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ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

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Re: ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

#91

Post by hungryhobbit »

bsder wrote: post #70
rurp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of already happened though. Nate and Galen have both launched Substack's covering much of what they did at 538. I've also seen at least 4-5 others working elsewhere doing the similar polling/politics/sports work. Maybe that was the logic on ABC's part but it's ridiculously wrong given how much clear market demand there is for the 538 people and content.

> That's kind of already happened though. It's a world of difference to the political standing of the ABC Vice President between "Nate Silver launched something and made a gazillion dollars" vs "Nate Silver bought FiveThirtyEight back for a song and made a gazillion dollars" even if Nate Silver did the exact same thing. In the second case, the ABC Vice President gets fired because he signed off on the purchase. This…

You have a cutely naive view of what gets vice presidents fired.

Re: ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

#92

Post by hungryhobbit »

daniel-thompson wrote: post #51
toyg wrote: post #50

I don't understand why Nate doesn't just start SixFortyNine and does it all over again. In the end, what ABC owns is just a name - which was always kinda stupid and even hard to spell - and a bunch of obsolete content.

https://www.natesilver.net/ i was a casual reader of 538 back in the day. his substack feels pretty similar, if smaller in scope.

There's no cool map of how America is likely to vote in the next electioon the new site :(

Re: ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

#93

Post by aworks »

rurp wrote: post #24

It's wild to me how often I see corporate America both: 1. Spend immense amounts trying to build and improve a brand. 2. Toss well known brands aside as if they are useless. Not that it's always the same company doing both at the same time, but it's crazy 538 was just left to die. It was a very recognizable brand among wonky professionals, a very desirable customer base. It's not as if politics and sports have gotten…

Companies have a long history of mis-management of their acquisitions (and mis-managing their portfolio of projects outside their money-making expertise).

As you suggest, it's good that the alumni seem to be doing fine, although Harry Enten's commentary on CNN is not as thougtful as he was on 538 podcasts.

Re: ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

#95

Post by dredmorbius »

Wayback Machine / Internet Archive does have (some?) content:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250305183642/https://projects....>

NB: one of my gripes about current / contemporary content management / publishing systems is that almost all of them make it really hard to find either a specific article or a particular day's version of a site.

NB2: I realise writing the above that HN is an exceptionally welcome exception to that rule, with its "past" link (https://news.ycombinator.com/front>), which not only exists but is prominently placed (top bar, 3rd link of 8 content-based links) on the site.

Re: ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

#96

Post by jasonfarnon »

tptacek wrote: post #43
eugenekolo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WOuldn't proof of that be some grounds for breach of fiduciary duty?

No. People have weird beliefs about what fiduciary duty means. It does not mean that companies are required at all intervals to maximize revenue or profit.

You must not have spent much time looking at derivative lawsuits if you think this is weird. Anyway if ABC could convincingly classify this as a business decision, e.g., a question of the maintaining goodwill, maybe they're OK. If this came down to some exec feeling personally insulted, like the quote hints, a classic breach of fiduciary duty.

Re: ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

#97

Post by kirrent »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #80
chasd00 wrote: post #56

Was 538 ABC's property during the first Trump election? IIRC they took a pretty big credibility hit after getting that election so wrong and never really recovered.

> pretty big credibility hit after getting that election so wrong That this is the narrative that survived the election is one of the greatest indictments for our society's ability to engage in critical thinking. The day before the election, the Huffington Post published a hit piece criticising Nate for overrating Trump's odds and inspiring panic. Huffpost predicted a 98.2% chance of Clinton winning, NYT predicted 85…

Not to mention, when you use a Monte Carlo model, you can easily count the samples which lead to certain outcomes. In their review, they noted that the correlated polling miss in the Midwest was one of the most common scenarios making up that 35% chance of a Trump win.

The idea that Silver somehow 'hit' in 2012 when he correctly predicted all states and 'missed' in 2016 is so juvenile I get second hand embarrassment whenever I see it.

Re: ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

#98

Post by triceratops »

mminer237 wrote: post #82
singleshot_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what insulates them from fiduciary responsibility is the fact that there is no fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. I’ll say that again: members and/or managers of an LLC, and officers and directors of a corporation owe no fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to make them money. The fiduciary duties owed under US law are as follows: 1) the duty to be informed; 2) the duty not to usurp corporate oppor…

This is true in some states, like Texas; but not in Delaware where Disney is incorporated and where directors and officers owe fiduciary duties of care and loyalty to both the corporation and the shareholders. (Not legal advice. I'm not licensed in either state.)

None of those mean "duty to make money for the shareholders" though.

Re: ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

#99

Post by triceratops »

bombcar wrote: post #79
shipman05 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember that whole election starting off very poorly for Nate Silver. After reading this book, The Party Decides https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo592160... , he was a big advocate of the idea that the "endorsement race" of state officials and unelected party leaders. There was a whole "Party Decides: Endorsement Tracker" graphic and everything, but Trump securing the Republican nomination and…

IIRC Nate Silver (or Bronze as the kids called him) was the only poll aggregator to even give Trump "a chance", but he really went overboard afterwards arguing that he got "it right" even though clearly he was wrong.

> even though clearly he was wrong.

Once again, a failure to understand probabilities.

"They gave heads a 50% chance and it came up tails. They're claiming success for giving heads more of a chance than anyone else but they were still wrong". 65-35 probability is squarely in the neighborhood of a literal coin toss.

Re: ABC News has taken all FiveThirtyEight articles offline

#100

Post by queuebert »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #22

> BTW, I approached ABC about buying back the former FiveThirtyEight IP*, and they said they wouldn't sell at any price because I'd criticized their management of the brand. --Nate Silver (538 founder) ABC seem pretty petty here.

So Nate & Co sell out to a big corporation then are upset that it does big corporation stuff? I'm more mad at Nate here because 538 was my go-to for political coverage pre-sellout, and because of his greed it went away.
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