Skip to main content

User Accounts

Tachyons​

A tachyon is a particle that can go back in time. On Metaculus, tachyons power users' special retrocausal abilities and allow for the purchase of new abilities—such as unmaking predictions, or revealing the Metaculus Prediction before a question closes. Every week you can collect 10 tachyons by logging in, up to a maximum of 50. You can also earn tachyons as a bonus for reaching achievements, such as “Evangelist” or “Beating the Crowd.” You’ll receive 5, 10, and 50 tachyon bonuses as you reach the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd ranks of an achievement.

Tachyonic Powers​

Powers can be unlocked by attaining the requisite level, or you can pay a premium to get access to a power early. Unlocking a power costs 10 times the sum of the levels between your current level and the unlock requirement level. So if you’re level 4 and the unlock level is 6, the unlock cost would be 10*(5+6) or 110 tachyons.

The current powers, their levels, and their tachyon prices are:

  • View your personal track record timeline: Every user starts with this. View a timeline showing all of the predictions you’ve made on resolved questions.
  • Set Question Reminders: For a small cost in tachyons, you can recieve an email notification for a few triggers: when the Community Prediction changes significantly, when new comments are posted, when a question is due to resolve, or on a selected date of your choosing.
  • Hide the Community Prediction: Requires Level 2. If you prefer not to be influenced by the community’s forecasts, you can hide their predictions either on specific questions or on all questions.
  • View personal track record histograms: Requires Level 3. This provides another window into your performance, making it especially easy to see if your scores are consistent or dominated by outliers.
  • Add calibration plot to track record: Requires Level 4. This adds calibration plots to your track record, allowing you to check whether you’re overcautious or overconfident.
  • Access the Metaculus Prediction: –50 tachyons. Requires Level 5. This lets you see the Metaculus Prediction for that question prior to its closing. Be forewarned, once you use this, you’ll be unable to predict on that particular outcome.
  • See other players’ track records: –50 tachyons. Requires Level 6. With this power you can peek at another player’s prediction history. But, you must pay for the privilege each time, and the access expires after 24 hours. Users may opt out of making their track records available to others.

Tachyons costs are subject to change in the future.

Achievements​

Each achievement has three ranks. Below are the criteria for moving up through each achievement’s ranks.

  • Predictor: Make predictions on many different questions
  • In the Black: Earn a large number of points on a single question
  • Talkative: Make lots of comments
  • Likeable: Make comments that get liked by others
  • Engaged: Update predictions multiple times on the same question
  • Evangelist: Share links to Metaculus with others
  • Beating the Crowd: Successfully predict a question’s resolution more accurately than the community (specifically, the ratio of your probability/density to the community probability/density at close time exceeds a threshold)
  • Viral Vector: Share links to Metaculus that get others to sign up
  • Private Predictor: Predict on and resolve your own private questions

Changing a Username​

You can change your name for free within the first three days of registering. After that it will cost you 15 tachyons. Note that after you change your name, you’ll be unable to change it again for 180 days.

New User Probation​

In an effort to reduce spam, new users must wait 12 hours after signup before commenting is unlocked. Additionally, level one users are unable to downvote comments.

Account Suspensions​

Metaculus may—though this thankfully occurs very rarely—temporarily suspend an account. This occurs when a user has acted in a way that we consider inappropriate, such as when our terms of use are violated. At this point, the user will receive a notice about the suspension, and be made aware that continuing this behavior is unacceptable. Temporary suspensions serve as a warning to users that they are a few infractions away from receiving a permanent ban on their account.