Undermedia

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Hello, Undermedia, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like Wikipedia and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!  - Ahunt (talk) 16:48, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		For exceptional diligence in tracking down polling results and their references for 42nd Canadian federal election. Great work! - Ahunt (talk) 21:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Another Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For diligent work in adding mountains of data on sample size and polling methods on Opinion polling in the 42nd Canadian federal election Ahunt (talk) 15:36, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Barnstar

Thank you for the Barnstar! Glad my participation on the election articles is helpful. - Ahunt (talk) 18:36, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Poll in Ontario

Hello, is this poll official enough to be listed in the poll section of the 41st Ontario general election article? I'm asking because you seem to know a lot about the opinion polls, and I haven't seen Ipolitics in the polling firms yet, so I am not sure if it is a reliable source. Merci beaucoup!
Votre pseudonyme ici (talk) 21:10, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Yup, that's an EKOS poll, and I see it's now been posted on the EKOS website. They most often do polls for iPolitics but also occasionally for other news outlets. Thanks for the heads-up! Undermedia (talk) 23:46, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

All right perfect, no problem and thanks for adding it.
Votre pseudonyme ici (talk) 00:53, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Libertarians? - Ontario election

I have started a discussion about the Libertarians in the candidate section of the Ontario election article, I thought you might want to join in. Me-123567-Me (talk) 04:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Ontario general election, 2014 – Ipsos poll numbers

I undid your edit as the numbers you entered don't match the poll.  I changed it back here to match the Ipsos figures as reported in the Press Release and the Detailed Tables.  Also note that I removed the 2% figure listed for Green as they weren't even included in that poll, with Ipsos only showing Some others (including Green) polling at a combined 4%.

I note that in your edit comment you said “I've justified this presentation 3 times over and am yet to hear a single actual counterargument.”; but I looked and couldn't find any comments anywhere to justify the figures you came up with.  Perhaps you can make your "presentation" once more, below; and, if I agree with you, I'll happily revert my undo of your edit myself.

Cheers — Who R you? Talk 02:06, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I had attempted to explain it in the edit summary field, but with limited space it perhaps wasn't so obvious or clear. Basically, given the difficulties Canadian pollsters have experienced in accurately calling a few recent elections with historically low voter turnouts, several of them have started reporting a second set of results among "likely voters" in addition to their regular results among all eligible decided voters. Incidentally, this has been standard practice among U.S. pollsters for many years. Canadian pollsters who have adopted this approach now include EKOS, Abacus Data, Ipsos Reid and Angus Reid. Thus, it has become the convention to show these "likely voters" results, when available, on Wiki election pages, including the recent BC (EKOS polls), NS (Abacus Data polls) and QC (EKOS, Ipsos Reid and Angus Reid polls) elections. In all cases, the "likely voters" results have proven to come closer to the actual election results than their corresponding "all voters" results, so it appears to be a sound practice. It is also worth noting that the renowned U.S. poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight bases its election projections on "likely voters" polling results, as well as Canadian spinoff ThreeHundredEight. For the Ipsos poll in question, the "likely voters" results I've been entering are given lower down in the linked-to text, under the heading "PC Voters Most Likely to Show Up to Vote". They are also given under the same heading in the PDF press release, as well as in the detailed tables under the column "COMMITTED". As for the Green results, that's a bit of a toss-up IMO, but technically you're correct, so I don't mind if we leave them out. -Undermedia (talk) 16:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Conversation continued on article's Talk page.  Meanwhile, I have to give you the warning below (but I'm not escalating it to the Administrator's noticeboard at this point) — Just following protocol that says I should warn you 1^st… — Who R you? Talk 05:12, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi Undermedia
I've reverted yet another of your changes in Ontario 2014 (discussion), that makes 2 or 3 I think; but I hope there's no hard feelings.  I know from personal experience that being reverted sometimes stings a little.  Just wanted to mention that I respect the obvious work & effort you've put in, there & elsewhere, particularly pertaining to Canadian elections.  Hope you'll keep up the good work & that our minor differences of opinion on a few issues are viewed as just that, with both of us working towards a better WP.  Cheers — Who R you? Talk 20:58, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Nah, there's never any hard feelings. I think I started taking for granted that I had assumed the de facto lead in updating and maintaining opinion polling sections on a bunch of Canadian election articles, so I'd gotten a little dictatorial about consistency in presentation and wasn't used to being challenged. But of course that's all part of the normal game on WP. Cheers. -Undermedia (talk) 21:13, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect numbers in graphic

