criteriaoften

Criteriaoften is a neologistic term used in discussions about evaluation and decision-making to denote the tendency to apply the same set of criteria repeatedly across different contexts. The term blends the idea of criterion or criteria with the adverb often, signaling frequency.

Origin and adoption: Criteriaoften appears in informal online discourse, mainly in the early to mid-2020s, in blogs and forums that discuss evaluation frameworks. It has not gained wide traction in formal academic literature and lacks a formal definition in major style guides.

Definition and usage: In practice, criteriaoften describes two related phenomena: first, a recurring use of a core subset of criteria across projects; second, the tendency to overweight frequently used criteria relative to others, potentially biasing outcomes. It is used as shorthand to discuss consistency, standardization, and potential selection bias.

Examples: A software procurement review that consistently ranks features by speed and uptime while neglecting accessibility could be described as criteriaoften in evaluation.

Criticism: Critics argue that focusing on frequently used criteria can obscure important but less common considerations; proponents see it as a useful shorthand for discussing comparability and efficiency.

See also: criterion, criteria, evaluation criteria, decision making, bias, standardization.