anaverageamerican's dashboard

onedave,

I wanted to apologize for contributing to the voiding of your question about the dolphins, and would like to encourage you to recreate it. I recommend adding an Other option in case the dolphins decide they like Jersey and don't go back out to sea.

But if you repost the question without an Other option, I won't flag it again (I reserve the right to comment though 8^).

Regards,
AnAverageAmerican

Nigel's reply suggests that you already took the appropriate action. When I think a question has settled incorrectly, I usually send either a "Settlement Request", or "Flag this Question", explaining my point of view to the Category Editor. Those text boxes appear pretty small, but you can enter in, or cut-and-paste, a considerable explanation there.

Opening a topic here at GetSatisfaction alerts all the _real_ Hubdub employees and we superusers to the fact that someone has an issue, so it works too. In general, GetSatisfaction is the forum of "last resort" for settlement issues. OTOH, it's a great forum for ideas about how HubDub can be improved and reporting bugs with the site.

Thanks for your thoughts,
AnAverageAmerican

Jenni's conservative. I became a super user by displaying the Bud Lite super powers of:

- talking to animals
- breathing fire
- travelling in time (so I can settle questions early, but be careful not to travel back to Salem. MA in 1692 8^)
- the ability to fly (into jet engines)

Seriously, I don't know exactly what the selection criteria were, but all of us charter super users have devoted a lot of time to policing questions by flagging those with problems, requesting settlement for questions (particularly those whose outcomes had been determined already), participating in the question comments and here at GetSatisfaction in a positive way (recent events nonetheless), creating successful questions (although my EBay Spy Satellite question must've been forgiven), and generally behaving like a good citizens of Hubdub.

I anticipate the number of super users will grow ('cause we're doing such a good job 8^), as will the number of super powers.

As Destry and Jenni have pointed out, for 48 of the 50 states in the USA, winning by popular and electoral vote is the same. I was thinking ahead to the overall presidential election where this could be contentious. For example, in 2000 Gore won the national popular vote, but lost the electoral vote.

As far as the states go, at this point it's only possible for their to be a disparity between popular and electoral votes for President in Maine and Nebraska.

I'd like to point out that Hubdub enthusiasm is not limited to the super-users, and I cite this thread as evidence. It might not be the most polite debate in Hubdub history, but I don't think anyone could question the enthusiasm that was on display 8^) – anaverageamerican, on June 06, 2008 02:25

Just one quick clarification to smidge76's last post. At this point in time the only super power that Hubdub super users have is to suspend questions. We are not able to settle questions.

I see issues on both sides of this ... well let's be polite and call it a debate.

Cursing in the comments is serious, though I think the specific terms mork used are pretty innocuous. BTW, I don't think George Carlin qualifies as a respected authority on what is, and is not, cursing.

I think that on both sides there were accusations and insinuations made about the motives of others that were obviously not based on evidence, but since that particular sword cut in both directions, I consider it moot.

Also, I have to agree with smidge76 that insinuating that mork's use of the term "drama queen" could be interpreted as, "making bigoted sexual orientation slurs", goes beyond the bounds of credibilty. Even if, as epicur claims, "Well in my circles, calling someone a drama queen is calling them a mincing / flaming homosexual", how would there have been any way for mork to know that? Cultural relativism aside epicur, you should at least been aware of the general usage of the term, or been prepared to research it prior to making your claim of victimization.

Lastly, I agree that we super users are not "representatives" of Hubdub per sé, but I do feel we have a responsibility, greater than that of the average user, to participate on Hubdub in a manner that exemplifies its potential.

One of the thing that initially attracted me to Hubdub was the civility of the community, though I understand that as the community expands there are going to be controversies, I'd like to hope that Hubdub will remain a remarkably civil online community. There were numerous comments by the principals, in both the question comments and here, to the effect of, "I'm done let's move on". So I recommend everyone take a deep breath and move on, it's a game, it's supposed to be fun!

I'm not opposed to the idea, but in my opinion Hubdub hasn't been around long enough for a consensus to form about what the significant qualities are that would allow induction into the "Hall of Fame".

While question creation, settlement, and net worth are important aspects of Hubdub, there are a lot of Hubdubbers, who have invested quite a bit of intellectual capital to help Hubdub, who would be bypassed by this proposal.