Not sure if you saw it, so I direct your attention to the comment I left here. Esn (talk) 06:37, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. The graph's been frozen since we started debating on the Ontario election Talk page whether to show "all voters" or "likely voters" results in the polling section. Right now it's showing the latter for the Ipsos poll, but I'll likely change it shortly if we don't reach a new consensus soon. You're also most welcome to join in on that discussion if you wish. -Undermedia (talk) 12:05, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Another Barnstar

		The Canada Barnstar of National Merit
		As a Wikipedian and a Canadian voter, I thank you for your tireless and invaluable service. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:01, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Latest Leger poll

Hi. Thanks again for your great work on the federal polling article. I believe we're still missing the latest Leger, which did include a federal component. See sidebar at right. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 13:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Good work spotting that Léger poll! I've added it. -Undermedia (talk) 13:59, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Undermedia. Thank you for the tireless work you have put in updating Canadian polling. Another poll came out Feb 2 from Legar that is not yet included — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikemikem (talk • contribs) 19:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

42nd Canadian Federal Election Polling Graph

Hey there, I was wondering how to do a graph like yours as seen in the 42nd Canadian Federal Election Page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42nd_Canadian_federal_election#mediaviewer/File:Canada_polling_since_2011_election.png

I don't exactly know how to do separate polling data and the line data itself.

Cheers if you can help, DestinationAlan (talk) 06:40, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

So I'm guessing you got as far as creating a table in Excel with a column for each party and row for each poll, identified by date, and then creating a "marked scatter" plot from those data? What you need to do next is add a trendline for each party, i.e. each data series. Not sure how this is done in Windows if you happen to have, but on Mac you can right-click on any individual data point from each of the parties and choose "Add trendline...". Then among the various trendline options, you can select "Moving average" and set the number of data points used to calculate the average. Hope this helps; let me know if you require more tips! -Undermedia (talk) 13:52, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah yes, I was playing around with that and got the moving average and trendline in. Though, how do you make a scatterplot with an x-axis that lists the dates? I keep on getting numbers on the x-axis. DestinationAlan (talk) 05:29, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Alan. Make sure your column of cells containing the dates are specifically formatted as date cells: select all the cells containing the dates and right-click, choose "Format Cells...", and in the "Number" tab under "Category", select "Date", then select one of the various date formats available and make sure all your dates are consistently typed out in this format. You may also have to specifically set your graph's horizontal axis to display dates: right-click on the axis and choose "Format Axis...", and in the "Scale" section under "Horizontal axis type", select "Date"; you'll then be able to set various options for minimum, maximum, base unit, interval, etc. Again, these instructions are for the Mac version of Excel and may differ on Windows. Cheers. -Undermedia (talk) 13:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

It's very similar on windows but Australian Polling tend to have different dates like "20-24 February 2015" or "September 2015" or "Sep-Oct 2011". How do I cater that to a general category? Also, I formatted the x-axis to do dates but it says 1901. How do I edit that? DestinationAlan (talk) 22:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that in addition to setting the axis to "Date" in the "Scale" section of the "Format Axis" window, you should also go to the "Number" section and set that to "Date" as well; then just as your data table cells, you can select a format to display the dates in along the axis. For example, in my case the dates in my data table are typed in the "dd-mmm-yy" format, while the graph axis is set to display just "mmm-yy", with the major unit set to 1 month. I'm afraid that's about all the advice I've got. As for recording the dates in a consistent manner, I guess you'll just have to figure out something that works. Unless Australian pollsters simply aren't as scrupulous when it comes to disclosing their methodology, the exact field dates of a survey can usually be found somewhere in the detailed report on the poll or the news article reporting on it; that is the case for every single poll listed on the Canadian election polling page. -Undermedia (talk) 15:30, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Apologies for not replying, been really busy! I haven't been able to look at my graphs in awhile. I was about to ask you, is it okay if you were able to send the spreadsheet file somehow? Also, how do you do things "month by montH' so for example, you got polling data for Jan-15, then Feb-15, then Mar-15 etc etc DestinationAlan (talk) 02:01, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

42nd Canadian Federal Election Polling

Yeesh. Hard to keep up with the subtly destructive changes to this chart. If you need a hand, let me know! Pinkville (talk) 00:30, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Polls

