The most fatal flaw in your algorithm is that you assume that the average user actually knows the Facebook TOS. They don't. I'm not sure it would necessarily be a bad thing, but most "jurors" would certainly end up just making a judgment based on their own values
After actually reading the article, it really takes a pretty neutral viewpoint. It also helps if you take in the full quote from Vieira:
"Certainly not every child who continues to play violent video games is going to go out and perpetrate a violent act, but the research suggests that children — particularly boys — who are frequently exposed to these violent games are absorbing a sanitized message of 'no consequences for violence' from this play behavior," said Vieira. "The concern arises when children are taking in this message and there is a convergence of other negative environmental factors at the same time, such as poor parental communication and unhealthy peer relationships."
But don't let me get in the way of your flame wars
There is no such thing as a "conclusive" study. Not to mention the fact that he used a compilation of various other studies, at least some of which are probably biased. As much as I hate to think about experimenting on children, the only way to settle this debate would be to conduct an experiment with different treatments and control groups. Since that will probably never happen, these studies really don't do anything but make everyone throw some mud and feel angry. Also, where is any of his data? What was his methodology? Did he use a 2 proportion Z-test? If so, what was his alpha level, his null and alternative hypotheses? This is really just irresponsible statistics that seems to be aimed at getting attention rather than actually providing useful data.
Slashdot Mirror
The most fatal flaw in your algorithm is that you assume that the average user actually knows the Facebook TOS. They don't. I'm not sure it would necessarily be a bad thing, but most "jurors" would certainly end up just making a judgment based on their own values
"Certainly not every child who continues to play violent video games is going to go out and perpetrate a violent act, but the research suggests that children — particularly boys — who are frequently exposed to these violent games are absorbing a sanitized message of 'no consequences for violence' from this play behavior," said Vieira. "The concern arises when children are taking in this message and there is a convergence of other negative environmental factors at the same time, such as poor parental communication and unhealthy peer relationships."
But don't let me get in the way of your flame wars
There is no such thing as a "conclusive" study. Not to mention the fact that he used a compilation of various other studies, at least some of which are probably biased. As much as I hate to think about experimenting on children, the only way to settle this debate would be to conduct an experiment with different treatments and control groups. Since that will probably never happen, these studies really don't do anything but make everyone throw some mud and feel angry. Also, where is any of his data? What was his methodology? Did he use a 2 proportion Z-test? If so, what was his alpha level, his null and alternative hypotheses? This is really just irresponsible statistics that seems to be aimed at getting attention rather than actually providing useful data.