Where the Disagreement figure comes from
How far apart independent communities are about the same subjects. Published only where more than one independent observer exists, and absent otherwise.
How it is put together
The independent observers
Discussion communities whose members do not overlap, read separately — every one of them, across every discussion source that reported on a subject. A platform organised into named rooms contributes each room; a platform that is one undivided conversation contributes itself, and is an observer like any other.
If this produces nothingBelow two independent observers there is nothing to compare, and this figure is not published at all. That is the ordinary state on this deployment.
Each observer's own reading
The overall tone of each community's discussion of the same subjects, worked out separately for each community so that the two can be held against each other.
In full: What is published for a period
If this produces nothingA community with nothing to say about a subject is absent from that comparison rather than counted as agreeing about it.
Which subjects can be compared
Only subjects that more than one community has actually said something about in the window. A subject one community discussed and the others ignored is set aside rather than being counted as a disagreement or as an agreement.
In full: Disagreement — how far independent observers differ
If this produces nothingIf no subject has a reading from more than one community, there is nothing to compare and no figure is published — even though independent communities exist.
This figure
How far apart the communities are, against a stated reference for what a full disagreement looks like. Each platform carries an equal share of the comparison, and within a platform its rooms carry as much as they each contributed — so the figure follows how far apart the communities are and not how much any one of them posts.
In full: Disagreement — how far independent observers differ
If this produces nothingAbsent rather than low. A single observer produces no figure by any path through this calculation — there is nowhere for a zero to come from, and a zero would claim the observers agree.
Disagreement — how far independent observers differ
How widely independent communities' overall tone is spread on the same subjects, scaled against the reference below.
**An observer is a community, and every discussion source that reported on a subject contributes its own.** A platform organised into named rooms contributes each room; a platform that is one undivided conversation contributes itself, and counts as an observer like any other — so two platforms differing about a subject is a disagreement this figure can see. Each platform then carries an equal share of the comparison, and within a platform its rooms carry as much as they each contributed, so the figure follows how far apart the communities are rather than how much any one of them posts.
**It is the spread across all of the communities, not the gap between the two furthest apart.** Those are different claims and only the first is what this figure says. Six communities reading a subject much the same way and one reading it very differently produces the same gap as a genuine two-way argument, and the gap also widens on its own as more communities are read — the furthest of many is further than the furthest of few, whatever the world is doing. Spread has neither property: a community that agrees with the rest brings it down.
**Below two independent observers no figure is published at all**, with a stated reason. There is no arithmetic anywhere in this method that can produce a figure from one community — not a small one, not a zero.
Subjects where the communities agreed are counted in, not left out. A subject is included as soon as more than one community has been read on it, whatever they said; excluding the ones that turned out to agree would decide the answer by choosing the question.
Disagreement between forecast sources is not part of it. Comparing two sources' answers requires deciding that they are answering the same question, which this product does not do; it is left out of the list rather than left in it scoring nothing, because a part that is permanently unmeasurable reads as a pipeline that keeps failing.
What this does not say
- **This figure is thin and was absent entirely until a second discussion community became reachable.** It rests on the subjects where more than one of them was read at all, which on this deployment is a small share of them, and each community's tone on such a subject can rest on a handful of comments. The published measurement quality figure beside it is the honest reading of that.
- **Where it is absent, that is the measurement.** A zero would be the strongest claim this product could make — that the world's observers agree — inferred from having asked one of them.
- Communities are not populations. Two online communities differing tells you about those two communities.
- Absence of measured disagreement is never evidence of agreement, here or anywhere else on this site.
Numbers this uses 3 constants
| Value | What it does | How it was arrived at |
|---|---|---|
2 independent observersdisagreement.minIndependentObservers | The fewest independent observers that can support a disagreement figure at all. Below it no figure is published, because one observer cannot disagree with itself. | Fixed by this product's own specification. |
1 share of the scoredisagreement.weights.community_sentiment | How much difference between independent communities counts toward the figure. It is the only part today, so it is the whole of it. | Fixed by this product's own specification. |
0.5 polaritydisagreement.communityDivergenceReference | How widely spread the communities' overall tone has to be before the figure is full. It is the spread across all of them rather than the gap between the two furthest apart, so one community far from the rest counts for less than a genuine two-way split. | A reasoned choice with no observed distribution behind it yet. Read it as a stated position, not a measurement. |
What this product does not claim
Stated positions about what this figure is, not a list of things not built yet.
One observer cannot demonstrate agreement
The disagreement figure is absent wherever only one community has been read on a subject, and that is the measurement rather than a gap in it. One community cannot disagree with itself. For most of this deployment's life only one online discussion community was reachable under its operator's terms, so the figure was absent everywhere; a second is now read, and the figure exists on the subjects where both of them were.
Forecasts are not combined across sources
Future Index does not currently combine forecasts from different sources into a single number. Each question shown is one source's contract, and every figure on it is computed from that source alone.
This describes the topics and questions this product tracks, not the world
Every figure here is an average over a chosen set: a few hundred topics with names somebody wrote down, and the forecast questions that passed an admission policy. Nothing in the arithmetic knows what it is missing.
Every threshold on this page is stated, not measured
All the numbers here are stated defaults: reasoned choices with an argument behind each and no observed distribution to place them against. That is stronger than it sounds — it means none of them was fitted to anything, not even second-hand.
The rest of it
- This figure inside the full methodology, with every method it draws on
- Where the Forecast Movement figure comes from
- Where the Attention figure comes from
- Where the Mood figure comes from
- Where the Uncertainty figure comes from
- Where the Turbulence figure comes from
- The same methodology as JSON
- Which sources this system reads, and on what terms