Hey! First off thanks for all the time and hard work you invest in maintaining the Canada opinion polls page. I feel as though maybe when a pollster releases a report using likely voters we should use that. That way whenever somebody clicks a link to a pdf they see the wiki numbers match the top line numbers of the press release. Pollsters work hard to be as accurate as possible and Angus was the most accurate in 2011 election according to 308.com I feel we should respect their methods and use their top line numbers they release Mikemikem (talk) 16:03, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I'm also leaning towards simply going with any given poll's top-line results; obviously seems most intuitive. The eligible/likely inconsistency is a bit bothersome though. In the last Ontario election we actually created two separate tables and then ironically, likely voter results from the pollsters who released them all turned out to be farther from the actual election results that their respective plain eligible voter results. Maybe we could simply identify "EV" vs. "LV" results in the current table by putting in a footnote or something. I'll start a discussion soon. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 16:28, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:52, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Undermedia. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Opinion polling in the 43rd Canadian federal election

I agree that the major events lines may be too arbitrary, but I have seen it implemented elsewhere on Wikipedia. Can we perhaps reserve it for major-major events, like, for example, Mulcair's loss of the Leadership Review, and Trudeau's decision to abandon his electoral reform pledge? Kiteinthewind ^{Leave a message!} 05:09, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I suggest you start a topic on the Talk section of the opinion polling page to at least properly discuss this and try to reach a consensus with the other editors before overhauling the polling tables. The other issue is that we may at some point swap the graph for a more sophisticated one based on local regressions that factor in varying poll sample sizes (like this one), which automatically reads the data directly from the table using some R code, and breaking the table up by year is likely to prevent it from working, or at the very least significantly complicate the coding. So I'm going to reverse those changes as well, and again suggest that you work towards a consensus in the Talk section if you believe the changes are really worthwhile. A handful of dedicated editors have worked together over several years (going back several elections) to fashion the opinion polling page into its current state, so it is only fair to seek their consensus for major formatting changes like this. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 12:50, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Generating plots with R

If you're interested in trying to get my code working, the easiest way would be to install R-Studio. You should just be able to run my code turn-key without any problems, and it should produce the plot, then save it as SVG. If you get it installed, let me knwo and I'll walk you through how to run the code. It would be good to have two of us available to update the plots, especially during the polling madness of the election period, and you are much more active here than I am. galneweinhaw (talk) 19:43, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, galneweinhaw. I've got it installed. What do we do next? I've noticed you've put the finishing touches on the 43rd federal election pre-campaign graph. Looks great. Since nobody else has weighed in on the Talk page discussion, I might just go ahead and trial the new graph alongside the current one on the main article page to get people's attention, and invite them to go to the Talk page to help decide whether we adopt it. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 16:14, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

OK, see if you can get this to work. I'm probably using a different version of R studio (0.99.467) and a different OS (Linux Mint 17.3) than you, but hopefully this will work:

1. File > New Project (Choose *New Directory, then *Empty Project, then browse to where you want to save the project and give it a name). The project should open when done creation
2. File > R Script. You should get an "untitled1" text file open up.
3. Copy all the code from here and paste it in to your empty untitled1 doc
4. In the top right of the doc/script, you should see three buttons, click on "Source" which will run the script from top to bottom. You may see some errors/messages in the console below.
5. If everything works out, you should see the plot appear. You can resize the windows to get the plot the size you want it to be.
6. At the top of the chart, click Export > Save as Image. Give it a name and it will save to your project directory. You probably want SVG format.

Let me know how it goes! galneweinhaw (talk) 05:56, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the instructions, galneweinhaw! The GUI of the version I installed (R 3.4.0 GUI 1.70 El Capitan build 7338 for macOS) indeed appears to be very different from the one you have, but after some wrestling around with it, I think I'm now almost set. I was able to save the code as a "Source File", and by going to File menu > "Source File..." and opening the saved file, it appears to run the script from top to bottom as you described. At first, the console kept telling me that this or that package required to run the script was missing, so I used the "Package Installer" dialog box to successively search for and install each required package until it no longer reported any missing package errors. Now when I run it a window titled "Quartz 2 [*]" appears displaying the plot, with square dimensions by default. I can indeed manually click and drag to resize the window and alter the plot's dimensions, but I'm wondering if there's a way to specify the dimensions directly in the code so that it automatically/consistently displays at the desired dimensions each time the code is re-run to add new polls? The other thing is that I appear to only have the option to save the plot as a PDF (using the general "File menu > Save As..." command; there is no option to export in the chart window itself, just a title bar and the plot). Is an additional package required to add image exporting functionalities? If I can get these couple of bits figured out, then I'll likely have a few questions for you about the particularities of the code itself, but overall I think I'm very close to having it all set up. Thanks again for all your help! A lot of work has obviously gone into writing this code. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Just to confirm, you are using RStudio right? https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/ The latest is version 1.0.143 for all OSes, so I just want to make sure we're using the same GUI. (meanwhile, I'll see if I can add the plot saving as svg into the code galneweinhaw (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Oops, I'm an idiot... When I first installed and attempted to run RStudio, I got an error message saying that I first needed to install R (as stated on the RStudio download page), so I did, and now upon reading your above reply, I realized that I had been running the R app, not RStudio! Will try again with RStudio and report back. I'm assuming everything will run smoothly now... Stay tuned! Undermedia (talk) 16:59, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's good you did that, because even with R Studio getting a consistently sized plot was frustrating, and now I've figured out how to just save the plot right from the code. So, thanks! Here's the updated code. Happy to discuss the code itself with you! galneweinhaw (talk) 17:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again, galneweinhaw. Running the latest version of the code in RStudio, I'm now getting the following warning messages which appear to be preventing the plot from being displayed/saved:

