# michal_dubrawski ("Michał" on discord) Candidacy Hi, it was suggested to me that our mods might need more help. As most of you know I am not a native English speaker, and my English is as it is. I also might currently not have much time each week to work as a mod, but as Sylvain said on the discord it would be better to "have many hands doing a little bit of work, than rely on too few overworked mods". If the community accepts me as a mod this time, I will do my best to provide help, even if this wouldn't be much each week. This time up to thre...

# michal_dubrawski Candidacy I may not be as experienced a forecaster as many of you, but I love forecasting and this community is a very important part of my life. Metaculus is for me a place where you meet fascinating people and can learn a lot. I would like to play a bigger part in our collective endeavour to forecast the future as accurately as possible as well as in our journey to improve ourselves and our skills. I believe the best way to do that is by cooperation, constructive discussion and mutual respect for each other. I have some experien...

The community median seems too far from 99% with less than a month till question resolution and current state of events (I am on 99% since early December). There might have been quite strong signals in the past but the system was rather stable and what was not stable within that system (like state TV workers protest) was already stabilized by Putin. I know it means fewer points for me if you update but my goal is to be a good forecaster, I am not driven by competition, I prefer good cooperation :)

Hi, I am looking for other forecasters from Poland, like me, @FranekŻak, and @ePortfel. I try to promote forecasting and it is my goal to create a forecasting community in Poland. If you are from Poland or are interested in forecasting about Poland I would be happy to make the connection and maybe write some questions together or make some team forecasting. Maybe in the future (after the pandemic) we could even have an offline Meetup. Please see my Metaculus profile for contact details and to read more about me. I tag some users whose usernames sugges...

@chrisjbillington I confirm your translation (I am Polish).

I am very pleased to see @(NathanpmYoung)'s candidacy here and I am sure he would make a great addition to the Mods Team! I am also convinced that @(PeterWildeford), Clay Graubard, Andrew Eaddy (@(GlobalGuessing)) and @(SimonM) would be great mods if they decide to stand for election. As @Sylvain once said on the discord, it would be better to "have many hands doing a little bit of work, than rely on too few overworked mods", so if you are not sure about the amount of time you can dedicate to moderating, then my logic is that **even small help is bet...

@alexlyzhov @alwaysrinse @DanielFilan I think I understand your point but I personally agree with Metaculus Team's (@admins) choice here. Many of us in the community forecast to have some positive impact on the world - I know it from conversations with some of you. That is what is my motivation at least, and I am speaking for myself, but maybe it is something which you and I have in common. I do not know what was @Anthony 's and others' vision when they started Metaculus in 2015, nor how many people in the community share my view, it is just I really alw...

https://time.com/5661163/hong-kong-beijing-in…

"In the wake of violent clashes in Hong Kong on Sunday, during which a live gunshot was fired for the first time since protests began in early June, Chinese state media used its harshest rhetoric yet to condemn the unrest and warned that Beijing could soon intervene."

Yesterday during my signal hunting session I found these signals: [18-10-2022 - Tasnim News Agency (Iranian news agency): Russian Senator Urges Ban on YouTube As Google Suspends Federation Council Accounts:](https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2022/10/18/2790017/russian-senator-urges-ban-on-youtube-as-google-suspends-federation-council-accounts) >Following Google's decision to permanently suspend the accounts of the Russian Federation Council (Senate), __the country's federal telecom watchdog and the prosecutor general's office considered a nationwide b...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/27…

"In response to questions on whether the government will resort to declaring a state of emergency in view of the recent chaos, Lam said the government will use existing means in the legal framework to “put a stop to violence and chaos”."

@tenthkrige Thank you. With pleasure. I'll do it today after work.

@beala @casens Congratulations to both of you! I am sure the Metaculus Moderator Team will have great support from you :) Good luck in your new role!

@ThirdEyeOpen Good to see your Candidacy. I viewed your profile and there were some comments I really liked (some of which were already upvoted by me in the past). I also like your attitude expressed in your candidacy post. Good luck with the election! I will vote for you! :)

One minor clarification so that new users won't get confused: moderators do not resolve the questions, only admins can do it. However, moderators could help with that like other users by providing relevant information.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/08/20/chandrayaan-2-arrives-in-lunar-orbit-targets-moon-landing-next-month/ >Less than half of the attempts to land on the moon since the dawn of the Space Age have been successful, and the $142 million Chandrayaan 2 mission will be India’s first try." That would mean that the base rate is lower than 50%, but so far everything is going according to the plan (but most failures I can think of was on that last step - the soft landing part). K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, India’s space agency...

DAVINCI+ program chances might be lower now with [these new controversies around the finding of phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/10/venus-might-not-have-much-phosphine-dampening-hopes-for-life/): >The detection of phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus—a possible sign of life—might be due to a fluke in data processing, new analyses suggest. (...) three independent studies now have failed to find evidence of phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere. >One of the groups used archival observations to search for...

This is from August 13: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/0…

As students prepare for an academic year that will be entirely virtual, many Harvard faculty members have, like Carpenter, reconceived and redesigned their courses to offer students ways to find community in the absence of in-person learning.

Thank you @Sylvain and @ThirdEyeOpen. Also thanks to all who voted in the election, especially those who expressed confidence in my candidacy.

Congratulations to you @ThirdEyeOpen! You have impressive approval! I am looking forward to our cooperation :)

I have modified Tamay's calculator so that each of us can add our own estimations of probabilities for each evidence and add his/her own prior. You would be able to see your results from your individual estimations but workbook would also use the median from our estimations as a crowd to calculate the results. Is anyone interested?

Let's see where would wisdom of the crowd lead us! :)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12ozNl…

Another very interesting article: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/06/chinas-paramilitary-police-could-crush-hong-kong/ I also think that they would rather not use the army (PLA) because of international repercussions (it is not a price they are not able to pay, however, they rather prefer to keep Hong Kong status as strong financial center) and for propaganda reasons but usage of People's Armed Police seem more likely (it was used to quell protests in Tibet and Xinjiang). If the situation would get to the point where they need to quell the protests wi...

@tenthkrige Because of the upcoming 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China similar Question about intervention in September would be very interesting. What do you think?