Qui dit vrai?

Michel Corbeil, Le Soleil, 15 mai 2012 :

Le gouvernement de Jean Charest n’a plus qu’un seul siège pour asseoir sa majorité à l’Assemblée nationale.

Rémi Nadeau, Le Journal de Québec, 15 mai 2012 :

Majorité libérale de 4 députés

Le calcul est particulier : il y a présentement 122 députés à l’Assemblée nationale, il faut donc théoriquement 62 voix pour gagner un vote. Posons comme hypothèses que tous les députés sont présents, que tous les députés qui ne sont pas libéraux votent en bloc et que le Président tranche pour le gouvernement si nécessaire (en cas de vote de confiance, c’est ce que la tradition prédit).

Sur les chiffres, M. Corbeil a raison, car les libéraux ont 63 places (62 députés plus le Président), une de plus que le nombre requis. M. Nadeau n’a pas tout-à-fait tort, car les libéraux ont 59 députés «adverses», quatre de moins que leurs députés. 1-0 Corbeil.

Prenons un scénario de démissions libérales, M. Corbeil a tort, car si un seul libéral démissionne, le PLQ peut quand même remporter un vote (61-59, pas de vote du Président nécessaire). M. Nadeau a raison, car pour que les libéraux perdent un vote, il faudrait 4 députés libéraux absents (58-59, pas de vote du Président possible). Nadeau crée l’égalité 1-1.

Si l’on considère les transfuges ou les libéraux qui votent contre le gouvernement, M. Corbeil perd encore, car un transfuge libéral laisserait une majorité 61-60 (pas de vote du Président nécessaire). Si deux ou trois transfugent votent contre, le gouvernement perd 60-61 (pas de vote du Président possible) et 59-62, respectivement. Pas besoin des quatre dont parle M. Nadeau. Ça reste 1-1.

Décision de l’arbitre : M. Nadeau gagne par défaut, comme M. Corbeil ne marque aucun point sur les scénarii.

Paradoxal, non?

Émilie Côté, La Presse, 9 mai 2012 au sujet de Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?:

C’est un titre paradoxal («Tout le monde le fait, donc pourquoi pas nous?») quand on voit plusieurs groupes ressurgir des années 1990, dont Garbage qui fera aussi un retour avec un nouvel album la semaine prochaine.

↬ Flawed metrics and disrespect

Today, The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple quipped “Please make them go away.” about slideshows on the Web. This was prompted by a good, strongly worded piece by Alexis Madrigal for The Atlantic.

If I’m not mistaken (hint : I probably am), the point is that slideshows are a really good tool. As with all tools, a lot of us just use them without thinking, which is not something to brag about. If you pay close attention, you can understand what the tool is and why you should use it. The hammer is useful not only because it is somewhat heavy and made of hard metal. Its main interest is that you use the power of the lever and some inertia to maximize your hit.

What is the point of slideshows? Breaking up your message in small chunks that you then can set with a certain timing. Usually, this timing is important for presenters who want to remain in control of the message that is on the slide so that they can give another message out of the slide. This way, the good presenters can discriminate between what they want to tell and what they want to show. The basic principle of the slideshow is constraint in space and in time.

Unfortunately, a lot of people whose job it is to publish text on the Web don’t agree on the right tool to show a list, be it in a textual of graphical format. When they use a slideshow, it can be for two reasons : either they just saw other websites do it so it’s fair game or they chose the format on purpose.

The reason slideshows are perceived to be the right tool that they use a flawed metric : the number of pageviews an article gets. An alarming number of publishers and advertisers live in a fantasy world where the more pageviews you get, the more engaged your readers are (a distinction Mr. Madrigal did not miss). The use of this flawed metric shows that the focus of the publisher is not the readers, but an abstraction poorly translated by a single number, the number of hits. They either involuntarily use the wrong tool for the right job (engage readers and provide a great experience) or consciously use the right tool for the wrong job (multiply the number of pageviews).

I fully agree with the thesis that slideshows, overall, are disrespectful to readers. However, I’m more saddened by what it shows in terms of attitude : either thoughtless use through habit — which means an active disregard for content and a passive disregard for the readers — or a thoughtful design decision — which is even worse in that it reflects an passive disregard for content but an active disregard for the readers.

Un chroniqueur se fait apostropher

Michel Beaudry, Le Journal de Montréal, 8 mai 2012 :

Il n¹y a pas

Oui, c’est chipoter sur la typographie, mais il faut le dire : utiliser les guillemets simples au lieu des apostrophes, c’est bizarre. Utiliser un «1» en exposant, c’est original.

↬ Non-fungible customers

Disclaimer : I am not versed enough in economics to speak authoritatively.

Last week, two popular events in different markets sold out quite fast. Apple’s yearly Worldwide Developpers Conference and Québec’s Festival d’Été both sold all the tickets they had on sale in minutes, hours at most.

The traditional economist answer to this, as seen for both cases (but John Siracusa’s discussion of this was good), would be to raise the price of the tickets in order to get rid of the queues and therefore allocate the resources more efficiently.

Would you allow me to add a few concepts to this? Maybe consumers/attendees/crowds are not fungible (interchangeable, if you wish). If that were the case, it would make sense to raise the price, as you would have the same number of customers but more money in your pockets. But if Customer A != Customer B, which one would you like to get your precious ticket?

The fact that consumers cannot be seen as fungible brings the possibility that they may be sorted, if you wish, according to another factor than “ability and willingness to pay money”, but “ability and willingness to stand for hours in a queue” or “ability and willingness to agonize over the exact second when WWDC tickets will become available”. Maybe these queue further reinforce the sunk cost in the customers’ minds and, by doing do, engage them more (and then, have better number to show advertisers, which will translate to better numbers on the invoice you can send them).

To better evaluate this hypothesis, we have to take a look at the incentives the events’ organizers have :

• Do they have to maximize sales? For WWDC, the answer is “no”.
• Can they make more money with engaged people who pay less or with less engaged people who pay more? I would bet that the answer, in the case of Québec’s Festival d’Été is “the more engaged people will allow us to reap more money from advertisers and sponsors”.
• This being said, should we care a lot about allocating the tickets?

With this point of view, I would not be suprised that the calculations that were done imply a few more economic concepts than just shortage and the law of supply and demand.