Sad news. fivethirtyeight made one of my favourite things on the internet. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/
It’s an excellent piece of science communication and dynamic data visualisation. I say this as a scientist who is increasingly drifting towards the science-comm side of research.
They did incredible work, and I hope that the people behind the work can find stability and fulfillment in whatever work they seek after this.
I feel like this is the story of the internet. Interesting niche site gets a little popular. Site gets purchased by giant. Giant cuts costs and removed interesting things about site. Site loses visits because it’s boring. Another round of cuts and the site is gone.
I miss weird Internet sites
That’s OK, there won’t be any more elections in the US anyway, so 538 is no longer needed.
Oh there will be sham elections like the other fascists do. But yea, no need for polls when there is 106% approval ratings.
Coincidence or not, interesting that this lines up with the moment Trump’s approval went negative
Fuck ABC! They’re broke because they paid a $15M bribe to the President. I see that CBS is preparing to do the same thing. If another party ever elects a president, they should revoke licenses!
This is the best answer. The money they paid to Trump, on a case they had a nearly sure-thing defense to, would have paid for everyone’s salary and the site upkeep.
I rather liked 538 :(
I liked it more before it was purchased.
💯💯💯
I loved reading about their sports models and their model development. Polling was kind of interesting but their sports prediction was great.
Agreed, they are my go-to resource during each election
Fuck Nate Silver.
He left 538 a long time ago.
He still sucks
Why does he suck?
He took a money-ball approach to polling. He got a little too up his own ass about his mathematical modeling and his ability to predict stuff.
You skipped the part where he was funded by Peter Thiel.
That wouldn’t inherently means he sucks but it’s not great.
This is like Nike firing Michael Jordan. ABC is getting rid of a well recognised brand
I think this is more like Nike firing Michael Jordan if basketball was going to be illegal to play in the next 9-18 months
Illegal? What did I miss?
When I visit FiveThirtyEight, I’m not there for long-form or short-form journalism; I’m there for the polls. It’s the best poll aggregation website I know of, and it’s sad to see them go.
I’m not sure there was much value in the type of tea-leaf reading that 538 was known to do, but then again, I’m not sure how much value there is in corporate political news in general.
I wish this meant what it should - that ABC was going to get down to the business of journalism and hold the powerful to account, but.
Hah. Yeah.
I mean honestly why even have anyone at all? All you need is just like one intern with a camcorder who can sit there and read the Trump press announcements. Boom all done.
Time for Phillipe J Fournier of 338Canada to make a US version!