1: In svg(filename = "PollsPlot.svg", width = 15, height = 7, pointsize = 12) :

unable to load shared object '/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/library/grDevices/libs//cairo.so':

dlopen(/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/library/grDevices/libs//cairo.so, 6): Library not loaded: /opt/X11/lib/libcairo.2.dylib

Referenced from: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/library/grDevices/libs//cairo.so

Reason: image not found

2: In svg(filename = "PollsPlot.svg", width = 15, height = 7, pointsize = 12) :

failed to load cairo DLL

Looks like I may been missing a font package ("cairo") or something??? Undermedia (talk) 19:19, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Right. You need the Cairo graphics library. Try installing it and hopefully that's all you need: https://www.cairographics.org/download/ galneweinhaw (talk) 19:30, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Alright, apparently on Mac, Cairo must be installed via MacPorts, which itself requires Xcode (4.5 GB download), so this is gonna take a little while. I'll let you know how it goes. Undermedia (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Sigh. So I downloaded and installed Xcode, then installed MacPorts, and finally installed Cairo as per the instructions at the link you provided. From what I can tell in Terminal, everything installed successfully, but RStudio is still giving me the same error. In relation to the error message, I can confirm that the file '/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/library/grDevices/libs//cairo.so' does exist on my computer, however the file '/opt/X11/lib/libcairo.2.dylib' does not. In fact, there isn't even an 'X11' directory inside the 'opt' directory. Sorry, I generally consider myself to be a decently intelligent individual, but admittedly computer programming stuff at this level is a bit out of my league. Sorry to be using up so much of your time trying to get this working. Undermedia (talk) 22:37, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

No problem. I wish I new more about Macs (I know nothing...). Check this post out. You may need to install X11 (XQuartz?) as it doesn't ship by default on Macs anymore? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38952427/include-cairo-r-on-a-mac galneweinhaw (talk) 22:57, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Specifically this: "You should download X11 for Mac, which is called XQuartz. It doesn't ship with OS X any more, so you have to download it separately from: https://www.xquartz.org/" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Galneweinhaw (talk • contribs) 22:58, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

It's working!!! You're one clever character, galneweinhaw! I've run out of time to spend on this for today, but next up I'll likely be bugging you with a few questions about the code to help me fully wrap my head around it. Specifically, I'd like to learn enough to be able to use it to generate graphs for other opinion polling pages on Wikipedia. Be back in touch soon. Thanks again for all your help and hard work! Undermedia (talk) 00:30, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi again, galneweinhaw. So now a few questions about the code itself, which I invite you to answer at your convenience:

1. From what I can tell, the code does not use the data in the Margin of Error column of the Wikipedia table, but rather calculates the margin of error based on each poll's sample size using the formula error = 1/sqrt(sample size). This has been my understanding all along, but I was wondering if you could confirm?
2. Further to my last question, line 106 appears to show that the margin of error associated with the results of last election has been manually set (which makes sense since there's no sample size data for last election from which to calculate the margin of error using the standard formula), but I'm not sure how to interpret it, i.e. "(0,5)". I figure setting it to 0, though logical in principle, would potentially cause a problem on line 127 with the formulas "size = 1/error" and "weight = 1/error", since you'd have a denominator value of 0. Could you please explain?
3. I've figured out that the parameter that controls the "sensitivity" of the trend lines and width of the 95% CI ribbons, and that you refer to as "alpha" in the graph's caption, is "span" on line 141. I've also noticed that the value of this parameter has varied among the different election graphs you've made (e.g. 0.35 for this one, 0.4 for the 2015 election campaign graph, and 0.45 for the 2011 election campaign graph). Do you set this value purely arbitrarily based on what seems to look best on the graph, or do you have some objective method of determining the appropriate value?

