are universally uneducated, and that the educated universally are found on one side of the VS debate. This is part of a pattern of propaganda supporting the main force of the argument offered by SDN, which is about a third ad populum, a third appeal to authority, and a third ad hominem.

A spot on summary.

As of the time I went over, checked, and copied and pasted, 78 respondents have answered SDN's poll, and an astounding 21 have answered ours here on SFJ. That's about as good as we can expect here for the time being. I'll assume that not too many ill-willed trolls [or propaganda-minded moderators] have influenced the results on either board, at least yet.

21 people posting here. It would be easy to know how, if you ask who voted (assuming that your admin abilities cannot reveal who actually voted). That, without asking them which choice they picked. Just to know who voted, to get an idea of how influenced by trolling the polls could be.

[Cpl Kendall]

Karen Traviss was a Reservist and a member of the RFA. In terms of military credentials she ranks somewhere between a cockroach and an Officer Cadet.

Edit: Oh sorry it was the RNXS, which makes her credentials even less impressive. Essentially they were involved in evacuating ports in time of attack. That essentially limits her expertise to rapid movement of civvies which has nothing to do with how a military operates. It would be more impressive if she actually had been a member of the RFA, she still would have been a flat-faced civvie but at least she'd know how to refuel ships at sea and how to move ammo.

[Who is like God arbour]

Karen Traviss was a Reservist and a member of the RFA. In terms of military credentials she ranks somewhere between a cockroach and an Officer Cadet.

If she was a Reservist, wouldn't she has been an active member of the military first? In Germany, only those, who leave the armed forces - after they have served and therewith are experienced and trained - can become Reservists.



Edit:

Edit: Oh sorry it was the RNXS, which makes her credentials even less impressive. Essentially they were involved in evacuating ports in time of attack. That essentially limits her expertise to rapid movement of civvies which has nothing to do with how a military operates. It would be more impressive if she actually had been a member of the RFA, she still would have been a flat-faced civvie but at least she'd know how to refuel ships at sea and how to move ammo.

According to Wikipedia, Karen Traviss served in both the Territorial Army and the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service.

• Wikipedia:
  • The Territorial Army (TA) is the principal and Volunteer reserve force of the British Army, the land armed forces branch of the United Kingdom, and composed mostly of part-time soldiers paid at the same rate, while engaged on military activities, as their Regular equivalents. [...] The TA forms about a quarter of the overall manpower strength of the Army. Its original purpose was home defence although the establishment of the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve in 1967 involved a restructuring and revised doctrine leading to provision of routine support for the Regular army overseas.
    Territorial soldiers, or Territorials, are volunteers who undergo military training in their spare time either as part of a formed local unit or as specialists in a professional field. TA members have a minimum commitment to serve 27 training days per annum, with specialists only required to serve 19 days, which normally includes a two-week annual camp. [...] Territorials normally have a full-time job or career, which in some cases provides skills and expertise that are directly transferable to a specialist military role, such as NHS employees serving in TA Army Medical Services units.

With that, she has more experience and training than all those, who have never served in armed forces and have their whole knowledge about combat and war from TV and computer games, especially considering, that her military training in those training days would have been concentrated. How much military training have all those, who have claimed, that she knows absolutely nothing about military tactics or logistics?

But even if not, it's still don't justify the her treatment or that of David Brin, whose credentials are not in doubt. Karen Traviss was mentioned in only one single sentence in the whole OP from Jedi Master Spock:

• »On SDN, it is claimed that Karen Traviss, who both served in the British military and also worked as a defense correspondent, knows absolutely nothing military tactics, logistics, or even about Star Wars, which she is actively writing.«

And all you do is attacking that single sentence and ignoring all the other statements about rude behavior of the board, you are regularly defending.

And you and the likes of you wonder, why many people are not willing to debate at SDN or why many educated persons don't want to debate such topics at all. It's simply not possible at SDN because, instead of real, substantiated arguments, many SDN members use only argumentum ad hominem and get insulting.

[Cpl Kendall]

Karen Traviss was a Reservist and a member of the RFA. In terms of military credentials she ranks somewhere between a cockroach and an Officer Cadet.

If she was a Reservist, wouldn't she has been an active member of the military first? In Germany, only those, who leave the armed forces - after they have served and therewith are experienced and trained - can become Reservists.

No you don't. In the UK you can join either the Territorial's or the Regular Army. No prior experiance is required, they have a volunteer system so you are free to choose. Germany has a conscript system so everyone serves and you apperently have the choice to remain in the Reserves when you leave. THat is common to other conscript systems such as Israel or Switzerland.

Edit:
According to Wikipedia, Karen Traviss served in both the Territorial Army and the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service.

