We’re looking for forecasting tips from our top SciCasters to include in our training lessons and we would love to hear from you. What tips can you share with fellow forecasters? Possible topic areas include:
and more…
Feel free to comment here or send a message to [email protected]. Thank you!
The Recommender is used throughout SciCast to suggest new questions based on your previous activity. It is most obvious in the carousel on the main “exchange” page, shown below:
You’re invited to take a brief three question survey to help us make the Question Recommender even better. We appreciate your input and to say thank you, we’re drawing one name randomly on Monday, March 9 to win a $100 Amazon Gift Card. Previous survey-takers are already entered in the drawing. SciCast username must be entered in the survey in order to be entered to win.
On February 12, 2015 we are adding additional questions to the final round for the accuracy contest. Forecasts on these questions – through March 6, 2015 – have their market scores calculated and added to a person’s “portfolio.” The best portfolios at a time shortly after March 7, 2015, will win big prizes.
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Can you be the most accurate forecaster on SciCast? Look for the questions marked with a gold Au symbol or select the “Prize Eligible” topics when searching questions. Forecasts on these questions through March 6th will have their market scores calculated and added to a person’s “portfolio.” The best portfolios at a time shortly after March 7, 2015, will win big prizes.
We recently spoke with John Brownstein, Ph.D., co-creator of HealthMap (www.healthmap.org), a global leader in utilizing online informal sources for disease outbreak monitoring and real-time surveillance of emerging public health threats. SciCast partnered with Healthmap and the Discovery Analytics Center at Virginia Tech on a series of questions about the 2014-2105 flu season in the United States. Predict now: https://scicast.org/flu.
We have started adding “Accuracy” numbers to emails. For example:
What does that mean? The short answer is that it’s a transform of the familiar Brier score, which we have mentioned in several blog posts. Where the Brier measures your error (low is good), Accuracy measures your success (high is good). This is more intuitive … except when it’s not.
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Check out the latest updates to SciCast Predict. As always, we welcome your feedback.
1) New “Show All” capability and enhancements made to “Show More”
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The active contest questions changed at a random time yesterday as planned. We updated the “Au” icon today. You may view these questions here. On the left side under “TOPICS” check Prize Eligible Nov & Jan. The best portfolios at a time shortly after March 7, 2015, will win big prizes.
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Today we disabled 7 accounts for blatant gaming behavior, particularly this time for dumping points from a shill account to a main account. When accounts are disabled, the account owners receive an email, if they have provided a valid email address. Otherwise they will see a note when they try to log in. We will not name the accounts until the owners have had a chance to respond to us. Continue reading
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The admins are monitoring several accounts which appear to be engaged in blatant gaming behavior such as “dumping” points from a shill account or “throwing” points across a leaderboard deadline, in opposition to any sensible accuracy-guided forecasting strategy. Most of these accounts will probably be disabled and eventually removed from all leaderboards. Disablings will be announced. Forecasters with permanently disabled accounts will have to start over. The SciCast team is examining some non-trading variables for possible exonerating evidence.