Ask HN: How would you create the list of the top 100 most influential people?

There are various lists created by various people and organization.

I'm thinking from a data perspective. Some ideas, looking at # of search results? Number of biographies? Number of mentions in other books? Having people vote?

3 comments

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rhwk97 7y ago ↗

if you just choose an academic lens, you can say number of citations and limit it to certain journals

yesenadam 7y ago ↗

Influence on what? A particular field, or somehow all of them, weighted? Using lots of different criteria sounds good, but then the weighting you use become more significant.. I guess the only way is to yourself become the most influential arbiter of who's influential. Come to think of it, anyone on one of the main 'influential people' lists is made (much) more influential just by impressing people by appearing in it.

So maybe first decide who you would want to be in your list, then make it so... A self-fulfilling prophecy. You become more right by publishing it. If only science worked like that! (Well..it does, in a way.)

rurban 7y ago ↗

Like in science, number of citations in respected press articles. maybe add book references also.

Voting measures popularity, not influence. Number of biographies is also a good metric, Has_Wikipedia page (notability) also. # search results is a bit limited to internet users only.