Recently active topics in Hubdub

When an open market is clarified for meaning, Category Editors will post an 'official clarification' note at the bottom of the background information of the market.

So, keep an eye on the markets that you have predictions on for any clarifications of important topics, and happy hubdubbing.

I have 15 bets down on the question, Will the Dow close below 10,000 this year? Half of them are 3rd quarter, the other half are 4th quarter. There are so many they waste space on the screen. I have the same situation with many other bets that I've nibbled my way into over time. I'd like to be able to highlight several of them, then right-click on "consolidate these bets". (Or click a check box on each bet that says "Consolidate?" After two such check boxes had been clicked, those two bets would be consolidated. Then the user could add additional bets to the consolidated pile in the same fashion, if he desired.) I think this would be a popular feature with heavy players here.

In a comment on one of the questions, Markov wrote:
"I now only rarely wager on long term questions. I can make 10 good short term wagers with the same $ it takes to make 1 good long term wager and earn 10 times as much. IMHO the only time to do long term wagers is when you have too much $ to wager efficiently elsewhere (not my problem yet, unfortunately) or when you are highly confident you can get in and out real quick before the market stagnates."

In order to level the playing field, I suggest that bets on long-term questions be automatically placed on margin, with longer-term questions being more highly margined. Here's an illustration of the % of the bettor's cash that he would put up for questions of the following suspension dates:

Over 4 weeks: 70%
Over 6 weeks: 60%
Over 9 weeks: 50%
Over 12 weeks: 40%
Over 24 weeks: 30%
Over 36 weeks: 20%
Over 1 year: 15%
Over 2 years: 10%
Over 3 years: 5%

Margin calls would be applied automatically as questions moved, over time, into a higher-margin category, with the required amount being deducted from the player's cash reserve or, if that was insufficient, from deductions from his other bets, starting with the least margined.

There would be somewhere, perhaps atop the Predictions list, a running total of Margin Due Down-the-Road, perhaps shown as a bar-chart, to indicate the dates and amounts due at each point down the road.

The bettor would be alerted one week before any margin call with a "pinned-to-the-top" notice of his Predictions and Dashboard screen--and maybe others too. He could, by clicking on that notice, have the margin call satisfied immediately. That would allow him to specify if he'd like the margined bet itself to be reduced to satisfy the call, or which set of bets he'd like to reduce to supply margin-cash, in case he didn't want them all reduced by an equal percentage. He'd do this either by highlighting them, or by manually cashing in some percentage of each bet in advance of clicking the "collect margin" button.

(This percentage-bet-reduction would be a desirable feature on its own, instead of forcing the bettor to cash in a bet in its entirety and then reenter the bet at a smaller amount, which is a bit annoying and inconvenient.)

If participants can't meet a margin call, their margined bet would be cashed out at that point--or reduced to a size their resources can support.

In rare cases it might happen that a bettor would go into the red. (For instance, if a large, highly margined long term bet or bets happened to be settled against the bettor long before its suspension date.) But, since this is a game, I guess the bettor could be allowed to continue to play even with a negative balance. Alternatively, long-term bets could be divided into two categories: those subject to being suddenly settled if some event occurs, and those that must run until their termination date. The amount bet on items in the former category could be limited, in order to prevent bettors from suddenly going into the red.

Or some other formula could be employed to analyze the riskiness of a bettor's bets in relation to his reserves, to prevent him from allowing his entire account from getting too highly margined, all things considered. This is a complex subject that I'll leave to people who are getting paid to strain their brains about such matters.

Since only play money is involved, there should be no great wariness about the prospect of a few bettors getting overextended. The much greater risk is the unattractiveness of the whole Hubdub enterprise if long-term bets can't be margined, since they merely tie up capital and make the game no fun.

I suggest that users be given the option to opt out of the margin system entirely, as it will be sure to confuse or unsettle many participants initially. However, if they opt to join, I suggest that it work automatically (according to a list of time-spans and percentages similar to the one I provided above), for the sake of simplicity and consistency.

When I click on my list of 20+ active tabs (in Firefox) and scan the list for Hubdub, it's always too well camouflaged to find, because its gray "h" blends in with the gray text and the gray lines of the table-gridwork. I suggest you use a standout color for it, like orange.

