Wednesday 2 July 2008

Frustration at this nation

I have railed before at people objecting to something third or forth hand when they haven't checked the original story. I have also covered (along with many others) the extremes you get with commenting on mainstream news stories. This story about some research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation follows the pattern, I found the report a few clicks away from that page but it is quite a way down the page, after a large number of comments all suggesting that because there was a suggestion of suing public transport that it had to be all done in London because no other tons or cities shave public transport, before someone else who has bothered to read it points out that most of the work was done in the Midlands of England with London having a check group along with Wales and Scotland. Why they couldn't have read the report I don't know.

The other great thing the comments highlight is that because the result isn't exactly right for them the commenters have to do tedious and pointless maths to show how they are special, missing somewhat the point of statistical benchmarks they are there to measure populations against not you you self centred idiot, they are there to inform policy to ensure that more people, preferably everyone has a decent standard of living and it is unlikely that any policy maker is going to specifically draft something just because the 43 doesn't run at the right times for you to get to work so you drive or you have a large student loan due to re-sitting a year. Get a grip.

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