A Call For Metrics For Predictors

This is the time of year when we get two broad categories of articles/features: retrospectives of the year gone by, and prognostications for the year to come. I've already read a few of the latter type, and I've come to realize that there's almost always an element missing from most of them that I'd like to see added: what kind of job they've done in the past.

If you're in the habit of making predictions for the upcoming year, then I think you owe it to your audience to give some sort of indication of past performance. So, for example, I just finished reading a comic-based article called "11 for '11: Things to Watch for in the New Year (Series / Graphic Novels)". In it, the author gives 11 series that he thinks will be worth reading in this new year, along with reasons why. I happen to recall that last year there were similar lists entitled "10 for '10", along the same lines. While I'm sure I could find them if I really made the effort, I would think that part of the act of establishing some "street cred" for such an article would be recounting what 10 series were highlighted at this time last year, along with a brief description of how each panned out. In that way, we'd have some notion of whether this is coming from an empty-headed, hype-swallowing bozo, or an enlightened observer.

What I find, though, is that predictors rarely seem to do this. Perhaps that's simply a reflection of the fact that most of them are lousy at their job, or even that they never bother to actually measure their own performance in that way! In either case, it makes me less interested in what they have to say.