Mmm, I'm afraid I have to agree with Golani.
The prime purpose of this forum is to provide information and explanations regarding the scaling processes and so on, and not to predict the UAIs of individual students. Originally, the predictions were only done by moderators who understood the process - I had instructed them to only give predictions where for some reason the UAISeeker program could not be used. This kept prediction threads to a minimum.
Now that a number of users have gained an insight into the process as well (at least to an extent), that instruction appears to have been lost, and the forum is now rampant with panicking students wanting vague reassurances. Whilst I feel the understanding far outweighs the irritation, it's still a problem that needs to be addressed.
There are also a vast number of questions that could potentially be asked which the sticky posts wouldn't answer - there are some that I wouldn't be able to answer (though I'm working on that). Fortunately, they haven't been asked yet; but that doesn't mean they won't be.
Possible actions:
1) Ban all forum predictions.
The UAISeeker can be used by students to predict their UAIs instead. The downside to this is that many students would be unhappy with the decision (whether or not that unhappiness is justified). There are also certain rare situations in which, for varying reasons, the UAISeeker is not appropriate for a particular student.
2) Allow only 'non-UAISeeker-able' predictions.
This option would deal with the last negative point mentioned above. It does, however, have the potential to spiral out of control, as has already happened - particularly if knowledgeable users keep responding to prediction threads. This option would also retain the advantages outlined in Ragerunner's last post.
3) Keep the present situation.
See posts in this thread for pros/cons.
4) Create a separate forum for predictions.
The only reason I don't like this solution is that it would simply encourage more predictions. There are already too many. It would deal with the current problem rather nicely, but it would also create other problems of its own.
5) Other.
What are your thoughts?