Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Halfbakery renormalisation

Resist the devaluation of the Croissant
  (+6, -30)(+6, -30)(+6, -30)
(+6, -30)
  [vote for,
against]

Being bullishly insecure, I just checked my profile page and discovered, to my smug glee, that I was in a net croissant situation - taking the average across my paltry six inventions.

Imagine my crestfalling, then, when I discovered that almost *all* halfbakers are in a positive patisserie situation: croissants outnumber fishbones by something like 2:1 overall.

Now, this is great and it means we are all brilliant and positive people, but it also means that, on average, our ideas are better than average. I am not sure where this will lead, but no good will come of it.

I therefore tentatively suggest that the threshold for croissant/fishbone imparting should be dynamically coupled to the voting pattern, overall, such that the average result across all ideas is neutral (neither fish nor flakiness).

MaxwellBuchanan, May 12 2007

Croissignificance_2...voting_20technology My similar idea; yours lumps the halfbakery element into one "big" user. [phundug, May 14 2007]

[link]






       Hm. Much more accurate, methinks, to take the inverse square root of the logarithms of the net votes, minus the checksum of the annotations.
DrCurry, May 12 2007
  

       That would be very silly. Imagine if there were zero votes. Think, for heaven's sake man.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 12 2007
  

       Looks to me like you need some bones to help balance you out. Here you go! [-]
nuclear hobo, May 13 2007
  

       Thanks, 'ear hobo. Can't beat a little pragmatism.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 13 2007
  

       [-] I'll contribute, too. (saw the word *normal*)
xandram, May 13 2007
  

       Thanks one and all. I feel there may be some mis-understanding of the word "renormalization" here, but I guess half an understanding is better than no bread.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 13 2007
  

       A quick look shows 5 out of your 7 ideas are bunned. If you were to delete 3 of these you would be in perfect harmony with the halbakery universe you propose.
nuclear hobo, May 13 2007
  

       This is getting very much out of hand, I fear. And alas it would not address the problem for the entire Bakerverse, only for the Buchanananiverse.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 13 2007
  

       A true leader leads by example.
nuclear hobo, May 13 2007
  

       //Bakerverse, only for the Buchanananiverse.//   

       A + for the laugh, but a - for the idea=net gain/loss of nothing. Which is somehow more important than something, at times. Depending upon your audience, of course.
blissmiss, May 13 2007
  

       <pedant> You will be unable to renormalise the bakery unless someone has an infinite amount of buns that can be cancelled out against someone else's infinite amount of bones. </p>
wagster, May 13 2007
  

       expert advice from [wagster]
"Get thee to a bonery"
xandram, May 13 2007
  

       //A true leader leads by example//   

       This week, I am delegating leadership.   

       //unable to renormalise unless...an infinite amount of buns// True in some contexts, especially where renormalisation is used to provide a finite answer. However, in this case, we are aiming for a zero sum - I believe this may make it possible to renormalize sub-infinite opposing quantities.   

       It's just a theory.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 13 2007
  

       There are many ways to normalize data. For example:   

       Total Buns for you / Total buns for whoever has the most   

       This ratio would be one for one person, and less than one for all others. The distribution of ratios would be gaussian between 0 and 1. Or not, hmm.
daseva, May 13 2007
  

       //The...would be....or not// A syntax for all seasons.   

       Relativistically, of course, there is no fixed frame of reference. This is why I keep spilling my drink.   

       It makes most sense, therefore, to take (as a reference) either the fixed stars, or the average of the entire bakerverse.   

       This started out as a simple concept. Thanks to all those amongst you who, by dint of sterling efforts, have made it difficult.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 13 2007
  

       I feel entitled to a say in how normalization is defined. I am currently engaged in some influential work in the field.
normzone, May 14 2007
  

       //sterling efforts//   

       Hang on: I've got an engine for that...   

