RHOBH popularity

i've been enjoying the reality tea website, and there was recently some discussion about whether the polls on bravo and on that website were accurate with regard to who the most popular housewife was.  i started commenting on that site, but i thought it was worth a post explaining some of the issues with these polls.

on WWHL with Lisa, Andy asked everyone to vote for their favorite housewife.  Lisa got the most votes, followed by Kyle and Adrienne, then Kim, then Camille, and finally Taylor.  there were some people wondering how it could be that Kyle would be more popular than Kim - it seemed like maybe the results were off.  but reality tea also had a poll, and a similar result was found (and reality tea had a good number of people voting, so there is a good possibility to think the results are "real").  in the reality tea poll, Lisa got 47% of the vote, Kyle 24%, Adrienne 18%, Kim 6%, Camille 3%, and Taylor 2%.  so, if we assume that the polls were reasonably accurate, what does this actually mean?  does it mean that Lisa is most popular, that Kyle is more popular than Kim, that Taylor is least popular, etc.?

we would have to define what it means to be most popular.  if most popular only means that the most number of people like you best, then sure, that is a reasonable conclusion to take away from this poll.  but if most popular means that the most people view you most positively and not negatively, then no.  the poll does not at all tell us who is most popular.  below is an explanation of why and what is really going on.

asking who someone's first favorite housewife is doesn't tell us anything about who the second favorite housewife is.  what if 94% of the voters liked Kim second best, while 76% of the voters thought that Kyle was their least favorite housewife?  then who is more popular?  Kim, who is the favorite of only 6% of the people, but is second favorite for 94% of the voters?  or Kyle who is the favorite of 24% of the voters, but is the least favorite for 76% of the voters?

so ... what this shows us is that we cannot infer the order of popularity from polls like this.  how can we figure out an order of popularity?  the short answer is that it is not at all possible to have a completely fair voting system if there are more than 2 choices (see arrow's impossibility theorem, e.g., on wikipedia).  i'm tempted to demonstrate the problems (and what the real popularity standings are) by adding polls to the sidebar ... and sure, i guess i'll give it a whirl ... i'm not sure this blog has enough traffic to get a representative sample, but we can try it out.  if i get 100 votes at least, then i'll unpack what they mean for the popularity of the housewives.  if you would like to participate, what you'll have to do is vote in a bunch of different polls - but it should be quickish ;) sooo ... if you really, really want to know and don't mind doing several polls ... scroll down the sidebar and do some serious voting!  but i need you to vote in each one or else i won't be able to truly tell you what the polls say about popularity!

okay: one more issue.  i was not able to figure out how to make a poll that allows you to rank order which housewives you like.  so if you want to participate, could you just write a comment below in which you just write your order of housewives - put your favorite housewife first, second favorite second, third favorite third, etc.  you don't have to have a blogger account to post - you can even post anonymously or just make up a name below.  all righty ... here goes ...

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