Who's More Full of Shit?

August 30, 2012 11:02 AM

Who's More Full of Shit?
Ranking politicians by their fact check rulings. I made it after wanting to compare the overall truthfulness of the big names this election cycle. Hope you find it interesting!

Role: creator

posted by Jezztek (5 comments total)

This project was posted to MetaFilter by JHarris on September 14, 2012: Who's More Full of Shit?

I have on my projects to do someday list the following entry.

Build site to compare the truthiness of politicians.

I will now take that off my list. Well done sir!
posted by COD at 11:37 AM on August 30, 2012

I'd be interested in the potential relationship between number of rulings and score. More rulings = more full of shit? Obama vs. Romney (as he's less full of shit with more rulings) tends to blow that theory out of the water but it's interesting to think about nonetheless.

Very nice and thanks for the site.
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:59 PM on August 31, 2012

I would try to include more fact checking sources to bypass potential bias issues.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:07 PM on August 31, 2012

That's great! Simple and clear. I posted a link on my FB feed and it attracted a lot of "likes" for whatever that's worth. Of course, my GOP friends will react to your findings by questioning whether Politifact is unbiased in either its fact-checking methods or its choice of statements to subject to the inquiry...
posted by carmicha at 7:11 AM on September 2, 2012

RolandOfEld, there's a little box on the website that says "How are these scores determined?"

To determine a person's score I assign the following bullshit value to each ruling type:

True = 0% full of shit
Mostly True = 25% full of shit
Half True = 50% full of shit
Mostly False = 75% full of shit
False = 100% full of shit
Pants On Fire = 200% full of shit

I then add all of their scores together and divide by the total number of rulings, easy as pie!

Due to the extreme untruthfulness of a Pants On Fire statement each one not only counts as a falsehood but also annihilates a truthful rating as well, making it possible for certain habitual liars to score over 100% full of shit.

And that's how you get to be more than 100% full of shit.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:00 AM on September 5, 2012