Recently active topics in Hubdub tagged with gaming

Over the past 24 hours we have received votes on the question of what action we should take with regards Satyaki. The votes are now all in and counted.

In total we had 25 verified votes. The final votes were:
Option 1: fine of H$8,300 - 0 votes
Option 2: 50% fine - 7 votes
Option 3: fine down to H$1,000 - 5 votes
Option 4: close account - 13 votes

Therefore option 4 has the majority and Satyaki's account has been deactivated. As previously discussed the procedure on gaming is:
1st instance: Email warning
2nd instance: 50% of net worth fine
3rd instance: Account closure

Note that we have dropped the 2 week question ban as we haven't yet implemented that functionality. If we feel that it is necessary we may implement it later. Secondly, if the instance of gaming is particularly blatant (e.g. multiple linked accounts creating questions at wholly incorrect prices) then we may skip immediately to steps 2 or 3.

My own lesson was that we should have been more on top of this from the start. Over the next couple of weeks we are planning on doing a number of calls with users so we can be more in tune with what you think the major issues are and how we can make the site better. I look forward to speaking to as many of you as possible.

*Admissions and Observations*

1. We do take gaming seriously however with all the other demands of running the site we probably haven't given it the attention it deserves. Part of the reason was we had hoped to deliver question approval functionality (which would eliminate most forms of gaming) sooner.
2. In the case of Satyaki my initial proposed resolution was obviously insufficient (my mistake)
3. One reason that Satyaki has stood out is his interest in Indian sport and entertainment. We have significantly less Indian than American users which means (a) they stand out and (b) questions at initially poor odds are much more likely to benefit the question creator. The Indian cricket questions were made significantly in advance of both the event and Satyaki making a prediction. If these had been about US sports other users would have shared in taking advantage of initially poor odds.
4. That said, Satyaki was obviously aware of this and repeatedly created starting estimates for a team at 48% which he subsequently thought were good value at 90% plus. Additionally, Satyaki is the only Hubdub user to be previously fined for gaming.
5. There have been other low level gamers that have received warnings and placed on an internal watchlist however no one else has progressed to a fine. Thanks to all the users for highlighting gaming.
6. (Jenniandboys point) Category editors always review flags. The current process is not to respond to the person who flagged the issue.

*General Resolution*

1. Revised procedure for dealing with gaming:
- First instance: Email warning
- Second instance: 50% fine, public notice and 2 week block on ability to create questions
- Third instance: Account closure

We could make this more aggressive (e.g. closure on first instance) however there are three issues with that.
(1) Most users just don't read the rules before they play and also for most social sites/games the accepted rules are unwritten therefore there is no point looking for them.
(2) I have emailed users (including some in this forum) about suspected gaming who have convinced me of their innocence. It can sometimes be very difficult to prove gaming between accounts.
(3) In usability studies we have done we have found new users very hesitant to create new questions. Basically they were scared they would do something wrong. Adding in the threat that they will potentially get their account closed would make that worse.

We won't at this time ban at IP level however if we do start to encounter a problem of account re-openings we will implement a more rigorous approach to user verification (e.g. banning of web mail etc)

2. To help make user activity more visible, we will list all users participating in a particular question on the question page. We are still working out the details of that.

3. We will implement question approval functionality by April 28th.

4. We will publish the new rules on gaming being discussed here: http://getsatisfaction.com/hubdub/top...

5. (Jenniandboys list of potential gamers) Some of these we have already identified but I will review this to see if we need to take further action here. Thanks for your diligence.

6. We will review how the site currently links to the rules to ensure they are more widely read (good point newswrangler)

7. We will improve integration between Hubdub and Get Satisfaction (another good point newswrangler)

*Resolution re Satyaki*

This has been the third time that Satyaki has been caught gaming. His one defence is that he has complied with the letter of the rules, although clearly not the spirit by which the vast majority of the other users adhere to. The discussion above is finely balanced between people who think he should be banned outright and others who think he should be heavily penalised. A smaller proportion of users feel he has been unfairly targeted.

