06-reference/research

conviction pipeline aggregation method audit

2026-06-25·research-brief·source: deep-research
conviction-scoringprobability-aggregationdecisions-pipelinecalibrationforecasting

The median-to-geomean swap is moot: RDCO's conviction pipeline has no numeric panel-probability aggregation step to swap

The question

Does the RDCO /decisions/ conviction pipeline currently collapse panel probabilities with median, arithmetic mean, or geometric-mean-of-odds — i.e. is there an actual median-to-geomean swap to make, or is the point already moot? (Gating self-audit for the geomean-of-odds recommendation surfaced as open follow-up #1 in [[2026-06-18-probability-aggregation-scoring-rules-panel]].)

What we already know (from the vault)

What the web says

Convergences and contradictions

Synthesis for RDCO

The point is moot. There is no median-to-geomean swap to make today, because the /decisions/ conviction pipeline does not collapse a panel of probabilities at all — there is no probability-pooling step in verify-strategic-output, in the decisions HTML, or in the HQ route. What the pipeline actually does is qualitative: verify-strategic-output emits PASS / ITERATE / SCRAP from a mechanical rubric, and the decision pages express conviction through smart-money manager counts, R-unit sizing, and narrative bear cases. The 2026-06-18 recommendation was correctly conditioned ("if the pipeline collapses to one number") and the precondition is simply not met. So the recommendation is neither already-implemented nor in need of implementation — its trigger does not exist. This closes open follow-up #1 of [[2026-06-18-probability-aggregation-scoring-rules-panel]] with answer: moot — no aggregation point exists.

That makes the geomean-of-odds recommendation a contingent design choice, not a bug fix. It only becomes live if RDCO first decides to build a numeric multi-agent conviction panel (Stage 1–2 of the architecture sketched in [[2026-06-20-conviction-score-binary-collapse-point]]) where N seats each emit a probability. If and when that panel is built, the swap is pre-decided and trivial: the seats should be pooled with geometric-mean-of-odds, never median or arithmetic mean, as a ~5-line closed-form formula with no new infrastructure. Worth pre-registering that as the default now so the question never has to be re-litigated at build time — but it is a note-to-future-self, not a task.

The more useful reframe, which all three briefs already converge on: do not treat "pick the right mean" as the open work item. The two things that actually move calibration are upstream of the mean — (1) whether the panel seats are independent enough to pool at all (homogeneous same-model seats are fake-tight, per [[verifier-as-epistemology]]), and (2) surfacing disagreement spread to the founder rather than any single collapsed number (per [[binary-decision-around-continuous-probability]] and [[2026-06-20-conviction-score-binary-collapse-point]]). At RDCO's handful-of-decisions-per-week volume, per [[brier-score]], the system structurally cannot accumulate enough resolved outcomes to measure geomean beating median anyway — so building aggregator machinery to chase an unmeasurable 0–3% edge fails the instrumentation layer of [[feedback_targeting_system_prioritization_filter]]. Net: mark the geomean recommendation as "pre-decided default, dormant until a numeric panel exists," and put the complexity budget into spread-surfacing and seat-independence, not into the mean.

Open follow-ups

Related

Sources