
Ask HN: How would you create the list of the top 100 most influential people? - joshdance
There are various lists created by various people and organization.<p>I&#x27;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?
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yesenadam
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.)

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rurban
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.

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rhwk97
if you just choose an academic lens, you can say number of citations and limit
it to certain journals

