andrew's dashboard

Hello HD...

I have no wagers on this market.

But I do have 20+ years experience in the airline industry and have been involved, personally and professhionally in multiple airline mergers, acquisitions, marketing linkages and dissolutions of ties between airlines, these are my points of reference.

Although I infer that the original author was speculating between a couple of potential merger partners for Delta; Northwest and United Airlines... the exact wording of the short question has lent itself to a variety of considerations. My personal opinion is that to settle for a yes there will need to be a suspension of stock trading by either Delta or Northwest Airlines stock prior to 12:01am on July 1st. United+Delta will not happen during the month of June.

Although many airline mergers are imagined, some are announced, less actually occur; various work groups and Congressional oversight have the ability, and history has proven, to disrupt this process.

Perhaps a better, more precise way to create these kinds of questions would be to say something like: "Announcement from boards of airlines X & Y w/ intent 2 merge within a 24 hours period by 7/1/08?" or "Will stocks of airline X or Y no longer be sold due to merger by 7/1/08?".

Those are my thoughts.

We are all having this conversation trying to be fair, and at same time inclusive, not exclusive. Maybe a comprise is right solution allowing questions pertaining to the top three world markets (not really sure, maybe Dow/Nikkei 225/FTSE 100) which icludes top one from US, Europe, Asia.
Just another idea that came to mind.

Agree 100% – ontilt, on May 31, 2008 09:28

That would be fine, but the major difference is that all the non major sporting questions suspend prior to match, meaning it gives no huge advantage to one person over another. The world market questions(and mass amounts) were simply being asked for one reason, they knew not many people followed them, combined with the fact very few hubdub members were competition during times these markets active thus huge profits for them. They could sit and watch as outcome was almost certainly decided with little competition following the question/market. And with regard to college league questions, the only ones I have seen have been involving the college world series, which is a major event with all suspend times prior to match meaning no real advantage to one user over another. Just an observation/opinion. Any and all feedback welcome. – ontilt, on May 31, 2008 09:27

I agree. There should have been a real time quote instead of one they most probably knew was a much delayed quote thus gaining advantage for themselves and throwing others off purposely. – ontilt, on May 31, 2008 09:15

I am hoping we see in the phase 2 rollout of the super user functions a situation in which all questions are in a suspend status until they can be reviewed. I hope that would help stop some of these problems from occurring. I also think we should spend more time working with new users on creating good markets.

kruijs - Great idea on publishing index link on question page. I would also add a rule that index questions suspend 24 hours before index closing. You are also correct about the exotic league sports questions. I believe the first major Hubdub sanction against a member was for gaming on exotic sports leagues. I would, at least for now, confine sports betting to major North American and European professional and national leagues since they are most widely reported and probably 99% of Hubdub users reside on these two continents. Anything outside of that probably doesn't rise to the level of even minority interest and is ripe for gaming.

destry - Your comments on suspend times are right on the mark and have a history of creating problems on the site. I have seen much abuse of suspend times occurring during, or even after, game play or index reporting in the past, though the problem seems to be waning. I would imagine it is a huge job for admins to try to check the timing on each and every question with a faulty suspend time. I have a suggestion for the admins that might reduce that workload:

1) track the reasons why questions are voided into a few simple categories (i.e. bad suspend time, poor wording, advertising, etc.)
2) sanction members who chronically set bad suspend times

No need to give people crap about poor wording as I doubt people do that on purpose. A couple suspend time problems are likely a mistake as well. However, if someone is constantly screwing up the suspend times there might be a reason.

I think what you are experiencing is the skewing of questions based on the demographics of the users. Plus the big point is that those markets have a set time they begin and questions are suspended upon the beginning of the match. So that makes not being able to follow in real time a non factor. Would it be possible to ask questions about european markets and have them suspend before trading begins, maybe that is an alternative. Plus we need to understand that with less admins to settle these markets it could take up to 24 hours to settle.

Why are indices restricted while sports-questions are not?
I'm wondering whether specific questions about matches in a college league are newsworthy, as long as there are no questions about the professional league matches.
I appreciate everyone making questions.
But teach me wrong: Aren't they as problematic (in terms of being kind of exotic) like European indices?

I like the idea of providing a link for all market questions. I also feel that it would be extremely helpful if they were covered by bloomberg, fox business or CNBC, so people could get frequent updates.

Maybe we should publish a link to (near) real time index quote sites along with the question in general. Done by the cat-ed?

ontilt - Excellent point! A lot of people in the biz have real time quoting access and the rest of us are stuck with time delays. I could see how this could be a major problem. – Markov, on May 30, 2008 05:11

I was in same boat as you Markov. I tried to get involved but there was so many World Market questions being asked that it became ridiculous (in my opinion) . I wouldnt necessarily consider it gaming the system, but the ones who created/played these questions knew that far less users on hubdub at the time these markets are active so they could get their 10K bets in without much competition. Another thing is that numerous questions used the yahoo finance link for ther World Market questions, knowing that Yahoo showed quotes at least 20 minutes delayed. Sure, we can find our own sites for live quotes, but dont try to throw people off by giving a much delayed market quote. None of this is necessarily gaming, rather possibly smart people knowing the system and how to profit off it. I am glad hubdub is taking time to discuss this topic to make things as fair as possible for all above. Any decision made either way if fine with me, I am just adding to the conversation. – ontilt, on May 30, 2008 03:36

I appreciate your support Markov. – Lesley, on May 29, 2008 22:11

Lesley: I totally support your decision. Some of the business stuff was just getting crazy. There have been more than a few times I have read the questions and the first thing that popped into my mind was "someone's got to be gaming this one." Some things are just too obscure to pursue even for worldy Hubdub members.

Guys, I totally appreciate all your input, and we've discussed this amongst the team again, but have come to the conclusion that a TEMPORARY ban is necessary.

I can't right now give you a timescale unfortunately, but as soon as we feel we're in a position to open them up again, (and by making them non-in-running, that will hopefully be sooner rather than later) we will do it.

I hope you can all understand that we're trying to make the game as fair as possible for all involved.

Thanks for your understanding.

Lesley.

Thanks infernalmachine. I usually am a Yahoo, CNN person for finance info but after taking your advice I did find sites with closer up to the minute quotes. – ontilt, on May 27, 2008 07:24

You can get near-real-time quotes from the Nikkei, the Hong Kong exchange and the BSE (needs Java). Google them. They're easy to find. – InfernalMachine, on May 26, 2008 08:50

There was beginning to be so many Asian/European market questions that it was getting hard to keep track of them all. I realize that those questions were being asked because there were less users on hubdub at the times these markets are open, thus huge profits for a small group of people.
Another issue is that all of these questions asked for simple open up/down, close up/down. After checking these markets out for couple weeks it became apparent that with the Premarket action from previous close, it was usually decided what the outcome was going to be majority of time as the market opened.
And finally- The biggest problem in my opinion is that Yahoo, MSN, CNN, and other popular market tracking sites all post a delayed quote (not sure exactly how much, but seems like 20-30 mins at least) for the Asian/European markets. I have had a hard time finding site that posts live quotes/charts for all of the Asian/European market questions. Am I the only one with this problem? If I am overlooking an obvious website to use on these questions please let me know.
I really dont mind one way or another if these types of questions will be allowed in future, I just wanted to add personnal opinion to conversation.
I hope we here more of them.

Damn now I need to go to store for cookies. – Destry, on May 26, 2008 04:35