@(Aotho)
I'm at 80%. Two points that seem relevant to me are:
First, even if the article isn't published in its original form, it seems some what unlikely to me that they'd spike the story altogether, given the amount of work that's gone into it and the negative publicity they've received - the NYT increasingly seems comfortable making itself the story, e.g. the Cotton op-ed situation that spawned several articles internally.
Second, the question just states "Any author's NYT-published article in any topic that mentions either him or his blog is eligib...
@(RedBox)
>The US and **US vassal states** mainstream foreign policy experts,
The what? That seems fairly pejorative.
All that aside, you've posted some extremely long comments here with a mixture of interesting points and what seems to be pro-Russian propaganda. Let's leave aside the question of whether it's right or rational for Russia to invade Ukraine, or whether the Ukrainians are preparing adequately, since that's really neither here nor there since this isn't a debate club. Do you think Russia *will do so*? You seem fairly confident, but what...
@(Homing_Sliver) Thanks for expanding your comment.
I agree that this is much more likely than before, but I started at a much lower base than the community: I was at 2% essentially since the question opened and I am at 6% now. I think it's a mistake to put Crimea into a similar category as Kherson/LNR/DNR for two main reasons.
First, Crimea is much more important to Russia than the other areas. It's the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, and (internal to Russia) legally Russian territory, not some breakaway republic or conquered territory. Even [Al...
@(casens) @admins @nextbigfuture I realize this is actively being looked at internally and I'm a little late to the party, but I wanted to chime in since I wrote a [whole article](https://www.metaculus.com/notebooks/10496/how-many-casualties-will-there-be-in-the-russia-ukraine-conflict/) on the subject early in the war and spent a lot of time thinking about this subject early on. I strongly disagree that these questions should be resolved ambiguously at this time.
These questions were written at the beginning of an unprecedented war in a situation tha...
This question doesn't define "Europe." What definition/boundaries are we using?
Mostly I'm asking about Turkey, which is primarily in Asia with a small portion in Southeastern Europe. It seems like US troops are primarily in the Asian section of the country, e.g. [Incirlik airbase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incirlik_Air_Base), which Wikipedia reports as hosting ~5,000 US airmen. Do they count?
Geographically it seems like they technically would not. But since Turkey is a NATO member and is partially in Europe (even if these bases aren't) the spiri...
@(wobblybobby) @admins Re-upping this. What kind of evidence do we need for a positive resolution? Do we need a single source documenting 100 troops at a time or 100 troops total or can it be pieced together through various different stories? My concern is if we let this linger and there's a ceasefire, between the passage of time and the fog of war we may not continue to get stories on prior incursions with a level of detail sufficient to provide a clear resolution, or at least a specific resolution date.
There's clear evidence of multiple incursions o...
@(Uncle Jeff)
So this is actually a really interesting question that may make this question hard to resolve if both races go to a runoff.
The runoff election is [January 5, 2020](http://cbsnews.com/news/georgia-senate-runoff-elections-perdue-ossoff-leoffler-warnock-january/). It appears that in recent years the Majority Leader has been selected on [January 3, 2020](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_leaders_of_the_United_States_Senate). Wikipedia says:
>The Senate Majority Leader and Minority Leader are two United States senators and members of the pa...
@casens The issue I see with this whole series is that media reports are often pretty vague - most do not have even approximate numbers included. So we're mostly left with either piecing together twitter videos or waiting to see most or all of the city gets taken (like Mariupol) since that requires >100 soldiers.
So I guess my question is: if we don't get a New York Times article saying "101 Russian troops entered Kharkiv city limits on X day" but we do have significant evidence that it may have occurred, what's the probability needed for a positive r...
Adding in one more account to the "it doesn't really make sense that this would have fewer than 100 soldiers involved, but the news sources don't give exact numbers" pile. In general my approach, given my limited time, has been to just read a [high level summary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kyiv_(2022)) and then follow up on what sounds like promising leads.
On February 25/26, Russians attacked a Ukrainian military base on Peremohy Avenue near the [Kyiv Zoo](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kiev+Zoo/@50.4688823,30.3951617,13z/data=!4m8!1m2!...
Woah, is the ability to set a single question to include multiple time periods that close incrementally like this new? I don't think I've seen it before. That is really cool!
[Albania weighed invoking NATO’s Article 5 over Iranian cyberattack
](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/05/why-albania-chose-not-to-pull-the-nato-trigger-after-cyberattack-00060347)
>Albania was hit by cyberattacks earlier this year so debilitating that the government considered invoking a NATO declaration that could have pulled all member states into confrontation with Iran, Prime Minister Edi Rama said.
>It would have been the first time a NATO member state used a cyberattack to invoke Article Five — which treats an attack against one member as a...
@(Dumbledores_Army) I hate to be "that guy" (and will lose a lot of points if this resolves negatively, having been at 99% since February 24) but I don't think the saboteurs are good evidence. That same section starts by talking about "three Russian saboteurs dressed as Ukrainian soldiers". The resolution criteria requires "at least 100 Russian troops, wearing Russian insignia and under the Russian banner".
Presumably if they were dressed Ukrainian soldiers they were not wearing Russian insignia or waving Russian banners. Perhaps some of the other 57...
@(exmateriae) Given how the points are weighted, if you predict today (especially now that the community average has increased so much) and the opinion comes out in a few weeks, you're probably not going to get many points. If you're trying to make the leaderboard, a few last minute questions like this are going to be largely irrelevant. On the other hand, if you stick around and become a valuable long-term member because you jumped in on a hot news item, that's great for the community!
Jumping in late on questions like these will help your Brier score,...
@augustrushrox I'm sure they'd love to. But will they be able to do so in the next 39 days? They got whipped attempting to take Mykolaiv on the way early in the war. They're going to do this while trying to beat the Ukrainians in Donetsk and Luhansk, and with considerably uncertainty about the viability of the Black Sea Fleet after what happened to the Moskva? Not soon, and if they lose the battle for the East, almost certainly not at all.
I have similar concerns to some of the other commenters:
>This may also resolve positively if Russia formally recognizes an independent state within the same region.
This seems like it introduces some ambiguities. What if Russia recognizes a People's Republic of Kherson, gets beaten back so the territory is controlled by Ukraine, but never formally rescinds its recognition? That would seem to go against the spirit of the question, but would result in a positive resolution, correct?
Maybe if they recognize an independent state, that state should hav...
The FiveThirtyEight midterm forecast is out, predicting a 87% chance of Republican control of the House - pretty much exactly where we already were, and exactly where the community is today.
@(RyanBeck) It sounds like reviewing questions is the bulk of the moderator role. Is that correct?
Out of curiosity, do you have a sense for how many people are frequently submitting new questions? And how many of those people aren't already mods or former mods?
Given the lack of volunteers this time (and it looks like historically only ~3 volunteers, twice a year) I'm wondering if there's something of a pipeline problem. Speaking personally, I like Metaculus, have now been around for a decent interval and would be happy to give some time back as I c...