Note · 3 Apr 2026

Weighting events without theatre

A weight is a claim about dignity. It is not a scientific constant. The moment a team treats a 0.37 as if it were measured from nature, the scoring model becomes theatre: a ritual that produces numbers too precise to argue with.

We ask lab participants to use small integers first. One, three, eight, twelve. If you need decimals to express a difference, you probably do not yet know what the difference is. Integers force a sentence. “Completing a shared task is worth about four times unlocking the app” can be attacked. “0.42 versus 0.11 after normalisation” cannot, not in a hallway.

Write the sentence next to the weight. Date it. When the product ships a shorter path, change the weight and add a line to the log. Do not “recalibrate” in a silent notebook. Recalibration without a log is how last quarter’s politics hide inside this quarter’s mean.

Heat maps and sankey diagrams can wait. They are useful once the weights are boring. Until then they decorate disagreement. Source Stackhub marks the log. If your chart is beautiful and the log is empty, you have not finished the work.

There is a limit: some events are entangled. Identity joins, server-side retries, and duplicated web-plus-app fires will make any integer look foolish. Inventory those first. Weighting a mess is still theatre, just with nicer type.