If you enjoy Hubdub and want to contribute to its success, why not nominate yourself (or someone else) as a volunteer Superuser.

Superusers are identified by a small super user iconicon next to their user name, and may perform the following:
* Flag questions for clarificaton
* Suspend questions due for settlement
* Respond to comments and queries on market pages and Get Satisfaction
* Help with onine marketing
* Write text for market background and blogs
* Participate in forums about changes to rules and functionality

We are looking for members who:
* Have time to commit to being a Superuser
* Have a record of successful question creation
* Participate actively in the community - provide useful and timely flags and settlement requests, and make useful comments
* Have no history of gaming
* Show respect towards and willingness to help other members

Additionally, Super Users must be responsible; understand Hubdub rules and process; and be able to provide intelligent, balanced judgements.

Send nominations to Tisha on tisha@hubdub.com, explaining why you (or another member) would be a good superuser and what aspect of the role you (or they) would be most interested in.

Please send in nominations by September 3rd.

I received a challenge on a question that I've already made predictions on and Hubdub still wants me to predict or decline the challenge. I was thinking that perhaps challenges could check the person's open predictions, so you're not receiving a bunch of challenges to questions you already have cash on. I don't know how often this happens, I only have 2 friends so I'm not really receiving challenges left and right, but other people might be. It's just a thought, but I figured I'd throw it out there.

Then again this is probably one of the reasons there's a 'Decline' button.

Since I am just a regular HubDub member I am not privy to any details regarding per capita usage statistics, active user numbers, or any other figures that might lend insight into how well the site is doing. That having been said, I therefore have no idea whether or not the general HubDub membership is active and satisfied with the direction that the site is taking and how interesting it might be deemed to be. There is really no reason or need for me, personally, to know any of this. However, there is great need for the site operators to know and understand such information. Perhaps this is known and my suggestion here is moot. But....Would a detailed, blind response, survey to the entire membership provide valuable insight to the site operators? Would it improve the site? Just a thought.

Hubdub's Election Map page lists also the individual questions per state which is very convenient. I find myself a number of times checking the list to determine the closest races according to hubdubber predictions. Wouldn't be nice if there was an option to list the states according to this criteria? I mean the closest predictions on top. Actually, if I had to choose only one, I'll prefer this agains the alphabetical list now.

As a stray thought, when making a wager on your own prediction how about disabling the ability to hide that wager from your pulic predictions?

Are there any plans to have some general discussion forums? From time to time I find myself wanting to post comments on a question but stop as my comments are of a more general nature and not specifically related to the question at hand. I was just thinking that there would be more than a few worthwhile discussions to be had based on some of the questions that are being created.

Hey

In the Sports section, I want to encourage more people to base their initial starting percentages for sporting events on the odds offered by online gambling sites/oddsmakers. One of the best sites for this is oddschecker.com which aggregates odds from a range of sources.

So heres how to convert the fractional odds quoted into approximate outcome percentages for Hubdub:

- Odds will typically be quoted in a fractional or over/under format.
For example NBA: Cleveland @ Boston on Feb 28th: Oddschecker quotes Cleveland at 45/17 and Boston at 1/4

- To calculate the percentages for an outcome: divide the under number (denominator) by the sum of the over (numerator) and under (denominator) numbers. Heres the formula: (under/(over + under)) * 100 = outcome percentage

In the example above:

Cleveland - (17 / (45 + 17)) * 100 = 27 (27%)

Boston - (4 / (1 + 4)) * 100 = 80 (80%)

But 27% + 80% is 107%? - The sum of the calculated percentages will always be over 100%. The additional percentage over 100% (7% in the example) is what the gambling site make their revenue from.

To comply with the Hubdub rule that outcomes must add up to 100%, just take a few percentage points off each percentage so that the percentages add up to 100% and the ratio of the percentages with respect to each other remains similar. In the example above setting Cleveland to 25% and Boston to 75% would be acceptable.

Hope this helps and encourages more of you to set more accurate starting percentages.

Regards

Donal
(Hubdub Sports Editor)