Editing Talk:2899: Goodhart's Law

::Exactly. It can be incredibly mundane things - a store I worked in encouraged the inclusion of accessories with main purchases, obviously, but also used to discourage us from selling accessories if customers remembered as they were leaving, after the main sale. If we "allowed" it, the Average Transaction Value and Items Per Basket indicators would both be down. Same stuff being sold, but if it was sold separately from the thing it supplemented, that was a bad thing.

::Exactly. It can be incredibly mundane things - a store I worked in encouraged the inclusion of accessories with main purchases, obviously, but also used to discourage us from selling accessories if customers remembered as they were leaving, after the main sale. If we "allowed" it, the Average Transaction Value and Items Per Basket indicators would both be down. Same stuff being sold, but if it was sold separately from the thing it supplemented, that was a bad thing.

::It can also be much bigger, more important things - good figures for DEI targets doesn't necessarily mean attitudes towards people from traditionally disadvantaged demographics have improved, it just means firms have been told to employ more of them. If somebody is given a leg up but you only measure how many are sitting up high...how do you tell if the need for a leg up is lessening? And are you really combating the wider need for legups to be given if you keep giving them to ensure targets are met? What's the incentive for improving the big picture if the obsession is with improving a few small details? [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 22:47, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

::It can also be much bigger, more important things - good figures for DEI targets doesn't necessarily mean attitudes towards people from traditionally disadvantaged demographics have improved, it just means firms have been told to employ more of them. If somebody is given a leg up but you only measure how many are sitting up high...how do you tell if the need for a leg up is lessening? And are you really combating the wider need for legups to be given if you keep giving them to ensure targets are met? What's the incentive for improving the big picture if the obsession is with improving a few small details? [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 22:47, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

In early days of computer programming managers tried to assess the performance of programmers in a way that they would assess the performance of assembly line workers and decided to use the metric of "lines of code per day". The results were laughable. There was also the, possibly apocryphal, story from the old Soviet Union where the government rewarded automobile plants for meeting certain quotas for number of cars produced, and rewarded scrap metal facilities for meeting certain quotas for number of cars demolished, and it wasn't long before the facilities figured out that delivering the cars of dubious value straight to junk yards was the most efficient and rewarding way to operate. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 21:08, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

In early days of computer programming managers tried to assess the performance of programmers in a way that they would assess the performance of assembly line workers and decided to use the metric of "lines of code per day". The results were laughable. There was also the, possibly apocryphal, story from the old Soviet Union where the government rewarded automobile plants for meeting certain quotas for number of cars produced, and rewarded scrap metal facilities for meeting certain quotas for number of cars demolished, and it wasn't long before the facilities figured out that delivering the cars of dubious value straight to junk yards was the most efficient and rewarding way to operate. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 21:08, 27 February 2024 (UTC)