Editorial Methodology & Standards

The platform operates as a rigorous digital reference work. Every profile, relation, and score is governed by explicit standards of evidence and intellectual honesty.

1. Inclusion Policy: Jewish Identification Basis

Foundational Rule: Jewish identity must NEVER be inferred from surnames, physical appearance, nationality, occupation, geography, family-name patterns, or statistical likelihood. Identity claims must have explicit, documented source provenance.

Every candidate evaluated by the editorial board is classified under one of the following documented categories:

Jewish according to traditional Jewish law (Halakha): Documented matrilineal descent or documented formal conversion.
Jewish through documented formal conversion: Verified institutional rabbinic conversion record.
Jewish by explicit self-identification: Public, unambiguous identification with the Jewish people and heritage.
Documented maternal or paternal ancestry: Documented genealogies with verified historical citations.
Jewish-born and later converted: Acknowledged Jewish parentage whose life trajectory included apostasy or secularism (e.g. Karl Marx, Heinrich Heine).
Biblical / Ancient Israelite foundational figure: Transmitted through scripture and Jewish national memory (e.g. Moses, David).

2. Separation of Influence from Moral Approval

The platform maintains a strict philosophical distinction between HISTORICAL INFLUENCE and MORAL APPROVAL. A historically influential person is not automatically admirable, ethical, or beneficial.

Figures whose historical intervention produced destructive, unintended, or deeply controversial consequences are documented neutrally with responsible historiographical context. We neither sanitize nor sensationalize historical realities.

3. The 6-Dimension Influence Scoring Formula

Every published member of the 1,000 receives scores from 0.0 to 10.0 across six distinct dimensions:

Score = (Scale × 0.25) + (Depth × 0.20) + (Duration × 0.20)

+ (Originality × 0.15) + (HistoricalCausation × 0.10) + (JewishSignificance × 0.10)

Scale of Influence (25%):

How many millions or billions of people, disciplines, or civilizations were directly or indirectly affected?

Depth of Impact (20%):

How profoundly did the individual alter the structural foundations of their field or society?

Duration (20%):

Did the consequences persist across decades, centuries, or millennia?

Originality (15%):

Did they initiate a genuinely unprecedented paradigm vs. incrementally refining existing thought?

Historical Causation (10%):

Would this historical development have occurred in approximately the same timeframe without them?

Jewish Significance (10%):

How decisive was the individual to Jewish continuity, religion, identity, or national rebirth?

4. Bibliographic Source Hierarchy

Tier A: Primary & Academic Scholarship

Peer-reviewed academic university presses, primary historical texts, critical editions, and national archive records.

Tier B: Major Encyclopedias & Reference Works

Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jewish Virtual Library, institutional biographies, and established museum archives.

Tier C: Reputable Secondary Journalism

Reputable major journalism and institutional documentation for contemporary figures.

Discovery Only

Wikipedia, Wikidata, and general web entries may be used to identify candidates, but never serve as sole evidence for disputed claims.

5. Pairwise Voting Models & Anti-Manipulation

The Public Matrix is powered by the Bradley-Terry Maximum Likelihood Estimation model and an adaptive pair selection algorithm. To eliminate popularity contest biases and celebrity recognition inflation:

Pre-vote ranks and vote totals are strictly hidden prior to judgment.
Left/Right screen orientation is randomized per comparison.
Users are provided explicit “Not familiar enough to judge” options.
Automated burst detection and bot filters (reaction time < 350ms) exclude fraudulent activity.
Candidates with under 30 verified comparisons are clearly demarcated as “Provisional Rank”.

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