re: Nate trying to get his mojo back

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You cannot simultaneously laud his model for being more near 50/50 and state that you have no idea what the a priori probability was.

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But based on the data, and the historical errors, we can make a reasonable inference that it wasn't close to 0 nor 50. So then 28% is about as close to a reasonable prediction as anybody had.

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our argument truly boils down to the fact that any poll that gave him a greater than 0 chance of winning was correct because you don't know what the true probability is

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No I'm not. Even with an unknown unknown apririo we can use some bayesian logic to conclude that 1% was not reasonable. Maybe it was closer to something closer to 40%, but 28% is the mot reasonable model available.

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That reasoning just happens to serve your position that Silver was least wrong.

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But that applies to just about any prediction. We are trying to conclude the most reasonable possibility.

But with Silver, he at least provides, not only the probability, he provides the margin for each outcome. We can judge his accuracy based on that, and unfortunately, I don't think many of the other predictions, other than NYT attempted to do that.

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Plenty of models had between 15-20%. You picking the Huffpos of the world shows how weak your position is.

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FiveThirtyEight — “polls-only” and “polls-plus” (29% and 28%, respectively)

PollSavvy — a “16 y/o high school junior and his stats teacher” (18%)

The New York Times / The Upshot (15%)

PredictWise (11%)

Kremp / Slate (10%)

Daily Kos (8%)

The Huffington Post (1.7%)

DeSart and Holbrook (1.4%)

The Princeton Election Consortium (1%)

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Feel free to add some, but of the 8 other models which have a prediction, only 2 had it between 15-20 percent, and 4 had them, with under 10%, with 3 under 2%.

The average of those 8 models was 8.3%.

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Those 3 models are clearly worse. Frankly I would argue that only the NYT and that high school kid were the only 2 that could be in consideration.

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You don't know the true probability, so your supposition would just be based on the fact that it wasn't as close to giving Trump 50%, which is what you said we shouldn't do.

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Evidence: HuffPo and NyMag (using the exact same numbers) accused Nate of using 'trending data', rather than actual poll data. Nate admitted that he did. I gave you the NC example, that Nate readily admitted to

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By the way, your criticism becomes more ridiculous since Huffpo wrote an article about how they got it wrong.

Why HuffPost’s Presidential Forecast Didn’t See A Donald Trump Win Coming

This tidbit seems pertinent:

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Silver was right to question uncertainty levels, and was absolutely correct about the possibility of systematic polling errors--all in the same direction. Clearly, we disagree on how to construct a model, but he was right to sound the alarm.

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So I'm not going to point out for others to read, that you have spent the last few pages condemning my use of NyMag's agreement with HuffPo logic, by using a HuffPo article to make that point. So, instead of pointing out that if their logic was wrong then (according to you), then how can I now rely on their logic being correct (according to you)?

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Because you're using a journalist's (not those created the model) argument BEFORE the election, when they thought their model was right and Silver's was incorrectly giving him a better chance.

The article I linked was from their polling editor, whose focus is on polling methodology and statistics. She is involved in the actual nuts and bolts.

In addition, my article was from AFTER the election, and as you can see from the tables a few posts up, AFTER they were shown to be the WORST FORECASTER.

So you don't see the difference in the two articles that's fine; feel free to dismiss them both.

But you can't dismiss the evidence from a few posts above which shows Silver's models were the most accurate. You can say that's not "good enough," and I would agree. BUT your argument that he went beyond the model, and subjectively inflated it, has absolutely no support, and is especially ridiculous when you consider it was the MOST ACCURATE.

So how are you going to take such a ridiculous stance with no evidence to support it, and with plenty evidence against it?