Suspend v Settlement Times

I think it is up to the question creator when and what type of question they want to create. It is up to the person wagering on the event if they want to be in a market that has a short or long term between suspend and settlement.
It seems that a ton of time and effort is going into solving problems that are created by allowing questions to go live immediately. If all questions were held in suspend until they were approved by category editors, who would then look at starting odds, wording of questions, settlement details, and other factors, then if the question met the standards it would be made live immediately and there would be no need to have the 12 hour rule for wagering or cashing in the predictions. I see 10 different admins listed on the site, it seems that one admin could be assigned a set time period to filter new questions. I know selecting a few power users to also help in filtering new questions is in the works.
I personally select questions in which the suspend time and settlement time are very close together, I do not like having my money "locked" up for long periods of time. I like to play the market movements more than playing the outcome of events. I think it is personal preference, and seems to be a waste of the category editors time and energy since users can see when a question will suspend before they decide to wager on it. It is always going to be hard to deal with markets in which an event occurs before a known time, I think that is where having people dedicated to looking at flagged questions, settlement requests and new questions would make any potential conflicts be minimized.

I think it is up to the question creator when and what type of question they want to create. It is up to the person wagering on the event if they want to be in a market that has a short or long term between suspend and settlement.
It seems that a ton of time and effort is going into solving problems that are created by allowing questions to go live immediately. If all questions were held in suspend until they were approved by category editors, who would then look at starting odds, wording of questions, settlement details, and other factors, then if the question met the standards it would be made live immediately and there would be no need to have the 12 hour rule for wagering or cashing in the predictions. I see 10 different admins listed on the site, it seems that one admin could be assigned a set time period to filter new questions. I know selecting a few power users to also help in filtering new questions is in the works.
I personally select questions in which the suspend time and settlement time are very close together, I do not like having my money "locked" up for long periods of time. I like to play the market movements more than playing the outcome of events. I think it is personal preference, and seems to be a waste of the category editors time and energy since users can see when a question will suspend before they decide to wager on it. It is always going to be hard to deal with markets in which an event occurs before a known time, I think that is where having people dedicated to looking at flagged questions, settlement requests and new questions would make any potential conflicts be minimized.

In my mind having markets that suspend a week or two before the end date are not worth it. As has been stated they keep peoples money tied up, and don't let people play the market which in the end means that our ability to predict news correctly is hindered.

What these markets (early suspend dates) are good for is taking a picture of perceptions for a certain time period before the event. But that is no what we want to do, we want to predict the news. And either way these pictures of perceptions based on how the graph looks at a certain place in time are in markets without early suspend dates as evidenced by the changes you seen in market graphs over time.

Regards,

Ryan
Hubdub US Politics Content Editor

*This is not an official response, just my opinion on the matter.

Was going to stay out of this as I have little new to add, but perhaps another voice of agreement is still helpful.

I started off as a news predictor. I picked the couple of topics I was interested in and said what I thought was going to happen. After a couple of weeks, I had about 1200$ and my husband had over 4000$.

Now I play the markets with most of my $ and keep smaller bets in the 'prediction' questions. (Of course he's still kicking my butt, but its less embarassing now).

Those who don't have the time or inclination to play some of the more active markets will have very little chance of making it onto the leaderboard. I like some of the suggestions here about having some kind of "accuracy" leaderboard for questions you stuck with into settlement -- but not sure how that might be implemented with hedged bets... Still some other way to reward people for the long term bets is a nice idea.

All that to say, I think there's plenty of room in hubdub for both kinds of questionns and all kinds of players.

Really in depth discussions going on here guys and gals. Some very good examples of how to find a solution to this problem. I'll try to play devils advocate not on one side or another but in terms of settlement.

How do we deal with popular markets, for example lets say we get a market on "Who will be the next President?" But the suspend date for the market is September 25th (not Nov. 3), with a high volume market such as that would we really want such a early suspend date? If we go along with allowing early suspend dates how are settlers (Admins) allowed to edit suspend dates at all. Would it only be if the creator asks for a change?

