I really like this post, it feels like it draws attention to an important lack of clarity.
One thing I’d suggest changing: when introducing new terminology, I think it’s much better to use terms that are already widely comprehensible if possible, than terms based on specific references which you’d need to explain to people who are unfamiliar in each case.
So I’d suggest renaming ‘ass-number’ to wild guess and ‘foxy aggregation’ to multiple models or similar.
I like ‘ass number’ because it points at the actual experience / cognitive process behind these numbers. ‘Wild guess’ is vaguer—e.g., if I’m using a standard statistical technique to estimate a number from other (observed) numbers, then I wouldn’t call that an ‘ass number’, but I might still call it a ‘wild guess’ if the output is extremely uncertain.
I really like this post, it feels like it draws attention to an important lack of clarity.
One thing I’d suggest changing: when introducing new terminology, I think it’s much better to use terms that are already widely comprehensible if possible, than terms based on specific references which you’d need to explain to people who are unfamiliar in each case.
So I’d suggest renaming ‘ass-number’ to wild guess and ‘foxy aggregation’ to multiple models or similar.
Thanks! Good point, I’ll edit those in!
I like ‘ass number’ because it points at the actual experience / cognitive process behind these numbers. ‘Wild guess’ is vaguer—e.g., if I’m using a standard statistical technique to estimate a number from other (observed) numbers, then I wouldn’t call that an ‘ass number’, but I might still call it a ‘wild guess’ if the output is extremely uncertain.
I always hear “swag” (“scientific wild-ass guess”), which manages to incorporate both “ass” and “wild guess”.