The first event of the 2008 quiz has taken place! In the biggest Super Bowl upset since 2002, Tom Brady and the undefeated Patriots lost to Eli Manning and his upstart New York Giants.
Of the 27 people who are playing along this year's quiz, nearly everyone picked the Patriots. I thought it was fun that my question answers nearly predicted the actual betting line for the game, too: the Patriots were 14 point favorites to win. 21 picked the Patriots to win, with a or b. Jorge alone picked the Cowboys, and three people picked the Colts, but it was Liz and Missy who won the first question by picking the underdog "none of the above."
Liz was hoping that Brett Favre might lead the Packers to victory. Missy didn't have a particular team in mind: she chose "f" for every question. Now they're each leading the rest of us by a score of 1-0.
Alert readers may recall that the Super Bowl question was actually second in the quiz. The first question asked about the Economist Democracy Index. I thought that was posted in January, but I was thinking of the Freedom House's Freedom in the World report, which does a similar thing. The Economist index, it seems, will actually come out in August.
The next question, then, is about the Oscars. We'll find out who wins for best picture later this month. Again, I was happy with my question-writing, as four of the five pictures I listed actually did get nominated. (I would have been embarrassed, for example, if we knew "none of the above" would win because none of the other five films I listed had been nominated.) The only film that was on the quiz but that did not get nominated was American Gangster, and not one person picked it to win. (See my comments below on collective wisdom!) At least one person picked each of the other answers, including a whopping 9 who picked "none of the above." They will be rooting for Juno, battling the 9 who picked Atonement and the 7 who picked No Country for Old Men.
Statistics geek that I am, I wanted to know which of us 27 entrants was the early favorite to win. Prediction markets work by tapping into the collective knowledge of a large group of motivated individuals, and what were the quiz answers other than precisely this? I gave each entrant one point for each answer that matched theirs on any question. Dividing by the 27 entrants gave a "predicted score" for the quiz based on the collected knowledge of everyone.
Tied at the top of the list were Laura and me, with a predicted score of 4.26 (we do not have identical answers to the 12 questions - just the same score, as it happens). While it could be that I am just that good at predicting future events based on collective wisdom, I think it is far more likely that I injected some of my personal biases into writing the question summaries and subliminally coerced people into voting like I did. That hypothesis has gained some credence now that the Patriots have lost the Super Bowl.
As I said, Liz and Missy are now leading the "actual score" race with one question correct. That's not enough to give either the lead in the "predicted score" race, however, which is now led by Matthew D. with a predicted score of 3.74. He is followed closely by Laura and myself (3.70), then Ekrem (3.67), and then Jeremiah and Beth Z. (3.63). Ekrem's high predictive score is particularly impressive to me, because he decided he wanted to make a nice pattern with his answers. He chose in the end to tell a story about troubled dissent in a down-and-out necklace: "Bad bead baaed." This was not entirely random, as he chose among several story options that allowed Boston teams to win championships. He told me he would have chosen to tell a story about prostitution if totally unconstrained by what teams he was picking: "Bad babes abed." (Oops! Correction: since there is no option S, Ekrem was actually leaning toward "a bad babe abed.")
Of the 27 people who are playing along this year's quiz, nearly everyone picked the Patriots. I thought it was fun that my question answers nearly predicted the actual betting line for the game, too: the Patriots were 14 point favorites to win. 21 picked the Patriots to win, with a or b. Jorge alone picked the Cowboys, and three people picked the Colts, but it was Liz and Missy who won the first question by picking the underdog "none of the above."
Liz was hoping that Brett Favre might lead the Packers to victory. Missy didn't have a particular team in mind: she chose "f" for every question. Now they're each leading the rest of us by a score of 1-0.
Alert readers may recall that the Super Bowl question was actually second in the quiz. The first question asked about the Economist Democracy Index. I thought that was posted in January, but I was thinking of the Freedom House's Freedom in the World report, which does a similar thing. The Economist index, it seems, will actually come out in August.
The next question, then, is about the Oscars. We'll find out who wins for best picture later this month. Again, I was happy with my question-writing, as four of the five pictures I listed actually did get nominated. (I would have been embarrassed, for example, if we knew "none of the above" would win because none of the other five films I listed had been nominated.) The only film that was on the quiz but that did not get nominated was American Gangster, and not one person picked it to win. (See my comments below on collective wisdom!) At least one person picked each of the other answers, including a whopping 9 who picked "none of the above." They will be rooting for Juno, battling the 9 who picked Atonement and the 7 who picked No Country for Old Men.
Statistics geek that I am, I wanted to know which of us 27 entrants was the early favorite to win. Prediction markets work by tapping into the collective knowledge of a large group of motivated individuals, and what were the quiz answers other than precisely this? I gave each entrant one point for each answer that matched theirs on any question. Dividing by the 27 entrants gave a "predicted score" for the quiz based on the collected knowledge of everyone.
Tied at the top of the list were Laura and me, with a predicted score of 4.26 (we do not have identical answers to the 12 questions - just the same score, as it happens). While it could be that I am just that good at predicting future events based on collective wisdom, I think it is far more likely that I injected some of my personal biases into writing the question summaries and subliminally coerced people into voting like I did. That hypothesis has gained some credence now that the Patriots have lost the Super Bowl.
As I said, Liz and Missy are now leading the "actual score" race with one question correct. That's not enough to give either the lead in the "predicted score" race, however, which is now led by Matthew D. with a predicted score of 3.74. He is followed closely by Laura and myself (3.70), then Ekrem (3.67), and then Jeremiah and Beth Z. (3.63). Ekrem's high predictive score is particularly impressive to me, because he decided he wanted to make a nice pattern with his answers. He chose in the end to tell a story about troubled dissent in a down-and-out necklace: "Bad bead baaed." This was not entirely random, as he chose among several story options that allowed Boston teams to win championships. He told me he would have chosen to tell a story about prostitution if totally unconstrained by what teams he was picking: "Bad babes abed." (Oops! Correction: since there is no option S, Ekrem was actually leaning toward "a bad babe abed.")
Yeah that sucks. I always get that damn Freedom in the World report and the Demoncracy Index confused, too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for keeping us posted. By the way, it kinda felt like this year was off to a slow/crummy start and now my zero points and lack of collective wisdom kinda bears that out.
Sadly, I think "Bad babes abed" would be illegal. Perhaps I was thinking "A bad babe abed"?
ReplyDeleteSadly, this does no better on the second question.
Yes! It must have been "a bad babe abed," as there is no option S. Funny that I verified my memory of your suggested entry by counting the number of letters but not confirming that all letters were between A and F.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he was thinking of a certain uncooperative wee lass whose name begins with J.
ReplyDeleteNot all bad babes are ladies of the night.
I won't start singing "we are the champions" with Mindy until we have another win under our belts.
ReplyDelete-liz
Sorry, Missy. My typing got away from me.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Leanne. I was making some assumptions about Ekrem's "bad babe." I should have reasoned that he typically spends much more time with his young daughter than he does with his lady of the night.
ReplyDelete