• Wikipedia:
  • The Territorial Army (TA) is the principal and Volunteer reserve force of the British Army, the land armed forces branch of the United Kingdom, and composed mostly of part-time soldiers paid at the same rate, while engaged on military activities, as their Regular equivalents. [...] The TA forms about a quarter of the overall manpower strength of the Army. Its original purpose was home defence although the establishment of the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve in 1967 involved a restructuring and revised doctrine leading to provision of routine support for the Regular army overseas.
    Territorial soldiers, or Territorials, are volunteers who undergo military training in their spare time either as part of a formed local unit or as specialists in a professional field. TA members have a minimum commitment to serve 27 training days per annum, with specialists only required to serve 19 days, which normally includes a two-week annual camp. [...] Territorials normally have a full-time job or career, which in some cases provides skills and expertise that are directly transferable to a specialist military role, such as NHS employees serving in TA Army Medical Services units.

With that, she has more experience and training than all those, who have never served in armed forces and have their whole knowledge about combat and war from TV and computer games, especially considering, that her military training in those training days would have been concentrated. How much military training have all those, who have claimed, that she knows absolutely nothing about military tactics or logistics?

You don't have to explain what the Territorials are, I am fully aware of the formation. Part of my objection is that we know nothing about her service. What trade was she? How long did she serve? Did she serve on active operations?

What you don't understand is that merely serving in the military does not qualify you to speak on what goes on, or use it as an example for your stories. If she was a Log Wog, how does that qualify her to write about Special Operations (the Clone Commando books)? There are huge amounts of people that served in the military that are shitpumps. There's even a small amount of them on SDN.

To add to that, there's no personal info of worth on her site or Wikipedia. So I can't figure her age or likely time of service, which would tie into what trade she was based on when the UK Army integrated women into the Army and what trades they were allowed to join.

And the fact that she was a member of the RNXS proves nothing. It is a civvie run organisation serving the military and is responsible for the evacuation or ports when under attack. We know nothing about her specific service with them, what function she had or how long she served.

And the fact that she doesn't mention what Operations she served on does not bode well. The majority of service personell are proud of their operations and will list them on their bios. Which leaves me to believe she did nothing of note.

But even if not, it's still don't justify the her treatment or that of David Brin, whose credentials are not in doubt. Karen Traviss was mentioned in only one single sentence in the whole OP from Jedi Master Spock:

• »On SDN, it is claimed that Karen Traviss, who both served in the British military and also worked as a defense correspondent, knows absolutely nothing military tactics, logistics, or even about Star Wars, which she is actively writing.«

And all you do is attacking that single sentence and ignoring all the other statements about rude behavior of the board, you are regularly defending.

You don't know anything about her service or the military in general, you are not qualified to speak on these matters. But I'm sure Google will serve you in good stead.

What does the fact that she was a defense correspondent matter? Do you know what that title implies? It implies that she reported on military systems, not the military itself. In addition we know nothing pertinent about her writings during that time, nor how long she did it. For all we know she reported on the latest upgrade to the bloody Mess Tent.

Third, I do not care what you think of the culture of SDN. If I didn't at least tolerate it, I wouldn't be there.

If you can find any info on Traviss's career then I encourage you to find it. So far I'm 0 for 5, I can't find anything. So I see no reason to assume that she's a military expert.

And you and the likes of you wonder, why many people are not willing to debate at SDN or why many educated persons don't want to debate such topics at all. It's simply not possible at SDN because, instead of real, substantiated arguments, many SDN members use only argumentum ad hominem and get insulting.

Their absence does not concern me. I rarely engage in SW vs ST debates on SDN except to provide a real-life military point of view and how it effects the debate. Most of the people on the board don't engage either, SDN has eleven other forums to participate in that are just as interesting.

[Roondar]

I'd like to humbly point out that I do not believe we can actually use the results of this poll to say anything of meaning about the respective membership of either site.

There are two main reasons for this:

1. The response to this poll cannot be verified nor tested (i.e. we don't know if respondents on this poll are telling the truth).

This does not mean I say people on SFJ are lying, but that we cannot verify if they do or do not in any way. That in itself lowers the value of the result.

2. The respondents on this poll have a conflict of interest (i.e. they will desire a certain outcome).

This is the big one: even if people are not lying, everyone on this site (and SDN) knows that the result of this poll will be used to prove a point or at the very least understands that a 'bad' result will make the site look bad.

Hence, my hypothesis is that, assuming no one lies overtly, people with a higher education are more likely to respond than people with a lower education. The reason is simple: people with a lower education might feel that their response might make the site look 'bad' and hence not respond, where people with a higher education will have no such 'moral conflict'.



And as an added third, slightly smaller reason: I am unconvinced the general rules of statistics can be accurately used for samples of this size. Even if the sample taken is a significant percentage of the whole, it is still awfully small and can vary wildly from the whole population. (mainly because there are no safeguards to assure a proper representative sampling frame in this poll)

--

Note that all of these also go for similar polls on other sites, including the one on SDN about the same subject.

(An appology if the terms I use are not fully correct, English is not my native language and I might have mistranslated one or more terms as a result.)