I challenge the HD community (including me) to devise an HD Hall of Fame that honors all of the qualities of an honorable Hubdubber.

Jenni, you are correct, this really isn't an issue for Colorado. Also, I was somewhat mistaken about Maryland. They did pass a law agreeing to pledge their electors to the winner of the national popular vote, but it doesn't take effect until states representing 270 electoral votes also agree to do so.

Destry, you are correct that most states award all of their electoral college votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state, but the number of electoral college votes is determined by the population of each state.

In addition to (the lunacy) of Maine and Nebraska, Maryland has (idiotically) pledged to cast all of it's electoral college votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Nevertheless, the HD rules for primaries, caucuses, etc, default to pledged delegates and I feel that the US Presidential election should be held to a similar standard.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the popular vote does not determine the winner (or whiner) of a US Presidential election, the electoral college decides ... so why would HD questions default to the popular vote?

I'm not advocating that popular vote questions are banned, just that the default settlement be based on the electoral college.

Although if current US monetary policy was followed this would be certain to wreck financial markets and increase HubInflation. Thanks, Beranake!

I'm not a facebook or myspace user either kruijs, so you are not the only one. – anaverageamerican, on May 08, 2008 21:46

There are links to news stories on question pages? I had not noticed. I spend more time in the comments, so I'm okay with the proposal. But my mouse finger still works so I'm okay having to click on the comments tab too.

I disagree with chris, that identifying Jimmy Carter as a traitor to the US for being the first (former or current) president of the US to publicly agree to meet with the head of a known terrorist organization might be considered libel.

It's bad enough that we have Congressional "leaders" meeting with Assad, but a meeting with a former US president (who makes the legacy of GW Bush look stellar) conveys legitimacy to a bunch of Islamist thugs. Carter should have just remained a successful (due to US crop subsidies) peanut farmer ... the world would be a better place!

If this is approved by Nigel, I have a verified Paypal account that can be used for payment. I'm Skipper's owner ... err ... I mean father. I keep getting him mixed up with his avatar (Skipper, Sit!). Seriously. I promise to turn most of the PayPal $ over to him as dog biscuits 8^)

Nigel,

I recommend starting a separate thread on communication protocols. Once the users participating here and the admins reach a consensus, there will be a posse of Hubdubbers clarifying the policy to the HubPolloi. Also the FAQ should be amended to reflect the community (admin and user) consensus.

Regards, AAA

Hi Diana,

Thanks for bring the discussion over to GetSatisfaction.

First off, I think it is perfectly safe to settle the Honus Wagner baseball card question. Yes, it's an auction and it's not over until it's over. On the other hand the Robert Edwards Auctions site requires bidders to go through a rigorous approval process, including reference checks, and they do not allow bid retractions, so the likelihood of a bidder failing to honor a bid is minute. Here http://bid.robertedwardauctions.com/t... are the Robert Edwards terms and conditions (note numbers 5, 6, 7, 22 & 23)

My comment #9, that you alluded to, was a response to _your_ comment #8, that stated, "if the auction bid rises above the market's goal--like it has done here--then it should be settled despite the risk that the sell might not be achieved in the end for whatever reason". The point I was trying to make is that all auction sites are not all created equal. While it might be safe to settle Robert Edwards auctions when the bid price satisfies the Hubdub question; you couldn't say the same thing about Ebay. So perhaps the rule should be that the market settles when the admins feel that there is minimal risk that the sale will not be completed.

Lastly, I must disagree about these markets being reopened. The Honus Wagner baseball card auction is definitely going to exceed $100,000. I don't see the value in allowing users to "predict" a foregone conclusion. I would prefer to have my predictions tied up until 5/3 rather than having these markets reopened.

Regards,
AAA

I've always thought the admins should be permitted to wager outside the category for which they are responsible. I do think they should exercise caution to prevent any hint of conflicts of interest.

So Nigel, if you are no longer responsible for settling markets, I see no reason why you should not have free rein.

I _can_ tell you were teasing, and I can take it as well as I can dish it out 8^) \ I was not surprised by the result of the vote, and I say let the majority rule! – anaverageamerican, on April 10, 2008 03:09