The Guide: How Nostradamical Works
Overview
First things first….What is it?
Nostradamical is...
- A social web application based around the collective prediction of future events. It is based on the concept that ‘many heads are better than one’ (also known as collective intelligence, collective reasoning, group wisdom, etc)
- A platform for social networking, allowing people to come together through shared interests and opinions
- A source of predictive information on future events across various categories from sporting events, to celebrity gossip, to world affairs.
- An application that will eventually integrate with your favourite web applications such as Facebook, My Space, and Bebo, allowing for example, members to show their ‘current predictions’ on other sites
Essentially Nostradamical is a fun approach to a serious topic: The ability of ‘the crowd’ to predict events with better overall success than ‘the individual’.
Oh, and one other thing...we are new, growing and constantly trying to improve our product so we really value your feedback and opinions on how we can improve!
Predictions & Forecasts
Nostradamical is based around the prediction of future world events. Once signed up for your free account you can create a new prediction, for example, “China will win more than 10 gold medals in the Olympics”.
Once your prediction is published and live to the world, other members can create forecasts against it. A forecast of greater than 50% means that the prediction is likely, and a forecast of less than 50% means it is unlikely (in their opinion).
The Nostradamical Prediction Engine takes into account various factors to produce a 'group probability' which represents the prediction's current likelihood. Like share prices, the group probability moves and up down as time passes based on members’ latest predictions.
The ‘current group probability’ of a prediction is calculated from all the individual predications members have made. The more individual forecasts made against a prediction, the more reliable the prediction becomes (in theory).
So, essentially one prediction can have many individual forecasts against it influencing the overall likelihood. This is called 'the group probability'.
Browsing & Finding Predictions
You can search for a specific prediction from the top search box on each page or browse predictions in a number of different ways. You can for example browse for 'entertainment' related predictions, or predictions that are 'most likely' based on their number of predictions and current group probability.
Creating your own prediction
Once logged in to Nostradamical you can create a new prediction from the top menu. As the prediction ‘owner’ you can give it an initial starting 'likelihood' (probability).
Any prediction ending within a 4 year horizon can be created. We have purposefully restricted this as waiting to see if the world will end in the year 2199 for example, might be quite boring.
An prediction must also have a confirmed outcome that can be verified as true of false. For example, predicting the next presidential election candidate would have a clear result, but predicting that July will be rainy is difficult to confirm with a simple ‘true’ or ‘false’ result.
Lastly, you can add a picture to your prediction, making it more appealing to visitors. Pictures show up in prediction listings.
Forecasting a prediction
From the prediction’s main page any member make a forecast for its likelhood using the prediction slider. Your input is added to the prediction and the Nostradamical Prediction Engine calculates the new ‘group probability’.
You can revise your forecast for a prediction at any time but your old forecast is automatically superseded by your new one. The closer to an prediction’s ‘end time’ you make a prediction, the less you are rewarded if successful. So if you want to win the big points, make predictions early on and stick to them!
The Nostradamical Prediction Engine
The Nostradamical Prediction Engine takes into account several factors when trying to calculate the group probability of a predictions. We are still fine tuning these as we want to get the best model available. If you have suggestions for improvement please send us some feedback.
The influencing factors are:
- The number of existing predictions. The more predictions that exist already, the less ‘power’ your individual prediction has to influence the group probability.
- The time left before the prediction ends. To stop member’s making wild predictions minutes before an prediction closes a prediction’s ‘power’ reduces as the prediction draws to a close.
- The member’s status. A member who was been successful in the past has more power to influence the group probability than a member who has just started with no proven track record.
Confirming and settling predictions
When the prediction reaches its end date, the prediction owner will be notified that they need to confirm the final outcome of their prediction to update all the members that made predictions against it.
Members that forecast correctly are rewarded with ‘Foresight’ (measured in Future Minutes) and move up in status, becoming increasingly ‘nostradamical’. A ‘correct’ prediction could mean that you forecasted the prediction as ‘correctly true’ (>=50%) or ‘correctly false’ (<50%).
Importantly, if the group was correct overall in their prediction each member is rewarded with a group bonus, even if their individual prediction was wrong. Power to the people!
Foresight, Potential and Influence
Each prediction you make gains you ‘potential’. This is like a bet and states the amount of ‘Foresight’ you will gain if your prediction turns out to be correct. Factors that influence the potential from a prediction are:
- How far into the future the prediction ends. The further ahead you make a prediction, the more potential you gain. So make a last minute forecast against an prediction won’t gain you much Foresight.
- Your confidence in your prediction. Simply put, a confident positive prediction say for90% or confident negative prediction for 10% gets you more 'Potential' than sitting on the fence around the 50% mark. So, make a confident prediction and stick to it.
- The number of existing predictions. If you are one of the first to make a forecast you stand to gain more 'Foresight' than if there are already many forecasts against an prediction. The idea here is to stop members ‘following the crowd’ with their opinion of an prediction. So again, get in early to get the big points!
The prediction owner can forecast the likelihood of their own prediction but they do not gain any extra ‘Foresight’ if the prediction is later correct. This is to stop people creating their own (potentially silly) predictions and gaining from them directly (e.g. I predict I will wake up tomorrow)!
The more ‘nostradamical’ a user becomes, the more power they have to influence the ‘current probability’ of a prediction, based on their previous success rates.
Conversely, ‘Newbies’ or members with low status do not carry much ‘weight’ with their individual predictions until they achieve more success.
Members with high status rise to the top of the ‘Nostradamical Pyramid’, achieving recognition for their sharp skills, judgement and luck. The Pyramid contains seven levels of status from ‘Newbie’ all the way up to ‘Oracle’. Take a look at The Pyramid here.
Categories & Tagging
Every prediction is classified into a category (e.g. Entertainment, Sport, Finance, Current Affairs, etc) and can be tagged with keywords
The most popular predictions (based on number of predictions and views) are ranked in each category, making it easy for you to find predictions on your favourite topics.
Members’ own successes are tracked by category, ensuring a successful member in the Finance category for example, doesn’t have the same influence over the Sport category
Grouping predictions into a collection
Even if you have not created any predictions yourself you can group others together into common themes or topics by using Collections. A Collection groups individual predictions together on one page at one address. For example, “Brad’s Oscar Predictions” could be my list that contains individual predictions from other members, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Movie’, etc. Give it a try!
Feeds & Integration
At Nostradamical we want you to tell the world about your predictions. We’re putting together several tools to allow you to present and integrate your predictions with your favourite web applications like Facebook, Bebo and Twitter. More on this soon…
Help & Support
Confused? Want to make a suggestion or find out more about how it works? We’re here to help. You can send us a question here, post a topic in our community forum, or even check out our Blog.
So that’s more or less how it works. Ready to get started? Why not sign up here, or login here.
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