As we don’t have a consensus I propose to put this to a vote. At 8pm BST I will create a question in the Hubdub category asking for users vote on what we should do. The options will be:
1) Fine of H$8,300 (the amount earned from the gamed cricket questions) and 2 week bar on question creation
2) Fine of 50% of net worth and 2 week bar on question creation
3) Fine down to H$1,000 and 2 week bar on question creation
4) Account closed

The question will remain open for 24 hours and I will request users to place one comment each stating their vote (e.g. vote using the comments, not the market). Votes from accounts that have been created after this post or are from accounts suspected of gaming will not be counted. If no option has a simple majority then we will average and round to the nearest integer option number (round up on 0.5). E.g. votes of 1, 3, 4, 2, 2, 4 averages to 2.667 and therefore we would apply option 3 (fine down to H$1,000).

*Question*

Users can currently make public or private predictions. Making private predictions obviously reduces the ability for other users to identify users who are gaming the system. So the question is: Should we change the system so that all predictions are public?

After less than a week on HubDub I have almost doubled my H$1000. Interestingly I have only 6 settled predictions from which I actually lost about H$30 in total. Which means that I have made all of my winnings by predicting on questions in which I felt that the current market valuation was askew, betting on an (IMHO) undervalued option, and cashing out when my gain was greater than say 10%.

Is this gaming the system? Is this an acceptable and even anticipated approach to HubDubbing?

If I can increase my wealth by 10% every few hours thusly, it's easy to double my stake within days. It's equivalent to the lure of day-trading in other markets. But it isn't the idea of HubDub I had from press items when I joined.

Should we perhaps be charged for our transactions? (This might offset the H$20 we receive per day.)

There's also a potentially unfortunate consequence to the approach I have outlined. By cashing out early, I seem to avoid any problems regarding voided questions, including ones that were voided because they were unfair or were suspended after the result was determined.

In case it's not clear, this post is aiming to inform the admins of potential exploits or bugs (in true Beta fashion), as well as to bring up some issues regarding the design philosophy or expectations of HubDub.

Having thought for a bit about the 12 hour freezes on, first, betting on your own question and, now, cashing out on new questions, I think there is a danger of giving way too much oil to this squeaky wheel.

First off, both seem like band-aid solutions. The cashing out freeze is like putting a band-aid on a band-aid. The question creator isn't allowed to bet anyway in the first 12 hours, so the freeze is actually ONLY to stop people who have broken the explicit HD rules on having more than 1 account, or who collude in secret with another member to game a market.

Now wouldn't it be far more useful to deal with this through flagging such behaviour in the server logs and kicking them out of HD, rather than changing the markets arbitrarily (I mean, why 12 hours; why not 24; why not 1 or 2?) in a way that harms the strategies of the majority of rule-abiding players, and which hampers the market-crucial corrective contribution of short-term investors (they're not betting on the outcome, but rather on whether the market correctly mirrors the realistic odds - they in fact are your best tool in correcting the market from bad initial odds and weird perturbations) as explained beautifully by doloop elsewhere in this forum?

But it's more than just that. Just how important is preventing gaming? How much admin and editor time, as well as forum space, is being allocated to this concern at the expense of all the other aspects of HD (growing the company, enticing new members, server bandwidth into the future, design improvements, bug squashing, new and improved functionality, building a community, improving the settled/voided ratio of questions, documentation, etc.)?

Here's my take, for what it's worth. I don't care about gaming all that much. I expect a certain amount of it - any leaderboard on any online game always has ridiculous high scores that are initially discouraging but later just silly and dismissable. You compete first and foremost against yourself. You know if you're impressed with your own achievements, if you killed that question or those Super Bowl questions. And the enjoyment of the game is not really about being on the top of the leaderboard (although its fun to see if you can make it). It has got to be in whether or not you enjoy participating in the markets, in whether you actually enjoy predicting things competitively here, in whether or not you enjoy coming to the HD site and participating in the community, making a few extra hucks ;-) at the expense of your rivals, friendly or hated, honest or cheaters.

As for competition, compete against the person ten above you in the leaderboard. Wait you say, I'm in 567th place and can only see the top 20. Precisely. That's what I want fixed first, that and other "game" related issues, not more and more restrictions on legitimate players and endless discussions about irrelevant "gamers".

Comments? Flames?

Patrick