Hi All (I like that opening Don!). I'm glad this has sparked some interest. I do understand that this is not a prediction only board, and I'm thankfull it's not. The discussion of thoughts and ideas here is what keeps me insterested in this board. If I wanted nothing but predictions, I'd spent what little time I have at one of the other boards.

In no way do I think a formal prediction should be required. It's not what the heart and soul of this board is about as I see it....

However, I do like the idea of a formal format for those wishing to make predictions.

Canie, I think you pretty much nailed it. However, I feel depth would be over doing it.

Petra ... Good suggestions but I think your window and time fields are a duplicate. Starting time and ending time is the window, a seperate window field thus is not required as it is a duplication.

Closest landmark should just be for informational purposes only, and optional at that. Maybe landmark info can be the "title" of your prediction to give everyone a sense of location.

Percentage of chance is a concept that I have never understood with regards to earthquake prediction. Is this idea really the confidence level of the predictor with his/her prediction? IE they say that there is a 30% chance of a 7+ in SoCal in the next 25 years? It seems to me that this is really indicating odds of occurance. When USGS says this sort of thing, they are giving their calculated odds, rather than making a prediction. USGS will be the first to say that they can not predict earthquakes, hence this 30% must only be odds, right? It seems to me odds and prediction are like apples and oranges. Thoughts anybody?

Why the predictor thinks its going to happen would be a good optional field.

Not sure what you mean by signature box.

Canie, if your interested I can write you a script that will do all this and forward the results of a form to an email address in whatever format we'd like. Any thoughts about how to apply an email to the board somehow?

-Michael