This is the end of the contest, so now I will look back and make some observations:
1. People either wanted to make long-shot predictions or completely trivial predictions. The art of making a clever, conservative guess seemed lost on us. As a result, nobody got 4 or higher for an average impressiveness rating. And the highest individual prediction rating was 4.09 ("
I predict that Aston Villa will be 11th in the Premiership on January the 23rd."
)
1b. But also... I thought the voters were a little hard to impress. Maybe I should have grounded the rating in probability better. For example, if I flip a coin and successfully predict heads, it seems reasonable to get a "
5"
rating for the 50% chance I had of getting it right. Anyhow, don't beat yourselves up over being unimpressive people.
2. Accuracy was of much greater importance than impressiveness for this contest. Well, that's not a big surprise, because I didn't allow inaccurate predictions to be voted on for impressiveness. I was worried at the beginning that Eytan was going to "
steal"
the win somehow with his collection of unimpressive, guaranteed-accurate predictions, but nope... he didn't make it.
3. Making a smaller number of predictions seems to be helpful. The winners all made just three predictions.
4. It is hard to come up with objective standards for what kinds of predictions are acceptable. I'm glad that nobody really argued with some of my more ambiguous and inconsistent "
rulings"
. That was nice of you!
5. I thought this contest was going to be easy to run. Bleh! I am stupid. Lots of work because so many people entered predictions. As a result, I was a little humorless and curt about tracking the predictions, because I wanted to get through them quickly and get on to other important tasks. So if I seemed rude or unenthusiastic at times, please forgive me--I was just trying to be efficient.
In the real world, I think people who make predictions should be judged by their accuracy--not merely by the impressivenenss of the subset of their predictions that came true. I'm a fan of debunkers like the Amazing Randi and television shows like Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t and Mythbusters. This was my chance to play a little "
debunking"
experiment. Can't say I learned a lot, but it was nice to scratch that itch.
On to the winners...
Krammer, like the other winners, had 100% accuracy for his minimal three questions. I'm not sure who this Aston Villa guy is. It seems like he will need to wait for ten other people to step down or be removed before he can become the Premier of London, and finally run things how he wants. Well, good luck and patience to him.
Rowrow came in second place with three modest predictions of things that wouldn't happen. Nice job, rowrow!
Tim had a flair for complex predictions with multiple choices, exceptions, and tax loopholes. I believe that if he continues this habit in all areas of his life, people will confuse him for a genius and shower him with success.
So Krammer, you get 100 rank points, sure, but just wait on selecting your prize. Seriously. You'll see why!
Rowrow and Tim, you're gonna get 50 and 25--look after your rank points carefully, and get good advice on integrating them into your investment portfolio.
The rookies! Oh my god, the rookies! 10 points go to...
bradwall
krammer
MeckMeck GRE
rowrow
strabo
TripleM
Ah, but what about those other guys that entered predictions that never got resolved? Don't they get the rookie bonus? Well, I don't mean to offend, but just posting the predictions isn't involved enough for me to classify it as contest participation. Sorry!
I don't have anything else to say, but want to end on a positive note. Hmm...
Kittens.
-Erik
____________________________
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