Talk:Opinion polling for the 2010 Australian federal election

Significant events

I think it would be a nice addition to have significant political events running alongside the polling. To start we could put in major events such as changes in party leadership; putting these events in should be non-controversial. Then hopefully we can get consensus for events such as the ETS backflip, Oceanic Viking or the OzCar affair. Note I don't think whether or not the event affected the poll should be the basis for inclusion - quite the opposite - the idea is that the reader can see whether or not the event affected the poll. It can be interesting that a significant event DOESN'T affect the polling. --Surturz (talk) 20:26, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Here you were telling us not to link polls to events... then you pull this on us... incredible... Timeshift (talk) 05:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

So much for trying to find a middle ground. Sigh. I had hoped we might actually cooperate for once. --Surturz (talk) 02:45, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Australian federal primary polls 2008 to 2010.svg and File:Federal ALP 2PP polls 2008 to 2010.svg both have graphical indications of events and the polls, would it be satisfactory if they were included? The should probably be on this page anyway...  -- Lear's Fool 02:48, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I think they should be included. Currently this page is more-or-less a cut-paste from the newspoll website. It might even be a wp:copyvio, the newspoll website does have copyright notices... --Surturz (talk) 08:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Newspoll releases (PDFs) state "Any reproduction of this material must credit both NEWSPOLL and THE AUSTRALIAN". Timeshift (talk) 09:49, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Percentage points

Now, let's sort this out. WP:MOSNUM, the style guide for numbers and dates, clearly states that percentage points should be used to avoid ambiguity that arises when expressing changes is percentage. Such an ambiguity will arise in the plus-or-minus 3 per cent that I found here an hour ago. Three per cent of what? I have changed it to "percentage points". Apart from our own style guide, I see The Australian used "percentage point" on the front page—last week or the week before. The Sydney Morning Herald uses pp unerringly. Tony (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

• I have this sense of déjà vu, but never mind. I would state once again that 'percent' is obtained by division; 'percentage point' is obtained by subtraction. It's really not very complicated that even thickoes like me can understand. There do not seem to be any cogent arguments advanced to support the insistence on ambiguously using 'percent' when the intention seems undoubtedly to mean 'percentage points'. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:07, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

That's the clearest explanation I've heard. Thank you, OC. Tony (talk) 10:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank god for that one. Sheesh. Timeshift (talk) 08:31, 23 August 2010 (UTC)