In 2016 the British Government had plans to launch a new polar research vessel. To decide on a name for it, they put it out to a public vote. Despite a number of serious, meaningful or historic names suggested, like Shackleton and Endeavour, one name put forward, Boaty McBoatface, quickly overwhelmed all the other options put together.

It turns out this is not limited to the British sense of humour, and people will vote for a joke candidate because it’s fun and subversive, and people want to see what will happen if it wins. This NYT article by Katie Rogers has some other fun examples of competitions going ‘wrong’, such as an attempt to name a bridge 'Chuck Norris’ and selecting a school for the deaf as a concert location: What you get when you let the Internet decide.

I learned about the Boaty McBoatface effect from Dr Roger Miles on the Human Risk podcast. Also see Conduct Risk Management: A behavioural approach by Dr Roger Miles.

The Boaty McBoatface effect

Originally an observation meant as satire, the Peter Principle (book) states that “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Someone who is good at their job is likely to get promoted. But the promoted position will likely require different skills. If they’re good they may get promoted again, but if not, there they will stay. Then at some point each employee in an organisation will be incompetent at their position. I like this short take on the Peter Principle by Tim Harford.

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The Peter Principle

The default table crowds out your data with non-data-ink and locks your data into cells. When data is locked into cells their relationships with other data is harder to see and the reader has to work harder to learn from your table.

When making a table of data consider if, by adjusting spacing and alignment, you can make the columns or rows clear enough as they are without the prison bars. And look for opportunities to remove the visual noise to let your data and the relationships between them shine out.

The data prison is a concept from Edward Tufte. Check out the beautiful Envisioning Information, for more.

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The data prison