Thanks again! Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 19:23, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Happy to!

1. Yes.
2. rep.int(0,5) is just creating an array of 5 zeros. One MOE data point for each party.
3. I've picked this based on aesthetics, because it makes a huge difference depending on dense the data is, and how much data there is. But it's meaning is precise: "The smoothing parameter, α, is the fraction of the total number of data points n that is used in each local fit." cite. That means its appearance will change as we add more data (the trend will smooth out) if we don't adjust the alpha/span. For an objective value of alpha, we could do a generalised cross-validation to determine the best value, but that might be moving us into original research. galneweinhaw (talk) 21:19, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses! Regarding #2, I'm glad to now understand the syntax, though I'm still not clear on why assigning an error of 0 doesn't cause a problem with the "size" and "weight" formulas on line 127. Regarding #3, does that mean we will likely find ourselves adjusting the α value between now and next election as more polls are added? How have you proceeded in the past, for example with the last two election campaign graphs? Did you choose an α value at the start and stick with it, or did you in fact adjust it as more polls were added to the graphs as the campaigns wore on? Undermedia (talk) 22:06, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

For #2, the weight is only used on when calculating the trendline, and that election data isn't part of the calculation. The election data point from there are plotted seperately as two points (dot and diamond) on line 170 and 171. For the trendline, the election data's "sample size" is added on line 70 (this is hard to read, but gsub is substituting and blanks in sample size, and the election is the only line in the table with a blank, so effectively it is just entering a really large sample size (99999999) for the election. For #3 if we don't want the confidence band to get narrower and smoother as we add more data, then we need to slowly lower the alpha/span value as we add more data. We could probably just put this in the code. For example, currently we have about 80 datapoints, with `span` of 0.35, so each point on the trendline is using the nearest 0.35 * 80 = 28 datapoints. If we wanted to hold constant a the nearest 28 datapoints (or whatever value we choose), we could set span = 28/numDataPoints. Does that make sense? galneweinhaw (talk) 22:41, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Interesting info on the meaning of the confidence band of a LOESS regression: https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/82603/understanding-the-confidence-band-from-a-polynomial-regression/82632

Your proposal to set span = x/numDataPoints sounds clever. If anything I might suggest we set a larger number than 28; quickly assessing the graphs for the 2011 and 2015 elections with their respective α values and total number of polls, it looks like the trendlines for the 2011 graph were using roughly 35 polls while the ones for 2015 were using roughly 45 polls. Plus, the one editor of the 43rd election page who has so far commented on the new graph appears to be lamenting that the trendlines seem too sensitive to a recent poll showing a tie for the lead when other recent pollsters have been showing a larger gap. I'll play around with different numbers to assess the effect on the trendlines and propose some "constant"—I'm thinking probably in the whereabouts of 30–35 polls. I do realize however that this constant should probably generally be lower for graphs of pre-campaign periods than for those of campaign periods since polls are released much less frequently during the former and you don't want to give too much weight to polls that are distant in time. Undermedia (talk) 00:41, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good! Let me know what you come up with and I'll send you some code updates. galneweinhaw (talk) 06:30, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Why don't you go ahead and update the code at your convenience; it looks like a "numDataPoints" object will need to be defined to be able to use it to calculate the span parameter. I'm thinking the magic number of polls is 35. Aside from that, although the currently defined dimensions of the graph are good, when it is shrunk down to the size at which it will likely appear on the polling page as a thumbnail, the various text throughout the graph becomes illegibly small. I played around a bit and propose to increase the size of the text associated with the axes (current lines 202, 207 and 208) from 11 to 14, the size of the text showing the level of support each party received last election (line 173) from 3 to 4 (and why not preemptively do the same for next election on line 179), and the "pointsize" on line 133 from 12 to 18, which causes the legend elements to become more spaced out vertically. However, I wasn't immediately able to figure out how to increase the size of the text in the party and sample size legends. I think it should be roughly the same size as the text in the axes. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 15:03, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Hey galneweinhaw. Any luck yet incorporating a "span = x/numDataPoints" formula into the code? Once that's figured out I think that should pretty much do it from now on. That and getting the legend text enlarged (see my last post above). Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 00:17, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the poke. Here it is. I put it on github for greater transparency, permanance, and with an open source license. All changes will automatically be tracked and past versions viewable: https://github.com/tylerecouture/wikiplot galneweinhaw (talk) 06:55, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, playing around with this parameter, I actually think it looks better, and is probably better reflective of the volatility, when using a lower number like 25? conceptually, 25 still seems like a LOT of polls to be including, even though they are weighted. galneweinhaw (talk) 07:02, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Good stuff, galneweinhaw! Personally, I find the trendlines start looking a tad bit too jagged when you take it down to 25 polls, so maybe we could comprise at 30, which is a nice even number and a decent sample size statistically-speaking. Hey, have you noticed that an additional blank box labelled "NA" now appears in the party legend? Could that be because of the extra row that was added to the table to indicate the new BQ leader? Undermedia (talk) 16:03, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

