Questions

The first thing you see in the App is the list of questions that have been made.

• Questions are how the app organizes forecasts and the process of making them
• Questions can contain other questions. Typically there will be one top level question per workshop or topic of forecasting.
• Questions are grouped into
  • Participating & active: both active and tasked to you (see Participation)
  • Active: statis one of Review , Conditional Generation or Forecasting
  • Inactive: all the other status’
• Forecasters can indicate which questions they want to participate in (the Spock hand). More detail in the participation section.

(Admins: see Creating a question )

Question Status

Questions have a status which determines who can see it and a variety of UI default behaviours change accordingly. The happy path a question will go though is

Review → Conditional Generation → Forecasting → Complete → Resolved

see the definitions in the image to the right

The questions that forecasters should pay attention to is are ones with these status:

• Question-review if you want feedback before forecasting
• Conditional-ceneration if you want conditionals to be suggested by forecasters
• Forecasting to get started right away

Question Status Definitions

Sub-questions

A question can contain sub-questions. To add sub-questions, start by typing in the propose a sub-question... box below the question forecast.

Sub-questions have a type :

Cause: A question whose resolution impacts the main question. Forecast the cause, and also the main question conditional on the cause's resolution.

Consequence: A question which depends on how the main question is resolved. Forecast the consequence conditional on the questions resolution.

Related: Related to the question but not conditional. Use when you are interested in forecasting this plainly

Voting

Everyone can vote up or down other people's sub-questions. The admin will be able to take this into account when approving which sub-question will be available for forecasting.

• vote up to +2 or down to -2
• the order will displayed with the top voted first (if it changes, a button will appear to show the new order)

Cause

A cause is something that influences the outcome of the main question. You will be forecasting the cause, and also the main question conditional on how the cause resolves.

Just like a question, the cause can be either a likelihood or amount.

• this can’t be changed after a forecast has been made
• it will populate the resolutions with defaults accordingly

Likelihood Cause Example

Take the question Will it rain . You could add a cause titled Dark clouds seen . Forecasters will then forecast

• the likelihood of this cause happening (Dark cloud seen)
• the likelihood for the main question (Will it rain) IF dark clouds have been seen.

The cause likelihood, and resolutions can be customized

• enable/disable if the likelihood/cause-resolution should be forecast

• change the title/description and color

  

  Example Likelihood Cause

Amount Cause Example

Causes can be a different type of forecast than the main question. For example we could add a cause Cloud cover as an amount forecast.

• configure the cause resolution as a condition based on an amount value. e.g. % sky covered by cloud

  

  Example Amount Cause

Consequence

A consequence is something that is influenced by the outcome of the main question. You will be forecasting the consequence conditional on the outcome of the main question.

For our Will it rain question, we could add a likelihood consequence called Picnic still on? . Forecasters will now also add forecasts for the likelihood of the picnic happening depending on the resolution of the question:

• If it rains
• If it doesn't rain

Related

This is another question that is not conditional on the main question.

Tips:

• It is often easiest to start all sub-questions as related, and then decide on if it should be cause or consequence once you have decided to forecast on it.

Comparisons

Forecasters and admins can add comparisons to any question. These can be relevant base rates or external forecasts - anything you want to compare against.

To add a comparison, expand the comparisons section on the relevant question, then start typing into the “add a comparison…” input.

Visibility

• The admin can choose which of these to publish, which will then be displayed on the Results tab, and in the published version.
• Published comparisons will also appear on the accuracy screen
• By default your own comparisons, and published ones are visible. Others forecasts can be show by clicking the toggle visibility icon