Per topic
Individual opinion weight
Every opinion begins with zero weight. For a particular topic, the application adds the importance values of the published fact questions the participant currently answers correctly, then divides that by the importance available across the complete published fact bank.
Only the most recent answer to each fact counts. The displayed unweighted score remains available as a check on how much the editorial importance ratings affect the result. Knowledge demonstrated on one topic never carries into another.
Editorial assessment
Fact importance
Each fact has one of three deliberately narrow values: Supporting (1), Significant (2), or Foundational (3). Importance concerns how necessary the fact is for an informed judgement about the proposition—not whether it supports or counters that proposition.
Every fact also records its likely evidential direction: supporting the proposition, countering it, or contextual/mixed. Direction affects presentation order only. It does not alter the correct answer or numerical weight.
Public result
Collective informed opinion
The five ordered response positions are assigned values +1, +0.5, 0, −0.5 and −1 from strongest agreement to strongest disagreement. Each value is multiplied by that participant's topic weight.
The result lies between −1 (No) and +1 (Yes), with zero as Neutral. Zero-weight opinions are counted as registered opinions but cannot move the indicator. A weighted neutral response adds to the denominator without adding a signed value and therefore draws the result toward neutral.
Presentation
Question sequence and review
Unseen facts are shown before review questions. The sequence normally begins with evidence closer to the participant's registered view and introduces challenging evidence progressively. This is intended to reduce defensive rejection; it never removes contrary evidence or changes scoring.
After every fact has been seen, review prioritises the least-repeated material so a small group of questions cannot recur indefinitely. Answer choices are shuffled to reduce answer-position cues.
Editorial controls
Publication and correction
Having the configured minimum number of published facts makes a topic eligible for publication; it does not publish it automatically. A moderator first reviews the bank as a whole and then explicitly marks the opinion question as live. Facts should be relevant, resolvable, clearly worded, supported by an accessible source and supplied with four plausible choices. Participants may report inaccurate, irrelevant, unclear, biased or outdated material for moderator review.
Question wording, sources, importance and direction remain editorial judgements. The project publishes those judgements and its formula so they can be scrutinised rather than treating them as neutral machinery.
Interpretation
What the result does not prove
Participants are self-selecting, so this is not a representative opinion poll. A high weight demonstrates performance on the selected fact bank; it does not prove expertise, sincerity, sound judgement or that an opinion is correct.
The aggregate describes participating opinion under the published question bank and calculation at that time. Participant counts, source quality, question selection and editorial decisions should all inform how cautiously it is read.