Healer Changes Straw Poll from Reddit

[Yuyuka3]

Fur looks weird until you know how it feels. Did ARR teach you nothing? Feel. Think.

I don't have to play it to be able to tell that WHM will pretty much play the same as now, with almost no of it's flaws addressed. I don't have to play it to be able to tell you that taking existing skills (Cure II, Medica), tweaking them up a bit, and then giving them back in addition to the ones we had since the beginning is horribly lazy; as is taking a skill away (Largesse, Protect, Stoneskin, etc.) just to give it back at a higher level. You really see nothing wrong with that? Are you blind?

[Misutoraru]

On a statistical basis, you're wrong. With the number of responses, it's statistically valid.

according to census, we have roughly 660k active character with 1,044 votes, it is not even close to 1% of the population

Many polls don't make you qualify yourself specifically. Would it have been better if they said, "Are you a current healer, have you healed in the past, or do you ever plan to heal in the future" Absolutely, but it's not necessary. The response would have likely been in the high 90's or even 100% because most people who respond to that poll would be healers.
Just like most who respond to a tank poll would be tanks.

a parametric test would be way more powerful, and it will also answer the issue of why and what, that have not been able to address with just "Yes and No"
Like I mention earlier, ppl can be happy or unhappy about healer change with all sort of reasons, and a simple "Yes and No" poll would have very limit information to use a feedback

if OP modify his poll to include more information like which healer role they main, or even state the reason they are unhappy or happy about the change, it would be more informative

[Deceptus]

according to census, we have roughly 660k active character with 1,044 votes, it is not even close to 1% of the population

And we have 330 million people in the US and 1000 polled respondents is a good metric of almost any topic. Polls are samples. Nothing more. They're supposed to be representative of the whole.

[Gaethan_Tessula]

And we have 330 million people in the US and 1000 polled respondents is a good metric of almost any topic. Polls are samples. Nothing more. They're supposed to be representative of the whole.

A professionally conducted poll will carefully consider what populations they randomly select from. 1000 people living in Portland metro are going to think different than 1000 people in the rural southeast. Polls try to select at random, since that's the only way they actually approximate a population accurately. The issue with this poll is that the population engaging with it is highly unlikely to be random and the answers to the question posed are too broad imo. It also has no way to weight the population for sampling biases.

As much as I am dissatisfied with the healer changes, I have to agree with the other side here: this poll is poorly constructed (blind yes/no), poorly controlled (possibility of duplicate votes, onus is on those polled to find poll, weighting sample is impossible), and pulls from a population (people who have enough investment in the game and issue to participate in a poll on English language fan forums) that is arguably not representative of the playerbase as a whole. I mean, most casually created internet polls given to the public at large are, so I don't mean to imply anything against its creator.

It's a quick way to gauge opinions in the broadest strokes possible, it's not meaningless, but I'd never call it valid or statistically significant and therefore wouldn't use it as a tool in debate.

A better poll would likely call random active players, and would be more involved with the questions asked. Of course, I doubt anyone is going to actually DO that.

[EaMett]

I'm not a healer main, but I have played healers in casual content as well as EX and Savage.

So I'd argue that I'm "qualified enough"

I don't know if that's in response to me but yeah it's not a matter of being qualified or not. Even if you're not qualified at all and never played healer your opinion can still be valuable. It's just that it doesn't say anything if you just bunch up all players from all backgrounds into one vaguely formulated poll. Aka: We can't tell anything from this poll.

[Deceptus]

A better poll would likely call random active players, and would be more involved with the questions asked. Of course, I doubt anyone is going to actually DO that.

True but you have to work with the data you have.