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December 05, 2004
Wisdom of the crowds
Three days before our last election, Andrew Coyne asked his readers for their unbiased predictions. His revised prediction: Tories - 124, Libs - 102, Bloc - 55, NDP - 26, Independents - 1. His readers weren't far off. Colby guessed 140, 91, 55, 21. Damian Penny gave the Conservatives a 107-103 win over the Grits, and Wells was one of the few to call it a 125-108 Liberal victory. "These are barely more than random guesses," he typed. "Which is why I'm putting them on Andrew's site instead of my own."
Others who voted for a Liberal win, only 72 of 279 entrants or 25 per cent, said things like "this is not the result I want to see," and "this'll be a heartbreak for me but..."
As we now know, the Liberals beat out the Conservatives (or as some of Coyne's readers like to say, the "theives" beat the "good guys") 135-99. Coyne told me:
If they wanted one party to win, they'd say they thought they will win but wouldn't bet money on it.
Although readers showed wishful thinking more than anything else, Coyne's wisdom of the crowds experiment was a great example of reader contribution.
During the election, some of the best writing was contributed by readers. It was quite sharp and funny. They used mine as an outlet. I learned things from them that I didn't know. It turned into something between a conversation and an exchange.There's a benefit to being part of the conversation. You get a connection with your readers. Whatever you're writing, you have to have your reader first and foremost - what will entertain or persuade them - and feedback from them makes it all the better. Every writer, no matter what the form, doesn't want to be isolated from the reader. Interaction always helps.
Posted by Samantha Israel at December 5, 2004 04:52 PM
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