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Be somewhat wary of the predictions for the countries which have automatically qualified - they're based on much less information than the other countries. The

by mewo2 14y ago

Be somewhat wary of the predictions for the countries which have automatically qualified - they're based on much less information than the other countries. The reason that Turkey is ranked above Azerbaijan is that the model has absolutely no information about the quality of Azerbaijan's song. Turkey, on the other hand, made it through a semifinal, so their song can't be completely abysmal. That said, Turkey do have a pretty strong structural advantage in terms of incoming vote patterns. Out of the 10,000 simulations, Turkey beat Azerbaijan about 75% of the time. Also, this should go without saying, but this is not financial advice, please don't blame me if you lose money betting on the predictions of this model, etc.

ralfd 14y ago
I am not a big gambler. But I wonder if these sort of calculations could be better in forecasting than prediction markets like intrade.com. Very interesting work on the Eurovision at least! There are so many potential variables. Age, gender, BPM of the song, changes in the performance, political stuff. For example I don't expect any points for Azerbaijan from Germany, because the media reported very critically on the undemocratic regime. But don't know how this will play out in the rest of Europe. Are you American? This song contest and its history must be pretty strange for outsiders.
- mewo2 14y ago
  I'm Irish, so I'm fairly familiar with the contest's history. I do live in the USA now though. I am a bit skeptical about how effective politically motivated boycotts can be in Eurovision. The problem is that it's not possible to cast a vote against a country, so the only way a boycott can work is if it convinces a lot of people who were otherwise going to vote to abstain. That said, there has been quite a lot of coverage in at least the Western European media which has been very critical of Azerbaijan, so we'll see. It's also just possible that nobody will like their song - I'm not sure how we'd tell which had happened.
  - ralfd 14y ago
    Ah, damn, that was stupid! :-P At least it seems like Sweden is winning.

by mewo2 14y ago

ralfd 14y ago

I am not a big gambler. But I wonder if these sort of calculations could be better in forecasting than prediction markets like intrade.com. Very interesting work on the Eurovision at least! There are so many potential variables. Age, gender, BPM of the song, changes in the performance, political stuff. For example I don't expect any points for Azerbaijan from Germany, because the media reported very critically on the undemocratic regime. But don't know how this will play out in the rest of Europe. Are you American? This song contest and its history must be pretty strange for outsiders.

mewo2 14y ago
I'm Irish, so I'm fairly familiar with the contest's history. I do live in the USA now though. I am a bit skeptical about how effective politically motivated boycotts can be in Eurovision. The problem is that it's not possible to cast a vote against a country, so the only way a boycott can work is if it convinces a lot of people who were otherwise going to vote to abstain. That said, there has been quite a lot of coverage in at least the Western European media which has been very critical of Azerbaijan, so we'll see. It's also just possible that nobody will like their song - I'm not sure how we'd tell which had happened.
- ralfd 14y ago
  Ah, damn, that was stupid! :-P At least it seems like Sweden is winning.