How Goodhart's Law Breaks Metrics
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. People optimize for metrics, not goals, creating distortion and gaming.
What has been corrected on this page?
Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.
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Corrected two citations in the article's academic-research section: a Yves Gingras citation-metrics study was given three specific empirical findings not present in his real 2016 book, and a REF portfolio-gaming study was misattributed to Julie Belanger, a real researcher whose actual published work covers different REF topics.
What the page claimedArticle attributed three specific measured findings to a 2016 Gingras 'analysis' and a longitudinal REF study specifically to Julie Belanger, neither of which is verifiable.
What was correctedGingras citation corrected to accurately describe his real 2016 book's general findings without the unverified specific statistics; the REF portfolio-gaming finding, which is real and well documented in the literature, is now described without the incorrect author attribution.
Why: Verified both named-author citations against their real published work; found real people and real institutions with included an unverified findings or study attributions layered on top, the same pattern confirmed across other WNF articles this session.
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