P.S. I moved the graph over the Wikipedia Commons, which seems to make the caption work properly when viewing it in media viewer. It is now here. I invite you to check to make sure I copied all information properly. Undermedia (talk) 16:54, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

I updated the code to remove odd lines like that one. Please test? galneweinhaw (talk) 04:41, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Works perfectly. I think we're all set now. Great work! Undermedia (talk) 15:35, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

43rd Canada election polling "lead"

Hello,

I've noticed you are the main contributor to the opinion polling of the 43rd Canadian election, and are very knowledgeable of it.

When I click to organize polls by "lead" a poll with a lead of "4" is positioned higher than a poll with a lead of "30" and "9" is higher than "19" because 4 is higher than the "3" in "30 and "9" is higher than the "1" in 19.

Are you able to fix this (if it is a quick fix)? I am not aware of how to do it.

All of your timely contributions are greatly appreciated! Mikemikem (talk) 04:01, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Never mind, looks like someone else fixed it! Mikemikem (talk) 06:20, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Request for your input

Hey Undermedia, would you be able to weigh in here re: "Liberals" or "BC Liberals"? There's merit to the other user's argument and I'd like the input of some other editors who have worked on the 2017 BC Election.

Cheers, Madg2011 (talk) 20:01, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Done. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 02:58, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Keeping up to date

Hey!

I was just curious, is there a non-wiki source that updates when Canadian polls are released? Or do you keep up to date just by periodically glancing through all 10-ish websites every so often?

I try to update myself when I can, but was hoping there may be as easier way to keep up to date.

All the work you put in is much appreciated!

Mikemikem (talk) 23:14, 18 May 2017 (UTC)mikemikem Mikemikem (talk) 23:14, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I basically just check the pollsters' websites. It's become a bit of a hobby. Like you said, there aren't that many of them in total. One used to be able to rely on ThreeHundredEight.com as an authoritative source of all polls, until the author started only doing monthly updates of the federal scene instead of day-to-day averages, and now the site's been retired completely. It therefore seems that we are now THE source going forward, so let's not let our guard down! Your contributions are appreciated as well. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 11:56, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Eric Grenier (the guy who ran 308) has told me on twitter that wiki is where he looks for polls (at least when he ran 308, maybe CBC has a team to look everywhere), and another election projector (Bryan Breguet of TooCloseToCall) has as well.

It looks like this may indeed be the central location. Keep up the good work! Mikemikem (talk) 15:01, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Leger poll

Hey Undermedia, sorry to bug you again.

I added the most recent Leger poll to 43rd election opinion polls. They tested for "ambrose" "bernier" "scheer" and "o'toole."

What is your protocol for polls that test multiple leaders? I added the one testing Ambrose as she is still the leader. However, after the leader is elected, would you change the poll to reflect the numbers of the new leader after the election, or just leave it how it is?

Essentially, is there any way to reflect the data of the new leader from a poll taken before they actually are the leader, or is that data just washed away?

You've been running the page for a while, and I'm sure you've encountered a poll like that before, so whatever you have been doing in the past with these type of polls, it will be best to treat this poll the same for consistency.

Mikemikem (talk) 00:27, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Mikemikem (talk) 00:27, 25 May 2017 (UTC)MikeMikem Mikemikem (talk) 00:27, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

The Ambrose results are indeed the appropriate ones to show in this case, and they shouldn't be changed at a future date as they reflect the here and now. We've avoided including "hypothetical scenario" polling results, which is what Bernier, Scheer and O'Toole still are at this point... never mind that Saxton is absolutely, without a doubt going to win. Undermedia (talk) 12:05, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Alright, that sounds good. Just wanted to make sure it was added uniformly to other similar polls.

Saxton2019! Mikemikem (talk) 14:49, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Request for input (in 43rd canada election opinion polling)

Hey Undermedia!