       ...Anyhow, wouldn't this idea be implemented more simply if [MaxwellBuchanan] just sat perpendicular to his profile page?
pertinax, May 14 2007
  

       Not to mention the hopes that someone had invented a way to make us like other people.
daseva, May 14 2007
  

       Most of my [+] votes were lost in the Great Crash of September '04...
hippo, May 14 2007
  

       //if [MaxwellBuchanan] just sat perpendicular to his profile page// I have an LCD screen. Therefore, if I sit perpendicularly to it, my votes (and indeed everything else) vanish from view. This is therefore an instance of the "Schrodinger Renormalization Problem". But with fewer cats obviously.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 14 2007
  

       Depends where you work.
theleopard, May 14 2007
  

       [hippo] I have always felt bad for those who lost +votes in the crash, but then again there is a most inspirational aura surrounding those ideas that I truly respect and always see them as 2 1/2 bun ideas even if they never were.
xandram, May 14 2007
  

       //and always see them as 2 1/2 bun ideas even if they never were//   

       Ah. R.I.P. Mega Pie
Jinbish, May 14 2007
  

       It always amuses me that despite the perfectly normal obsession with collecting votes, people here are even more obsessed with the statistical methods of handling the votes. Then again, I am easily amused.
wagster, May 14 2007
  

       mb: sorry to take so long to get back to you, but what could be more half-baked than a voting system that results in values of log(0) ?
DrCurry, May 14 2007
  

       Dr C - well, OK. But I prefer ln(0) rather than log(0).   

       Just out of curiosity, fellahs, if I'd bemoaned the devaluation of the fishbone would you all have chipped in with a helpful bun?   

       Thought so.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 14 2007
  

       //Wouldn't renormalisation just be a different view of the voting actually collected ?// Exactly so, [Bigs]. The original aim was not to in any way alter the actual votes cast, but rather to dynamically shift the fishbone/croissant transition point in response to the current average.   

       Hence, if the Bakerverse is in a generally benevolent mood and is awarding more + than - votes, one might find that an idea with a net vote of +1 would be below the average, and hence would warrant a fishbone. Conversely, if the Bakers age and become a bunch of grumpy old men who habitually award more - than + votes, the threshold would shift such that an idea with a net vote of -1 might, by being relatively good, find itself sporting a croissant.   

       I can't help but feel that the concept is a lot simpler than people seem to be finding it.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 14 2007
  

       I often delete my fishboned ideas, unless I strongly believe in their validity. I don't want to clutter up the halfbakery with crap. Maybe other posters do this too.   

       Furthermore, some bad ideas get [m-f-d] and delete themselves. This leaves a net surplus of croissants.   

       It's hard to tell how many votes *cast* were croissants and how many were fishbones. I do wonder. We could possibly display it on each user's profile. But, I think the number of croissanted ideas the person was able to come up with is evidence enough.
phundug, May 14 2007
  

       I guess crap is in the eye of the beholder, because I often find myself casting bones on ideas others adore.   

       Deleting one's own fishy ideas makes the Bakerverse a poorer place. Any idea can serve as an inspiration, and some of the more heavily boned ones do this best. Also, it seems to me that the fishiest ideas are often some of the most heavily annotated.   

       Like this one, for instance.
nuclear hobo, May 15 2007
  

       and Vagina Jam. Can't forget Vagina Jam. Anything that gets 170 votes is worth keeping.
stilgar, May 15 2007
  

       I love the way that this idea is single-handedly renormalising the bakery. Not that this idea is that bad... but it does seem to be the solution to the problem it poses. Is that zen?
david_scothern, May 15 2007
  

       If the Halfbakery *was* normalized, wouldn't we all have to go somewhere else?
DrCurry, May 15 2007
  

       Can't help you with that one. Every place I go is normalized.
normzone, May 15 2007
  

       I'm sure it would be possible to calculate the total bun/bone ratio using views. Once you have that ratio you can easily 'renormalise' vote counts, either individually or by dynamically interpreting results returned by the bakery.   

       I'm damned if I can be bothered.
wagster, May 15 2007
  

       A not-so-quick analysis shows that the current bun/bone ratio is 18,792/5,755 (3.265/1).   

       This shows that either [MaxwellBuchanan] is correct, and that we are on the whole all brilliant and positive people OR that we are a self-deluded bunch with prescious little ability to discriminate between stupid and really stupid ideas (assuming of course that there is a difference).   

       The other thing this shows is that a bone is worth more than three buns, so one should be proud and honored to collect these valuable treats.
nuclear hobo, May 15 2007
  

       [Jutta], is the number of votes required to generate a whole fish the same as the number of votes per whole croissant? Or is the scale asymmetric?
phundug, May 15 2007
  

       //I'm damned if I can be bothered.// I'm damned if I can blame you.   

