What a guide holds
- A principle first: the reason the defaults follow from, stated so that it applies beyond the cases listed.
- Entries, each under a stable anchor that plans cite (
study-planning/prediction#mean-forecasts):- When: the situation it covers.
- Default: what to use.
- Why: the argument in one or two sentences.
- Avoid: common choices that do not fit, and why.
- References: papers by DOI, and by claim where the paper is on EntryLib (
entrylib:2026.000001@v2#C4).
- Only choices with a methodological argument behind them. A setting that does not change conclusions, or a convention without a reason, is not a default.
- A precedent is not a reason. That a competition or a well-known paper used a measure says what it did, not why it fits another study.
Changing a guide
- By pull request, with the references that support the change. Disagreement in a field happens here, in the open.
- Each guide has a version; a changed default is a new version, listed at the end of the guide. A plan cites the entry, and the version it used is the one current on the plan's date.
- Anchors never change meaning. A default that is withdrawn keeps its anchor, marked withdrawn, with the reason.
- New guides are welcome from people who work in the field they cover.
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, see LICENSE and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).