Would you mind putting your input in to the most recent talk page I created in 43rd canada opinion polling. Your input is very valuable! Mikemikem (talk) 01:16, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Leger

Hi,

About this edit, it's not important, but just a quick note to say that the word "Leger" in the English version of the corporate name of the firm is spelled "Leger" [1]. It is spelled "Léger" in the French version of the corporate name of the firm [2]. :) -- Asclepias (talk) 19:38, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough. It was admittedly an impulsive edit since for the longest time it was listed as "Léger Marketing" (see previous election pages), which is the name I was familiar with, and then at some point recently it got changed to "Leger". I realize they have officially scrapped "Marketing" from the company name, but didn't realize they also have an official English version of the name without the accent aigu. Feel free to change it back if you think that would be more appropriate. Undermedia (talk) 02:44, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Ekos poll

See my note in "obscure polls" section of talk page Mikemikem (talk) 17:28, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

BC polls

Thanks for getting all the new polls put in the 42ns BC election.

Your extensive efforts are much appreciated! Mikemikem (talk) 02:50, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Link for Angus Reid polls

How come you changed the link for the May 31 Angus Reid poll, and for the most recent one put the main page link?

Should we not actually link to the “detailed table” because that is where the horse race poll is? Mikemikem (talk) 16:20, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately those detailed tables PDFs seem to lack polling date information, so I figured it might be better to just link to the main articles from which all relevant poll details can be found. Either way, one has to dig pretty deep to uncover the voting intention numbers. Undermedia (talk) 17:10, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah that is a good point. It just seems the average user who went to look for the poll may not be able to find it.

Annoying how Angus hides the polls so far down — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikemikem (talk • contribs) 22:43, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Nonetheless, thanks for finding and adding the poll. Did they just add it today? I hadn’t seen it before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikemikem (talk • contribs) 22:45, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

I was keeping a close eye on Angus Reid because I remembered you mentioning that someone from their office told you they might be coming out with new horserace numbers after the NDP picked its new leader. Undermedia (talk) 20:35, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Ontario Innovative Research polls

Hey there!

I was wondering what section of Innovative Research’s website you found the two Ontario poll PDFs.

I searched through the “Public Affairs” section of the website but can’t seem to find them. Mikemikem (talk) 02:30, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Some of their stuff is admittedly pretty well hidden in their website. In the case of the two recent polls for which I added the PDFs, if you go to either's HTML page, you'll notice at the very bottom there's a small form to fill out (name & email address) to access the full report. Once you click submit, it sends you to a new page with links to PDF reports, which can subsequently be directly linked to from Wikipedia. I've submitted my info through their form like this a few times and never seem to have been added to any sort of mass mailing list, so it seems safe enough. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 13:41, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Ah ok that is why I was not able to find them, I hadn’t filled out that information.

Good stuff that you did that, it’s a very detailed PDF.

Cheers Mikemikem (talk) 20:06, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

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Toronto mayoral election polling

Hey Mikemikem (talk) 04:19, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey Undermedia,

It looks like we are starting to get some Toronto mayor polls (Forum has one out), but there is no section on the wiki page for polls.

I’d add it myself but I’m not sure how to format the table from scratch. If you know how, and have some extra time over the next month, would you mind to do it?

Would be much appreciated! (But also understandable if you don’t want to as I have no idea how long it takes!) Mikemikem (talk) 04:21, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Mikemikem. The easiest thing for you to do would be to just copy the code for the table right from the 43rd Canadian election polling page, for example, and then edit it as required to make it work for the Toronto election. Should be a simple matter of adjusting the column headers from the party names to the mayoral candidates' names, deleting a column or two depending on how many candidates there are, and you can just get rid of all the colour coding if that would be simpler (maybe delete the "lead" column as well, since that requires colour coding to work). Just keep previewing the results of your edits until you get it right, then publish it! Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 10:54, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

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Campaign period chart and graph

Hey, I posted this in the talk page for opinion polling for 43rd election, but I will post to you directly as well:

“How did we manage to have a separate chart and graph in both 2011 and 2015?

Looking through those 2 years and now I actually do think it looks better with a clean break.

Also, it gives the ability to toggle the polls ONLY during the campaign by pollster, party support, etc.

Without a separate chart and graph there is no way to easily see a parties high and low during the campaign as all the polls are mixed together.

Could we not just do some copying and pasting from 2011 and 2015 where we have 2 charts and 2 graphs and it works fine?“

..........

