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Drowning in vice-presidential candidates!

I've been noticing that there are a lot of markets which are, if not exact duplicates, in essence asking the same thing. Having multiple extremely similar markets makes it a lot easier to game the system, especially when they have different prediction levels.

A quick survey of the democratic vice presidential questions shows 4 related to an Obama/Clinton ticket:
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_H...
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/What_i...
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Who_wi...
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/If_Hil...

Three related to John Edwards as a running mate:

http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_J...
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Now_th...
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_J...

One for Al Gore:
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_A...

and two more:
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_t...
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_t...

I'm not saying these aren't interesting questions (I esp like the prior elected office question) but so many of them are basically subsets of each other, if not exact duplicates.

I could list a similar number on Mccain's vice presidential prospects as there are an awful lot of them as well.

I know most of these have been around too long to void (although I would really like to trim down the Barack/Hillary set) and I doubt we can do much to alleviate the current situation. But I'm hoping we can do something to prevent this from happening in the future. Assumedly the power user vetting will help, but there needs to be some guidance about what a "duplicate" market is. How different does a question need to be?

Although I'm bringing this up in the context of the vp questions, you could think about in terms of the Roadie or American Idol questions.. What if we had questions for all remaining 11 American finalists saying "what week will they go home" as well as individual questions every week saying "will Person A go home this week" for each contestant and then the standard "who will go home this week" question. Each of these questions is slightly different, and yet I think that would be an absurd number of AI questions to pose. Its only personal taste that I haven't created all those other questions and in fact many of them do exist for the Roadies show. Is that too many? Are they too similar? I think so, but I'd really like to hear what other people think.
 
happy I’m hopeful we can trim the fat!
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  • RyanJ EMPLOYEE
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    RyanJ, Official Rep, replied on March 15, 2008 12:27
    Hi jenniandboys,

    I see your point on the amount of VP markets. I know that the amount of VP markets means their is allot to look for and predict. But, if we look at this like looking at Financial markets, good markets will get good play and more money on them.

    While similar markets will be not be predicted on by the user base, and therefore get sent to the back of the line. If a question is different then another, I don't want to void it. I'll let the market (User predictions) decide where the question will be seen or won't be seen.

    I hope this makes my intention clear in how I deal with similar markets. After looking at the Hillary/Obama markets I think I can squeeze one out, which isn't popular and is a duplicate of another Hillary/Obama market. But if I do this we might get into some wishy washy ground on how we define duplicates. What does everyone else think?

    Regards,

    Ryan
    Hubdub US Politics Content Editor
     
    happy I’m confident
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  • jenniandboys EMPLOYEE
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    jenniandboys, Official Rep, replied on March 15, 2008 13:14
    Ryan - I agree its not practical to do anything about the existing markets, more wanted to start a discussion for future questions. I'm really just using them for an example.

    Looking at the Barack for VP set, the yes percentages are at :
    38%, 7%, 20% and 25%

    Its pretty simple to put a lot of money on the 7% percent and hedge your bets on one of the others and then no matter the outcome you walk out with beaucoups h$. (My husband worked out the ideal amount of $ to bet based on the percentage difference -- sorry we're geeks).

    Perhaps my question is coming back to the central question: is hubdub a news predictions site or a betting site. I'd rather predict the news than accumulate meaningless $ (probably why I have so little!!)

    As a side note, I somewhat disagree that similar markets don't get bet on. There are respectively, 27k, 29k, 10k and 3k on the 4 Hil/Bar markets. Its certainly been in the news a lot, and is an important question but the interest in the acutal question gets spread out over 4 markets. Instead of 4 middling questions, we should have one question at 70k on the front page.

    Again, I'm really just trying to use the VPs as an example. I'd be just as happy to switch to talking about AI or Roadies questions. I know the power user vetting is coming along soon and assume most of the vetters will be members of this forum. I just think the degree of similarity is a good thing to keep in mind as the questions are getting vetted.
     
    silly I’m spending too much time on this site
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  • Lesley EMPLOYEE
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    Lesley, Official Rep, replied on March 18, 2008 13:00
    Hi jennieand boys

    I agree with you that the similarities of certain questions is pretty annoying (I'm very "J" on the myers-briggs scale - if you know it - and so like everything tidy!). We implemented an auto Search function on question creation to find potential duplicates, which has helped a little, but obviously there are still problems.

    It's good to flag this to the "power" users so that we're all aware of it and once user vetting comes in, it will hopefully make a difference.

    Thanks for flagging it. And I'm so pleased you're enjoying the site despite our teething problems!
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  • NewsWrangler
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    NewsWrangler replied on March 18, 2008 14:06
    There's a growing trend of posting the identical question, save only the "settlement date".

    Will Hillary Clinton drop out of the race by March 20th?
    Will Hillary Clinton drop out of the race by March 21st?
    Will Hillary Clinton drop out of the race by March 22nd?
    Will Hillary Clinton drop out of the race by March 23rd?

    Other variants are, "Will the Times Square bomber be caught by [date]?

    All of these are very close dated, with generous predication odds, and are immediately (within 5-10 min) wagered to the max on the side of the virtually certain win.

    This isn't aided by the "auto search function", as the purpose of these multiple and constant posts is, in my view, gaming.

    Some user comments about these questions suggest these gaming questions may be causing more harm to the spirit of the site, then anything else.
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  • Lesley EMPLOYEE
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    Lesley, Official Rep, replied on March 18, 2008 14:16
    I can see this would be a problem Truthwrangler. Thanks for flagging it. Could you post the link to some of these questions - I've had a quick look but can't find them - and I'll look into it.
    Lesley.
     
    sad I’m annoyed people are still gaming. So tiresome.
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  • NewsWrangler
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    NewsWrangler replied on March 18, 2008 18:10
    One variant has just (recently) been posted:

    49 mins ago
    vitaly21 created the question Will the accused terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari, who fled from a toilet in the Whitley Road Detention Centre in Singapore, be arrested by 03/20/08?