Sorry for asking more questions :-)

Regards,

Ryan
Hubdub US Politics Content Editor

Hello everyone
I realise that there's been no final decision made on this issue. There's a heck of a lot of information here, so I'm going to go through it with a fine tooth comb over the weekend and come back to you on Monday.
Thanks for all your input.
Lesley.

Hello lovely users

I've read through all your responses here and have had a few emails about this too. Conclusions are as follows:

7 users believe we should leave it up to the question creator
4 users want suspend and settle to be as close to each other as possible
3 users want a capped period

So in the interests of democracy, we'll go with the 7. This does however throw up a few problems that we need to iron out.

The following are suggested revisions to the rules and our working practices. Let me know if you have a problem with any of them, or if there's something we've missed:

- Suspend dates in question creation will be made compulsory.
- Where a specific settlement date is NOT given in a question, if the suspend date has been reached and the question is still unsettleable, but it may become settleable in the future (e.g. a court case) then the Category Editor will extend the suspend date
- Where there is an obvious mistake in a suspend date, Category Editors will amend the suspend date, e.g. when a suspend date is after the settlement date refered to in the question.
- In all other cases, Category Editors will not amend the suspend dates.

This leaves us with one problem. What constitutes a duplicate question? If a question has been created with a significant suspended period, there is a distinct possibility that a user will create a duplicate question with a suspend date nearer the settlement date (as in Ryan's presidential election example above). So when do we void for being a duplicate? The suspend dates could be different by 1 day, 1 week or several months, but the questions are the same. Where do we draw the line? If we disallow them all, then the option for different types of play is restricted. If we allow them all, things will be very messy.

Any thoughts?

I don't like the idea of there being a huge gap between suspend times and settlement times. I think for questions in which there is no definite settlement date, there shouldn't be a suspend date. Suspending a market locks up that market and thereby takes away the ability to be a market website. Basically you are just guessing about the outcome, that isn't what this site is. If it was we would have 1000 credits and bet 1 credit on the outcome, not buying and selling a market. I don't think having a bunch of questions predicted correctly is a measuring stick of anything. I will wager on 100 questions and close out the position on 95 of them at a profit, the other 5 I will either let settle if I can't get out at a profit and believe the outcome will be in my favor, or cash out and take a loss, rarely will I let a question settle. On some questions in which I do allow to settle are questions in which I have wagered lets say 10,000 dollars at 92%, I am earning 8% on the outcome, but if I cash even it market was at 99%, moving that much money out would put me out at 95%, so only make 3%. I will then let those wagers go to settlement. There are also times I will let a small wager go to settlment, if I have 100 bucks on question and I got in at less than 10%, then I will let it settle cause I might win big and lose just a little.
The problem I have with suspend times being far out, is that you have closed the market. Money is locked up and the market can no longer function and that goes against the foundation of this site. If a question creator wants to create a question with a suspend date far out from the settlement date, more power to them, I won't wager on them, and doubt many other would. Why would I want to wager on a presidential market that wont settle til November, if my money is locked up in June. If a person doesn't have the ability to follow a market closely, then don't wager on it. There are some days I have meetings when dow is closing (I try to schedule meetings around my hubdubbing) and I don't play the markets on those days. I would like the suspend time to be easier to see on the question page. As a hubdubber I read the settlement details before every question but I am sure alot of others don't have that habit.
As far as duplicate questions I would say that in the presidential example if someone wants to create a question about the race and suspend it in June then we shouldn't allow any other questions about the race until that market settles. If someone creates a market that has no suspend date, and someone else want to create a question with early suspend date, then the starting odds of that question should be whatever the other question are at the time of creation. I can guarantee you that the question with later suspend date will get more action. Why would anyone want to wager on the other question? Those that want to see how well they do, still can but also have ability to get out if market is good and can cash out early if they choose.