Community guidelines

The Midgley Awards recognize solutions that worked very well at the problem they were built for, and created new problems somewhere else. The site is a place to nominate them, vote on them and argue about them. These guidelines explain what qualifies and how moderation works.

What qualifies

• A real problem, solved well. The original idea has to be a clever and successful answer to a real problem. A product that was simply bad does not qualify.
• A new problem somewhere else. The harm landed on people or places the inventors or decision makers were not thinking about.
• An honest account of what was known. Say whether the harm was knowable at the time, unforeseeable, partly knowable, or still contested.

Writing a nomination

Describe the decision or invention, the problem it solved, and the problem it created. Stick to effects that are documented. When the evidence is still debated, choose "Still contested" and say so in the text. If someone is working on a fix, such as a treaty, a reform or an organization, add it in "The fix" with a link.

Each nominee gets a field (energy, cities, food and so on), a status and the kinds of harm involved. Moderators may adjust these so that filters stay useful.

Nominating people

Many nominees are real people, and some are alive. Nominate the decision and its effects. Leave out claims about a person's motives, character or private life. Only nominate people for public work, such as inventions, products, policies and plans. Private individuals cannot be nominated.

Comments

Disagreement is the point. Argue for or against a nominee, add evidence, or point out what the nomination leaves out. These are removed:

• Personal attacks, slurs, threats and harassment
• Personal information about anyone, such as addresses or phone numbers
• Spam, advertising and repeated posts
• Anything illegal to publish

How moderation works

New nominations are reviewed before they appear on the site. Comments appear right away. Anyone can report a nominee or a comment with the Report button. A comment that receives three reports is hidden until a moderator reviews it. Moderators may decline nominations, edit their labels, and hide or remove comments.

To ask for a correction or a removal, use the Report button on the entry.