    It immediately was waged to the max for the obvious win.

    The previous version was:

    Total activity: hd$16,638
    Created by amortifiedpenguin

    Will the accused terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari, who fled from a toilet in the Whitley Road Detention Centre in Singapore on Wednesday afternoon, be arrested before 03/15/08?.

    Settled as No


    The Times Square markets include:

    1 day ago
    vitaly21 created the question Will the person or persons behind the Time Square bombing be caught by March 18th?

    6 days ago
    vitaly21 created the question Will the person or persons behind the Time Square bombing be caught on or before March 13th?


    There were a slew of close-dated questions on these topics by "inessa21". I sent some of them to Nigel last week, who looked into them and voided them. You can look at that user's voids to see them -- these are the ones that were settled (for more than H$150K):

    Total activity: hd$15,767
    Created by inessa21

    Will a suspect in the New York Times Square bombing that occured 3/06/08 be caught by 3/08/08?

    Settled as No
    Total activity: hd$19,280

    Created by inessa21

    Will a suspect be arrested in the death of UNC student body president Eve Carson by 3/08/08?

    Settled as No
    Total activity: hd$38,417

    Created by inessa21

    Will a suspect or person of interest be arrested in the death of Lauren Burk, an Auburn University student by 3/20/08?

    Settled as Yes
    Total activity: hd$53,718

    Created by inessa21

    Will Governor Elliot Spitzer's wife file for divorce on or before 3/13/08?

    Total activity: hd$42,597
    Created by inessa21
    Settled as No


    Ordinary users can't search for voids, so it's difficult to find a history.

    I think that the frequent, close-dated with unrealistic odds postings may inspire other users to copycat the "technique".
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  • peterww
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    peterww replied on March 18, 2008 20:06
    Could Hubdub implement a requirement that questions with dates in them have to include explanations in the background to describe the significance of those dates? It seems that if someone is posting arbitrary dates, the requirement would prompt them to stop. At least it would give the powers that be a basis for voiding markets that seem designed solely for gaming.
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  • Lesley EMPLOYEE
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    Lesley, Official Rep, replied on March 18, 2008 22:10
    Thanks for these. I've voided the vitaly21 question on the basis of inaccurate odds and am investigating his/her account for potential gaming. If we find cause for concern, the user will be added to our watch list.

    I think that all we can do with these types of questions right now is keep flagging and voiding them, and keep an eye on the would-be gamers.

    The rules are going to be updated shortly such that any questions which are essentially the same but with dates only marginally different will be voided. So please do flag them whenever you come across them.

    Thanks for your help with this.
     
    happy I’m hoping we can flush these critters out
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  • NewsWrangler
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    NewsWrangler replied on March 19, 2008 04:13
    {sigh}

    Here's another repost of the same question from the same user, instantly wagered to the max (approx H$20K) for the win. (It's been up for less than an hour.)

    Will the accused terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari, who fled from a toilet in the Whitley Road Detention Centre in Singapore, be arrested by 03/22/08?

    <http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_t...>
     
    indifferent I’m wondering if Mas Selamat Kastari, who fled from a toilet ... flushed before he fled.
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  • Destry EMPLOYEE
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    Destry, Official Rep, replied on March 19, 2008 04:50
    I think that the potential vetting system I have suggested would be ideal for fixing this problem. Not letting questions go live until they are reviewed, will take away some of the gaming potential. In the meantime is it possible to restrict new accounts from creating questions for 7 days, that would prevent users from creating multiple accounts just to create questions, and if they are dedicated enough to do 7 days in advance, then hopefully we can stop them another way.
    I don't know about other users, but I look at the new questions frequently. I flag them as soon as I can if I see a problem, and am anxious to see changes come to prevent users from gaming the system.
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  • Lesley EMPLOYEE
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    Lesley, Official Rep, replied on March 19, 2008 10:31
    I've voided it and sent a warning email to the creator.
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  • jenniandboys EMPLOYEE
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    jenniandboys, Official Rep, replied on March 19, 2008 12:15
    REALLY REALLY LIKE THE 7 DAY RESTRICTION ON QUESTIONS!! (Sorry for the yelling, but I REALLY LIKE IT!!)

    Also, I hope you can put some simple checks in place to alert you when a new user has "made too much money". I noticed a new user the other day who made over 26,000$ in their FIRST day. Somehow I don't think that's just luck. That's not something I usually look for, but I hope you do.
     
    happy I’m glad we're making hubdub better
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  • rohan
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    rohan replied on March 19, 2008 13:36
    Hey all,
    This may not be the right place to say it, but I'm too lazy to create a new topic. What I want to say is that there are WAYYYYYY too many Roadies questions, all of which have been gamed. The day before the episode, there is a sharp spike and it invariably turns out to be right. I think that all Roadies questions should either be banned or have a suspend date 5 days before the episode. Its only fair.
     
    silly
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  • rohan
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    rohan replied on March 19, 2008 13:36
    Hey all,
    This may not be the right place to say it, but I'm too lazy to create a new topic. What I want to say is that there are WAYYYYYY too many Roadies questions, all of which have been gamed. The day before the episode, there is a sharp spike and it invariably turns out to be right. I think that all Roadies questions should either be banned or have a suspend date 5 days before the episode. Its only fair.
     
    silly
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