The emergent swarm matrix pleases and sparkles.
Q: Can people game the system? A: You can only game the system if the system maker hopes to extract meaningful information.
Q: If not meaningful information, then what do you want to extract? A: This is exploratory, for the maker AND the people giving input to the system. People can make many different kinds of meaning.
Q: Why are you recording every input by a person rather than a final input with a submit button? A: What's final? If they learn or think something that adjusts their ideas an instant after they hit an almighty submit, is that evolved idea less relevant? Or is it more relevant and meaningful?
Q: Are all averages the same? A: No. An average could represent 100 people with the same input and two groups of 50 people with exactly opposite opinions. So... we are working to show a representative sample of inputs (show time and location), in addition to average.
"At first, all uncertainties seem unique. But by stepping back, we can reduce bundles of uncertainties that have some commonality to a single spectrum, an axis of uncertainty. If we can simplify our entire list of related uncertainties into two orthogonal axes, then we can define a matrix (two axes crossing) that allows us to define four very different, but plausible, quadrants of uncertainty. Each of these far corners is, in essence, a logical future that we can explore."
- Lawrence Wilkinson, Wired.com. 2009. http://www.wired.com/wired/scenarios/build.html