If it is just a matter of copying and pasting from 2015 so we can have the same set up, I wouldn’t mind to do that Mikemikem (talk) 22:58, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For tireless work on articles about the Canadian 2019 federal general election. These would all be much poorer without your contributions. - Ahunt (talk) 13:17, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Ahunt! It's been a pleasure working with you on the Canadian election polling pages for almost a decade now! Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 16:46, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Lots to do there, it's a busy subject during an election campaign. It's great having you take care of the details and especially making up the graphs!. - Ahunt (talk) 16:51, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Mainstreet sample size

here - Ahunt (talk) 19:46, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Two Innovative Polls

So, it seems that Innovative conducted two separate polls between Oct 15 and 17. One of them was an online one and the other was an "ad testing poll". Since, they refer to these as two separate polls I was wondering if I should include them both? Here's proof :

https://innovativeresearch.ca/2019-federal-election-political-landscape-tracking-2019-10-18/

https://innovativeresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-Federal-Election-Political-Landscape-Tracking-2019-10-18.pdf (first poll)

https://innovativeresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-Federal-Election-Seat-Cluster-2019-10-18.pdf (2nd poll, called ad testing)

As you can see the last link compares the two polls, but they are not the same. So, I'm guessing we include them both? MikkelJSmith (talk) 21:12, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, they indeed appear to be two separate polls. Thanks for adding them. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 22:44, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

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File:Opinion polling during the pre-campaign period of the 44th Canadian federal election.svg

Just a question: were you going to trim the time line on this graph, since it was set to run until 16 October 2023 and is now done at the present date, with the new graph taking over? It just looks a bit odd with all that empty space on the right! - Ahunt (talk) 18:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Good point. I'll see what I can do. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 21:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! - Ahunt (talk) 23:43, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Looks good now, thanks for fixing it! - Ahunt (talk) 12:21, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

44th Federal Election Barnstar

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		I think you deserve some recognition for all your very diligent work on the polling for the current election, sorting out the polls and for the great graph you maintain. Due to your work Wikipedia has better election coverage than the national media! Ahunt (talk) 14:11, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

You're too kind. The volume of election-campaign polling has certainly exploded compared to the 2011 election back in the day! Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 15:33, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Credit where credit is due! And yes the polling has ramped up and that has made it a bigger job this time around, so thanks for taking it all on. - Ahunt (talk) 21:09, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

45th Canadian federal election

Since your name was recently invoked I thought it prudent to drop you a note here and actually ask if you are interested/available/etc in creating and maintaining one of your famous "R" graphs for the next federal election once the polling actually gets going? - Ahunt (talk) 14:41, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I'd be happy to continue doing my "famous" (lol!) R graph for the 45th general election, and I had indeed noticed that some overly eager editors had already gone ahead and created an inferior graph as well as a poll table with a mangled layout, but I honestly hadn't yet built up the motivation to go on the warpath; so I thank you and Impru20 for intervening on my behalf. I assume that, as before, we'll end up creating a dedicated opinion polling page for the 45th election? Regarding the R graph, it takes a certain minimum number of polls (maybe ~10) before the smooth trendlines can be computed, so people are just going to have to be patient at first. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 15:06, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

No problem, glad that was helpful scrubbing that! I am sure that we can create a new Opinion polling for the 45th Canadian federal election, just like last time, once we have some polls to work with. Thanks too for once again taking on producing the graph, as well as your usual work finding and adding the polls, fixing the table numbers and formatting and so on. Your work here is greatly appreciated and certainly contributes to building a better encyclopedia. I am hoping you are young enough to keep at this task for a number of elections-to-come yet! I live in Ottawa and every time I go by Parliament Hill, even with all the construction there, I think how people like Eric Grenier, Erin O'Toole, Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau must see your graphs on Wikipedia for those polling pages. - Ahunt (talk) 15:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Haha, coincidentally, although I used to live in Montreal back when I first got started editing the polling pages, I now also live in Ottawa. And yes, I also like to imagine that some of these ‘important’ people check out the polling graphs and tables that we’ve been maintaining here. I actually noticed a few political pundits referencing the graphs on Twitter over the course of this past campaign. For example, see here. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 15:35, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Andre Coyne reposted your graph; that's the big time! I know the party leaders all get their own internal polling reports, but I like to think that Justin was checking your graph everyday during the election campaign as a "reality check" of his internal numbers.

Given your political interests, it seems somehow appropriate that you are here in Ottawa, too. Working on Wikipedia it often feels like I am here in the city and the rest of the editors I work with here all in Narnia or further. If you ever have time for a (distanced) coffee, feel free to drop me a note at wikieditor07.sca9z@ncf.ca. I promise not to disclose your secret identity. - Ahunt (talk) 15:45, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

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