       //any stats for all ideas discounting those containing the words - custard, trebuchet or pirate ?// You could be onto something here. It should be possible to datamine the bakery and obtain, in effect, a bun quotient for every word on the site.   

       Obviously, "custard" and "trebuchet" would have a high BQ, since ideas containing them are frequently bunned. Words like "the" and "eventual" will have a BQ close to zero (at least after renormalisation; these words are no more likely to be associated with a bunned idea than with a boned one). Words like "renormalization", however, would have negative BQ's, as they are associated predominantly with boned ideas.   

       Having derived the BQ of every word, it should then be a trivial matter to generate an uber-bunnable idea, essentially by selecting only those words with positive BQs (plus a few neutral "the"s and "and"s).   

       In a preferred embodiment of this idea, hidden Markov models are used to further optimise the choice and order of high-BQ words.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 15 2007
  

       I think the problem lies in that each individual vote can only have three states: positive, negative, or neutral. Thus, bun status is not really a measure of quality, simply a measure that states that an idea is good rather than bad. More buns does not mean "really good idea", it means "really popular idea that is also somewhat good".   

       As such, the nun imbalance doesn't mean we all have fantastic ideas--just that we have more good ideas than bad ones. Factor in that many people delete their really bad ideas, removing bones from the system, and a bun surplus seems fine to me.
5th Earth, May 16 2007
  

       //the nun imbalance//   

       I was tempted to make a pun here, but I'm trying to get out of the habit.
imaginality, May 16 2007
  

       //bun status is not really a measure of quality, simply a measure that states that an idea is good rather than bad//   

       I don't equate bun status with the quality of an idea itself but rather with the enjoyment it delivers to halfbakers. A well-bunned idea may be a good idea, but if it is truly halfbaked then it can never be good in a practical sense. Thus a high BQ imples an idea that a majority of voting halfbakers approve of for other reasons, such as humor, irony, presentation, etc., assuming of course that halfbakers in general agree with this precept.
nuclear hobo, May 16 2007
  

       [imaginality] gets the prize! I actually noticed that typo, but was so amused I left it in to see if anyone would notice.   

       However, the prize is revoked for the habit pun. >:-)
5th Earth, May 16 2007
  

       This from the help file: "Positive and negative votes are summed up, compared with the votes for all other inventions, and normalized into a numeric range of -2.5 to +2.5."   

       I don't understand how this idea is any different from what already happens.   

       How did you come across your findings Maxwell? If there is a majority of people with a bun surplus*, might there be a bony minority of people who are making it look as though you have skewed results?   

       *there is the question of how sensible it is to measure the bun/bone ration at the user level, rather than at the individual idea level - after all, it's the ideas that attract the articles, not the users.
zen_tom, May 18 2007
  

       //Positive and negative votes ... normalized ....//   

       Aha. Yes. Well, I think my idea still stands, but with the caveat that it is now totally redundant.   

       I stand redundled.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 18 2007
  

       The votes are normalized for each half separately; I thought you wanted to normalize them together. (So that, if an idea has 1 vote in favor, but the average idea has 2 votes in favor, that +1 idea would display with half a fishbone.)
jutta, May 18 2007
  

       Another way to normalize would be to automatically apply 3.265 bones to every idea.
nuclear hobo, May 18 2007
  

       //The votes are normalized for each half separately// Aha! In which case I am less redundant than I thought I was. Yes, I was mooting (wanting is maybe too strong a word, in the cold light of day) an overall normalization, along the lines you described.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 18 2007
  

       [MaxwellBuchanan], if you collect a few more bones with this idea, you may succeed in accomplishing your objective without the need for administrative action.
nuclear hobo, May 18 2007
  

       Let's try halfnormal rebakerisation instead - it sounds more interesting.
david_scothern, May 19 2007
  

       I did not read the annotations yet, but this art-tickle made me laugh; I really couldn't help it :)
abadon, Nov 09 2007
  

       Data. I want rock hard, throbbing data. For example, I see [Antegrity] has resurfaced - no fear of the bone there. Old [myclob] is another who springs to mind as an ossuary keeper. [Max], I think you need to take a random sampling of HB users and determine exactly what the bone and bun count is.   

       Write up a nifty little robot to do this, because if robotized it can actually be comprehensive instead of just a sample.   

       Report back with that diamond-hard data.
bungston, Nov 09 2007
  
      
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