They don't exactly gloss over it. They have tons of articles explaining it, but of course the average reader is just going to see the probabilities and run with that, and 538 does have some responsibility to actively explain things upfront in their UI, which I don't think they do a good job at.
> Why are they publishing probabilities for if the event were to happen today? The event isn't happening today!
My guess is that it's extremely out of scope (and probably ultimately infeasible) to try to incorporate these things into their models. Sure, there's a non-zero chance of a candidate being killed by a meteorite, but I think it's fair to ignore that and, if it happens, admit that you didn't even attempt to include the probability of that into your model.
> the average reader is just going to see the probabilities and run with that
The putative “average reader” who does so will see the default view, which is a forecast, not the nowcast, which you must actively shift to in order to see.
> and 538 does have some responsibility to actively explain things upfront in their UI,
Like, on the view selector that you have to use to choose the nowcast instead of the default forecast, where the nowcast is described as “Now-cast / Who would win the election if it were held today”.
> Why are they publishing probabilities for if the event were to happen today? The event isn't happening today!
My guess is that it's extremely out of scope (and probably ultimately infeasible) to try to incorporate these things into their models. Sure, there's a non-zero chance of a candidate being killed by a meteorite, but I think it's fair to ignore that and, if it happens, admit that you didn't even attempt to include the probability of that into your model.