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Is it possible to use the Stack Exchange API to somehow calculate the average up to down voting ratio, and vote to question / answer ratio on different Stack Exchange sites?

Could this info be used to prove once and for all that Christians are, or are not Happy Clappy, and Politicians are (or are not - yeah right) cynical?

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2 Answers 2

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Since you don't really know the vast majority of sociological data about answerers, it would be impossible to extrapolate any trends. Even if you did, it would hardly constitute "proof".

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  • So you are saying that people on the Christianity site are not necessarily christians - and therefore the data would be inaccurate right? I think it would hold for some sites, like I expect only gamers go on that site, and only programmers go to stack overflow.
    – Billy Moon
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:17
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    @BillyMoon Correct. I've seen people active on multiple religion sites. Certainly they can't believe in all of them no?
    – Mysticial
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:18
  • It is a fair point, but I would hope that you can assume (or through some other means ascertain) a weighting towards the topic of the site. I would be surprised if there was not a higher percentage of Christians on their SE site than in Cooking SE for example.
    – Billy Moon
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:20
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    Proof is roughly defined as something that reinforces my existing beliefs
    – Zelda
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 18:04
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I'm a physics student. I'm not:

  • a programmer
  • an ethical hacker
  • Anything that has to do with chemistry
  • Anything that has to do with robotics
  • an electrical engineer

yet I have a good amount of rep on those sites. Take a look at Rory Alsop and Gilles as well.

Similarly, people on Christianity.SE are not necessarily Christians. There are a lot of folks who are active on multiple religion sites (the mods of these sites are a good example)

People on Politics are not necessarily politicians.

The sites have some experts and a lot of enthusiasts. There are enthusiasts who know a good amount of stuff about the topic, and there are enthusiasts who are just interested in learning. This means that the type of person varies a lot, regardless of rep.

You'd be measuring apples here and labeling them as oranges.

However, take a look at this SEDE query (you can compose your own if you wish).

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  • Is there an ethical hacking SE site?
    – Billy Moon
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:39
  • So - what you are saying is that I need quite a complex query that ignores people who subscribe to competing sites?
    – Billy Moon
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:40
  • Do you accept that there is probably a higher ratio of programmers on stack overflow than photography SE? It does not have to be that 100% are programmers, just a higher ratio, as I am only looking for trends.
    – Billy Moon
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:42
  • @BillyMoon: Information Security. re:complex query: no, that wouldn't work either. I have plenty of non-physicists active on Physics.SE only. My point was that the most you can say about a person with rep on a site is that 'they are interested in the topic". For high reps you can say "they know a bit about the topic". Nothing more. And, FYI: iirc very few of the users on Politics are politicians.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:43
  • And keep in mind that a large portion of the users on other sites might well be the developers on SO who were aware of the wider SE network.
    – Bart
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:47
  • @Bart: yeah, that's usually the case
    – Manishearth
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:47
  • Your SEDE link is broken...
    – Richard J. Ross III
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:57
  • @RichardJ.RossIII: Fixed, thanks :)
    – Manishearth
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 17:58

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