Combat
Brigadier General
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2005
- Messages
- 10,089
This is where a knowledge of statistics is helpful. Self selecting polls are not reliable indicators for several reasons. Unless you want to go deep into random sampling for normal distribution curves and such, you will just have to trust me on that. :smile2:
Actually if someone goes to the time and trouble to post their opinion, it is likely to reflect a strongly held opinion among likely buyers. That's what you want to know. Not necessarily the opinion of everyone. There could be collectors who make one or two purchases a year. Their opinion is not as relevant - in terms of sales - as the collector who is going to spend thousands. So if you can surmise anything from opinions posted here, it likely reflects those who buy a lot. Regardless, there's no reason to draw the opposite conclusion - that opinions expressed here significantly differ from the larger collector base.