Coming back to: A structured critique template this community uses

Posting this under the heading it deserves: A structured critique template this community uses Everything below is what sits behind that.

Reading back through what has been written here about structured critique template, three questions come up every time and only one has ever been answered properly.

Listing all three, with what I think the state of the answer is for each, so the thread can start further along than the last one did.

Where a critique changes your position, saying so in the thread is worth more than being right, and it is the thing this subcategory does better than most places.

Blinding, duration and comparator choice trade against each other. Improving one usually costs another, and a critique that ignores the trade is incomplete.

Post #39 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.

I would be cautious about generalising from the structured critique template example above. It is a good example. It is one example.

I read post #46 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.

When you change your mind: if a reply convinces you that your criticism was not well-founded, say so plainly. The critique might still be real but smaller than you originally thought. That is not a failure — it is how discussion works.

Post #49 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.

Structured critique template is a question about a distribution, not about a value, and treating it as a value is what produces the confident wrong answers.

Fair, and the limits you put on it are the part I will remember.

The strongest critiques cite the section they rely on. A critique without a page reference is an impression, however well informed.

The mechanism is plausible, which is not the same as established.

What I would check first on structured critique template is whether the thing being measured moved or whether the way of measuring it moved. Those look identical in a graph.