Methodology

The arithmetic mean of all valid current assessments for a subject, where each assessment is an integer from 0 to 10 inclusive.

Aggregate scores retain decimal precision and are never rounded to a whole number. Rounding would collapse distinctions the dataset exists to record: a subject at 7.4 and a subject at 7.6 are not the same subject.

The midpoint of the distribution, reconstructed from the stored score histogram. The median is reported alongside the mean because the two diverge exactly where a subject is most interesting — when opinion is clustered at the extremes rather than the centre.

The number of unique current anonymous session assessments held for a subject. Revisions replace rather than accumulate, so a session contributes exactly one figure regardless of how many times it changes its mind.

Subjects are reported in one of four sample states:

• UNMEASURED — no assessments recorded.
• EARLY RESEARCH — 1 to 24 assessments.
• PRELIMINARY FINDINGS — 25 to 99 assessments.
• RANKING ELIGIBLE — 100 or more assessments.

A subject requires 100 valid current assessments before it may hold an official position in the Global Goonability Rankings.

Subjects below the threshold still display and share their score. They simply take no rank. Preliminary findings are findings; they are not yet a league position.

A normalised measure derived from the standard deviation of a subject's assessments, expressed on a 0 to 100 scale. It is computed from the stored count, score sum and sum of squared scores, so no historical scan is required.

Dispersion, not reaction volume, is the basis. An item everyone rates around 7 is not controversial. An item receiving large numbers of both 0 and 10 assessments is. Official controversy positions also require 100 assessments.

Trending measures acceleration in recent cultural engagement rather than absolute score. A highly rated subject that nobody is currently assessing is not trending; a moderately rated subject receiving sudden attention is.

Minimum activity thresholds apply in both comparison windows, so a newly published subject with three assessments cannot dominate the measure.

Every assessment is timestamped, and daily aggregate snapshots are designed to preserve score movement over time without rescanning the full assessment record.

All internal timestamps use UTC, converted for display. Time-windowed figures measure sentiment recorded within that period rather than the all-time score with a date attached to it.

A composite indicator of recent directional cultural movement, combining assessment velocity against its own preceding period, recent score movement, and sharing and reaction activity, normalised and gated behind a minimum sample.

Submissions are validated server-side. Scores outside the 0 to 10 integer range are rejected outright. Each assessment carries a request identifier recorded by the database, so a retried or duplicated request replays its original result instead of moving the aggregate twice.

Assessment rate is monitored per anonymous session, and submissions exceeding plausible human review speed are refused. Invalid or suspicious automated submissions may be rejected without notice.

Anonymous browser sessions are not guaranteed to represent unique humans. A single person using several browsers or devices will hold several independent session identities, and clearing browser storage produces a new one. The Institute does not fingerprint visitors or attempt cross-device identification, and accepts the resulting imprecision as the cost of not doing so. Traffic measurement is a separate system, described in the privacy notice, and contributes nothing to the figures published here.

Participation is self-selecting. Respondents are people who chose to answer, which is not the same as a representative sample of any population. Figures published here describe the opinions of those who assessed a subject. They should not be read as describing humanity, notwithstanding the language used elsewhere on this site.