[GStone]

And as an added third, slightly smaller reason: I am unconvinced the general rules of statistics can be accurately used for samples of this size. Even if the sample taken is a significant percentage of the whole, it is still awfully small and can vary wildly from the whole population. (mainly because there are no safeguards to assure a proper representative sampling frame in this poll)

The general rule for sampling sizes does say that the smaller the sampling size used in relation to the overall size will have a higher degree of error. The smaller the ratio, the more accurate.

But, given the level of particiption we have, it might be accurate to say that this is more representative of the regular posters. For SDN, it might be easier to say it's a sample of those that participate in Trek-Wars verus discussions. Both of which might alter the percentages. I haven't done the figures yet, so I don't know.

[Roondar]

And as an added third, slightly smaller reason: I am unconvinced the general rules of statistics can be accurately used for samples of this size. Even if the sample taken is a significant percentage of the whole, it is still awfully small and can vary wildly from the whole population. (mainly because there are no safeguards to assure a proper representative sampling frame in this poll)

The general rule for sampling sizes does say that the smaller the sampling size used in relation to the overall size will have a higher degree of error. The smaller the ratio, the more accurate.

But, given the level of particiption we have, it might be accurate to say that this is more representative of the regular posters. For SDN, it might be easier to say it's a sample of those that participate in Trek-Wars verus discussions. Both of which might alter the percentages. I haven't done the figures yet, so I don't know.

Of course a smaller ratio will result in more accurate results :)

I just meant that in small populations (and small samples) it becomes harder to pick a representative sample. Now, I'm sure that the more active people are more likely to respond (and hence the poll will provide more data on the active members) but that doesn't mean much over the whole population, precisely because it schews the sample to overemphasize the more active members over the less active members.

Meh. I'm just not too in favor of these rather ad-hoc internet board polls. Sure, they're fun and all but I'd not take their results too seriously. Using them to prove a point seems premature in my view. After all, I did have other reasons as well to not be too happy about them :)

[Praeothmin]

No you don't. In the UK you can join either the Territorial's or the Regular Army. No prior experiance is required, they have a volunteer system so you are free to choose.

I don't know how the British army works, but I'm pretty sure you know how the Canadian forces work, Cpl.
I have a few friends who either were part of the reserves, or are part of the reserves at the moment, and in either case, no matter where they were stationed afterwards, whether they were pencil pushers or not, they had to go through the basic (how many weeks long is it) military training that every soldier has to go through.
So they did learn about at least basic military tactics and combat, and they did participate in combat exercises.
That does not make them experts, but they are at least superior to anyone who has never had any military background.

So saying she knows nothing of military tactics might be pushing it (again, since I know not how the British armed forces work, I italicized the word might, because reservists in the UK might not go through the same basic training as the Canadian reservists).

[Cpl Kendall]

I don't know how the British army works, but I'm pretty sure you know how the Canadian forces work, Cpl.
I have a few friends who either were part of the reserves, or are part of the reserves at the moment, and in either case, no matter where they were stationed afterwards, whether they were pencil pushers or not, they had to go through the basic (how many weeks long is it) military training that every soldier has to go through.
So they did learn about at least basic military tactics and combat, and they did participate in combat exercises.
That does not make them experts, but they are at least superior to anyone who has never had any military background.

So saying she knows nothing of military tactics might be pushing it (again, since I know not how the British armed forces work, I italicized the word might, because reservists in the UK might not go through the same basic training as the Canadian reservists).

It's almost entirely dependent on her trade and whether she went on operations or not. Sure every soldier gets basic training in military skills and tactics but without constant practice on those your skills and knowledge rapidly erode. Look at the training days for the Territorials:

TA members have a minimum commitment to serve 27 training days per annum, with specialists only required to serve 19 days, which normally includes a two-week annual camp.

Contrast that with the Regular Force, which in the average Commonwealth military can spend upto 200 days in the field. Plus spending garrison time practicing other skills, TOET's, hand to hand training, comms drills etc.

The simple fact is that Reservists are not competant to do anything until they finish the pre-tour training, which can take anywhere from six months to a year. Depending on the operation.

Add to that that Traviss is in her forties. She most likely was in the TA in her late teens, early twenties. And stayed for very little time, given that she also was in the RNXS and spent at least ten years as a reporter. And the last few years as an author. That's almost twenty years for her skills and knowledge to erode.

At this point she might as well just say: "I got all my military references from a book" and dispense with claiming that her military experiance has any relevance.

[Praeothmin]

But it's still superior to the military skills of anyone who has never experienced it.
And if she did go through basic training and participated in training exercises, then by reading books recently, she can still correlate what she reads to what she experienced.

For example, are you retired?
If you are, and in 10 years time, you were to enter a debate about military tactics, would you then tell the people to ignore your posts because you haven't practiced those skills in 10 years?
Of course not, because even though you might have forgotten some things, even though your skills had eroded, you would still have your experience to rely on.

Which is why, I will say once more, that we cannot say she has no experience and doesn't know at all what she's talking about.