Notability Criteria

[maciej]

Here are some reasons I limited the site to "public figures":

- reduce noise
- make the site interesting to browse
- keep the focus on accountability / media criticism
- prevent people making predictions just to appear on the site
- reduce editorial overhead (I can handle ten but not a hundred
submissions a day)
- make it possible to have meaningful author profiles, so you can read
a blurb about an expert whose name you don't recognize.

Given those reasons, what would a good criterion for "public figure"
be? Someone with a Wikipedia entry?

[Robin Z]

Actually, I'm not sure it should be simply "public figure" - as I
mentioned in an email, if Brad Pitt made a prediction about (say)
politics, it still wouldn't be particularly apropos for this site
unless he actually moved into an analyst role. How about adding a
criterion for "relevant expertise"?

[Jeff]

On Apr 5, 9:03 am, Robin Z <robin.z...@gmail.com> wrote:
> if Brad Pitt made a prediction about (say) politics, it still wouldn't be particularly apropos for this site unless he actually moved into an analyst role.

I think I disagree. Obviously, Maciej wants to shy away from self-
promoters, obscure figures, and gadflies, but considering how often
(and loudly) celebrities mouth off on politics, I think they are fair
game for wrongtomorrow. And in general, I think when someone notable
waxes pundilicious, the media reports this as if it were news even if
it is not in their area of expertise. So they,too, should be held
accountable and mocked.

[Gwern Branwen]

I agree about famous people who get coverage; people pay attention
when Hollywood types go about predicting the end of the world due to
global warming, after all.

An analogy: Snopes covers the most popular email hoaxes because it's a
tool to prevent yourself from believing lies and to cure other people
of their false beliefs. It wouldn't be bad for WT to aspire to
function similarly in disabusing people of faith in their
favorite/unfavorite pundits and predictors.

So what standard do I suggest? How about: everyone with a English
Wikipedia entry is coverable. This is a clear standard, which is even
machine-checkable, and it offloads to the Wikipedia community
(eminently more suitable and interested in assessing the notability of
various persons) labor that isn't useful to WT.

If people are concerned that this might exclude abruptly notable
persons, we can amend it: either an en article, or sufficient media
coverage that the site admins are willing to make an exception.

--
gwern

[maciej]

I like the Wikipedia criterion a lot, because I am a fundamentally
lazy person. It serves a second purpose, too, which is allowing me
to post one-sentence mini-bios of prediction authors, so that people
outside the specialized field can know who is doing the
predicting. That said, I will try to err on the side of obscurity
as long as it doesn't dilute the site too much.

On Apr 7, 4:16 pm, Gwern Branwen <gwe...@gmail.com> wrote: