Prediction Book is a really promising app, but it unfortunately has lots of problems, and it doesn’t look like it’s being improved very much at all.
Among the problems are:
performance is terrible, making it really frustrating to use, because you’re forever waiting for pages to load
the UI is confusing, which leads to lots of wrong judgments, though it has improved from what it was
the right/wrong judgment is global, not per user, so if 2 people make a prediction on “I will lose 5 pounds before Jan. 1, 2010”, then it can only be judged right or wrong for both of them, not right for one and wrong for the other. The only alternative is to make everything private, which eliminates the benefits of seeing other people’s estimates on the same issue and of the comments and feedback from other users.
Despite any problems, it is still a pretty convenient place to record predictions and that was the topic at issue.
I agree with the first two complaints.
I’m not sure I would want predictions with indexicals referring to the user who posted them to apply to all users. That makes little sense since the prediction that you lose wait is totally different from the prediction that anyone else does. It definitely is a little strange to see “I will do x” and not estimate as if it is yourself but I have no idea why it would be helpful to see “other people’s estimates on the same issue” since it isn’t the same issue. What would be the point of a composite estimation? Maybe it would be nice to have a tool that grouped predictions like this so people could talk about them, but that is hardly the most pressing issue.
Yes, it’s definitely convenient. I guess I am a bit frustrated with PB because I thought it had tremendous potential and was very excited about using it. After using it for a while now and making more than a hundred predictions with it, the problems have worn me down and there seems little chance that it’ll be improved, since they’ve said they’ll only improve it if it’s used a lot (and it doesn’t get very much use because of all the problems).
The issue with not having the judgments of public options be able to be different per user is that there are lots of public predictions that include indexicals and that multiple people vote on (I’ve done it myself before I realized what it leads to), and there will probably continue to be plenty of those kinds of predictions, since there is no suggestion from PB that public predictions should not include indexicals or that people should avoid providing estimates on public predictions that include indexicals.
What happens is that multiple people make predictions, and then the judgment swings back and forth between Right and Wrong as different people judge it Right or Wrong for them, many of them probably thinking that they’re rendering judgment for themselves and not for everybody else as well. Now, I make everything private to avoid these kinds of problems, but a site like that with most content private is much less useful than it would be if things were more public, and people could get ideas about things to make predictions on from other people and could comment on each others’ predictions.
Another problem is that if, every time I see a prediction with an indexical (of which there are many) that I would like to add an estimate for, I have to create a new prediction and copy/paste the text or type it out again, then it becomes too much of a hassle—especially given how slow everything is. I don’t care how it’s implemented, but I should just have to add an estimate and click a button. Anything more than that is too much work when the exact wording for the prediction I want to make already exists and I’m looking at it. Perhaps they could add another button to allow making a private estimate for that prediction, and then allow a private judgment for it that is only visible to the user as well.
And no, I didn’t vote in the feedback. Requiring your users to sign up for a different account in order to provide feedback is just obnoxious.
Dude, we’re trying to help on many fronts. We host OB at no charge; we developed and host LW at no charge; we wrote PB and offer it at no charge. If you tried a little harder, do you think you could come up with an explanation for why we’d use an external feedback service other than that we’re obnoxious?
ETA 08:39:51 UTC:
Sorry—that was overly snarky. You obviously want to be a passionate user but are being let down by our lack of time to tune and improve the site. Watch for a top level post on PB and its future coming soon.
I didn’t say you or anybody else developing PB is obnoxious. I said a certain behavior (requiring signing up for 2 accounts) was obnoxious. And since behaviors aren’t intrinsically obnoxious or not, I obviously meant that I judge that requiring users to sign up for a second account to give feedback is obnoxious. Colloquially, this just means that I find it annoying, and it doesn’t imply that you’re trying to annoy anyone or say anything about you as a person. I find the behavior annoying, which I gave as an explanation for why I didn’t bother to provide feedback.
I can of course imagine plenty of reasons why you’d use an external feedback service, just like I can imagine plenty of reasons that the performance would be what it is, none of them involving any kind of malevolent intention or lack of skill on your part. Nevertheless, I and quite a few others find PB frustrating to use, which is a real shame for an app that holds so much promise.
For what it’s worth, I applaud your pro bono work for OB and LW, and I hope you keep up the good work. I think PB holds incredible promise, and I hope that you do find a way to improve it.
No apology necessary. I’d probably react similarly if I felt that somebody was being unconstructively critical of an app that I created.
I was just frustrated, as you guessed, because I really care about the idea and the app, and I see so much promise there. I should have just said to the original poster that I didn’t provide feedback because I didn’t want to sign up for a second account, but my frustration made me get snarky, which I apologize for.
Thanks again to you and everybody else at Tricycle.
Prediction Book is a really promising app, but it unfortunately has lots of problems, and it doesn’t look like it’s being improved very much at all.
Among the problems are:
performance is terrible, making it really frustrating to use, because you’re forever waiting for pages to load
the UI is confusing, which leads to lots of wrong judgments, though it has improved from what it was
the right/wrong judgment is global, not per user, so if 2 people make a prediction on “I will lose 5 pounds before Jan. 1, 2010”, then it can only be judged right or wrong for both of them, not right for one and wrong for the other. The only alternative is to make everything private, which eliminates the benefits of seeing other people’s estimates on the same issue and of the comments and feedback from other users.
Despite any problems, it is still a pretty convenient place to record predictions and that was the topic at issue.
I agree with the first two complaints.
I’m not sure I would want predictions with indexicals referring to the user who posted them to apply to all users. That makes little sense since the prediction that you lose wait is totally different from the prediction that anyone else does. It definitely is a little strange to see “I will do x” and not estimate as if it is yourself but I have no idea why it would be helpful to see “other people’s estimates on the same issue” since it isn’t the same issue. What would be the point of a composite estimation? Maybe it would be nice to have a tool that grouped predictions like this so people could talk about them, but that is hardly the most pressing issue.
You’ve voted in the site’s feedback section, yes?
Yes, it’s definitely convenient. I guess I am a bit frustrated with PB because I thought it had tremendous potential and was very excited about using it. After using it for a while now and making more than a hundred predictions with it, the problems have worn me down and there seems little chance that it’ll be improved, since they’ve said they’ll only improve it if it’s used a lot (and it doesn’t get very much use because of all the problems).
The issue with not having the judgments of public options be able to be different per user is that there are lots of public predictions that include indexicals and that multiple people vote on (I’ve done it myself before I realized what it leads to), and there will probably continue to be plenty of those kinds of predictions, since there is no suggestion from PB that public predictions should not include indexicals or that people should avoid providing estimates on public predictions that include indexicals.
What happens is that multiple people make predictions, and then the judgment swings back and forth between Right and Wrong as different people judge it Right or Wrong for them, many of them probably thinking that they’re rendering judgment for themselves and not for everybody else as well. Now, I make everything private to avoid these kinds of problems, but a site like that with most content private is much less useful than it would be if things were more public, and people could get ideas about things to make predictions on from other people and could comment on each others’ predictions.
Another problem is that if, every time I see a prediction with an indexical (of which there are many) that I would like to add an estimate for, I have to create a new prediction and copy/paste the text or type it out again, then it becomes too much of a hassle—especially given how slow everything is. I don’t care how it’s implemented, but I should just have to add an estimate and click a button. Anything more than that is too much work when the exact wording for the prediction I want to make already exists and I’m looking at it. Perhaps they could add another button to allow making a private estimate for that prediction, and then allow a private judgment for it that is only visible to the user as well.
And no, I didn’t vote in the feedback. Requiring your users to sign up for a different account in order to provide feedback is just obnoxious.
Dude, we’re trying to help on many fronts. We host OB at no charge; we developed and host LW at no charge; we wrote PB and offer it at no charge. If you tried a little harder, do you think you could come up with an explanation for why we’d use an external feedback service other than that we’re obnoxious?
ETA 08:39:51 UTC: Sorry—that was overly snarky. You obviously want to be a passionate user but are being let down by our lack of time to tune and improve the site. Watch for a top level post on PB and its future coming soon.
I didn’t say you or anybody else developing PB is obnoxious. I said a certain behavior (requiring signing up for 2 accounts) was obnoxious. And since behaviors aren’t intrinsically obnoxious or not, I obviously meant that I judge that requiring users to sign up for a second account to give feedback is obnoxious. Colloquially, this just means that I find it annoying, and it doesn’t imply that you’re trying to annoy anyone or say anything about you as a person. I find the behavior annoying, which I gave as an explanation for why I didn’t bother to provide feedback.
I can of course imagine plenty of reasons why you’d use an external feedback service, just like I can imagine plenty of reasons that the performance would be what it is, none of them involving any kind of malevolent intention or lack of skill on your part. Nevertheless, I and quite a few others find PB frustrating to use, which is a real shame for an app that holds so much promise.
For what it’s worth, I applaud your pro bono work for OB and LW, and I hope you keep up the good work. I think PB holds incredible promise, and I hope that you do find a way to improve it.
No apology necessary. I’d probably react similarly if I felt that somebody was being unconstructively critical of an app that I created.
I was just frustrated, as you guessed, because I really care about the idea and the app, and I see so much promise there. I should have just said to the original poster that I didn’t provide feedback because I didn’t want to sign up for a second account, but my frustration made me get snarky, which I apologize for.
Thanks again to you and everybody else at Tricycle.