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It seems to me that most of the questions asked on this site return results of 80% normal or so. In some cases it's for something that I would think really stretches the definition of "normal".
I just saw a post about a guy who has sex with pets. It was at about 52% normal.
What do you folks think?
Some of these things just seem to be the werdest thing they can think of.because if you call them on it they just go away.
I think also some people are joking around, especially on subjects like what you're talking about. A lot of users are young and don't take things seriously all the time. And....who really knows how many people use pets for sexual things....disturbing to think it could be true and more prevalent than you think, but maybe it is....
Also-When you're talking about statistics and surveys that are done professionally there is a whole mess of "rules" (for lack of a better word) to weed out and equal out false, exxagerated or understated responses, so it's not like you can take the results of any poll or survey at plain face value. This is so informal and you have no idea who is voting so you can't account for anything being askew. I think the comments can sometimes be a better indication, but then again some people won't comment on certain things because of their username being shown, so...I mean, if dappled humps his cat, I doubt he's comment on the subject with his experiences....(sorry, dappled, you just came to mind first...I don't really think you hump your cat, or if you even have one!!) So you're likely only going to get comments saying that's sick, and some joking comments, but probably nobody seriously admitting they hump animals. In that case, it would be better for the person to just take the advice from the rational posters who are saying that it's wrong. Which they already know....
Could be overinflated, then we can factor that in... This is a tricky problem for management.
I really agree with the OP.. I saw that same post about animals and it did affect my confidence in the ratings.. It is really difficult to know if freezing the ratings will help.. The dynamic nature of them can also be interesting as well! I guess as lung as we are somehow made aware that fetish-type posts co
There's a self selection bias that we're not really sure how to counteract. Because a lot of traffic comes from google searches, people who share that habit/fear/fetish/issue tend to end up on that page and vote. So, the percentage will creep towards "normal" over time as a result.
However, the votes on newer posts should be more realistic.
Perhaps we should freeze the voting after a certain number of votes?
I say that you are right, you can't really tell by the ratings. The comments help much more.