A question of morality

"If someone creates a well structured, settleable question in a genuine (as opposed to a malicious) manner, then he/she and most likely others deem it to be legitimate and moral. As far as I am concerned, If I feel a question is immoral, I won't create it, nor will I make a prediction on it."

Well said Donal.
Of course there will always be persons who reconstrue ( is that the correct phrase for "giving a different interpretation ? ) what has been asked along their personal feelings and opinions, but that can't be prevented anyways.

As long as the quesion's intention isn't to hurt someones feelings per se or to express a valuation ...

Perhaps people could flag distasteful questions. If a question gets enough flags, move it to the Hubdub "black market" -- a playground for people who don't take the actual Hubdub seriously!

The main objection has been to people posting questions about war casualities. It is news. This is a news prediction site so it is a valid question.

"I don't think there can be a "line" drawn against which we can appraise the morality of all questions going forward. You could say that we can't have any questions pertaining to the possible death of a public figure. But then is predicting the death of Britney morally equivalent to predicting the death of Osama Bin Laden?"

I agree with Donal aswell. News is often full of items that many find distastefull, immoral, upsetting etc. etc. None of this means that the question itself is any less valid. (Assuming it's a properly structured question ofcourse 8:[) Morality is a very personal thing. While many people may share similiar moral standards, no two people can be assumed to have the same moral standards. What might be immoral to me may just be distastefull to someone else.

While I agree that the Hubdub creators have the right to filter questions on their site if they choose to do so I think it would be a mistake.

I also wonder if their are not really 2 questions here. The prediction on questions such as war casualties and the wagering on such questions. Perhaps there could be a way of predicting an outcome but not "profiting" from it. Maybe having an additional leaderboard where the amount of H$ is irrelevant but the number of correct predictions made is what counts.

I don't think the issue of morality pertains to questions posed on Hubdub, but rather to the intent of the Hubdubber posing the question. Questions about the death, presumed death or possible death of public figures (including military deaths in war), posed as reasonable questions that can be settled impartially are perfectly within reason.

Immorality would occur if a user posed a question about the death of a public figure and then killed them, which I think is extremely unlikely.

I don't think we should be policing the morality of questions...atleast not the topic of the question. It's one thing to void a question that is posed in a way that is vulgar or malicious. However, to void a question on a topic that is a legitimate news item just because the topic offends some is, I believe, a pretty dangerous path to start down. Where would it end. Who decides what is ehtical and what isn't?
Once we "draw a line" somewhere...anywhere...the line is going to forever be moving, because some people can find a "moral" issue with almost anything. Personally, I often can't bring myself to wager on many of the questions that deal with death or tragedy even if I find the question interesting...my heart can't take it. I'm not the most rational of thinkers, and I don't easily separate my emotional response from my cognitive one. That doesn't mean that the person who posed the question, or those who do choose to wager on it, have any less integrity than I do. Nor am I offended that they choose to do so.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: If someone feels that a question is immoral...they don't have to participate in that market. If a question really is...well, questionable...then I would bet that the question won't get much activity anyway. It's frustrating enough to have questions voided due to poor structuring. I'm afraid that voiding questions based on supposed moral or ethical grounds will discourage people from writing and/or wagering on questions, and it will, ultimately, hurt the site. Some people are going to be upset about certain questions. Oh well. It makes for lively discussion in the comments section. I say err on the side of keeping a question open.

I was one of those who had posed a casualty question before and seemed to catch a lot of flak over it in the question comments. I never came here to check out everyone else's opinions. I agree, it is a newsworthy question and probably should be posted. Perhaps one of the problems is that some are concerned about the 'making of money' on the lives of our soldiers. Of course, that would exempt Halliburton and others, but I do understand the point about wagering. So we're into this for prediction's sake, and we can do it purely on a predictive nature. So I'm going to resubmit the question for June using a different time schedule that will allow for less adjusting of the wagers during the month and focus on 'predicting' the news earlier on. Let's see if this flies.