chris's dashboard

Ahh, fair enough - I've got to admit I didn't look at that page when I was making changes - I'll try to change it this weekend (actually we could probably lose the news preview altogether and speed up the creation process). News is now gathered on the basis of all text (title/description/options and tags), and tags have no greater priority than any other words in this set. This was our intention in the first place, but unfortunately our original news provider wasn't really geared up to operate that way. Good points though. Thanks as ever for the feedback – chris, on July 04, 2008 20:30

"We don't use these tags for news gathering any more, so there is no longer any need to type contorted and repetitive phrases to try and find news articles"

I think users might benefit if this change in how news is pulled was made clearer.

If these "tags" aren't used to pull news, how is news pulled?

In the "create a question" process, a user still confronts the following:

"News preview: Improve this news by editing news keywords", and "News keywords: xxx, yyy, zzz"

The terms "tags" and "news keywords" seem to be somewhat 'at odds' with each other, (to improve the "keywords", a user needs to navigate 'back' and change the "tags" -- which isn't clear).

"News Preview" does show the "tags" that the user entered earlier, as the "news keywords".

I think this may create both user confusion, and less than desired "key words" ("tags"?).

thanks all who helped with this. i understand more than i did before i started. have a nice day.

@ dieseldoggg -- I think there are variables that may affect the amount of the "increased result" one sees in net worth after a successful settlement.

Let's say you make a H$5,000 prediction on "yes" at 50% on a question as the example for this.

Most of the previous examples have talked about "predictions gaining value during the time they were open" -- which results in something "less" than your seeing a H$5,000 "gain" when you receive settlement (does not include your H$5,000 stake which you also got back).

On the other side, if you made that H$5,000 prediction on "yes" at 50%, and most other users predicted "no" -- even to the extreme of "100% no", then your net worth would have decreased over time (as those other users predicted "no", the value of your "yes" prediction would steadily decrease (to H$4,500, H$4,000, H$3,000, etc...)

If the winning prediction is "yes", and the "net worth" of your prediction is H$0 (or close to it), then, after the settlement, your gain WILL show H$5,000 (and your "cash" will show an increase of H$10,000.)

- - - - - - - - - -

About the "ever increasing net worth over time" explanations ...

One way I can easily see the effect of this is, if I have made six predictions on the same market, over a period of time ... Say I predicted H$100 on "yes" six months ago at 33%; then another H$100 on "yes" a month later at 40%; another H$100 a month later at 47%, etc.

When, for example, I make my sixth H$100 prediction at 60%, I can look at the "value of my predictions", just before making the prediction, and then after. The value of my predictions doesn't increase by only H$100 after my last prediction -- but by, sometimes a significant greater amount (maybe H$200) -- as my last H$100 prediction also increased the "value" of all of my previous five H$100 predictions. (Said differently, if I cashed out any of those previous predictions, I would receive more than H$100 for each of them.)

In this example, my "cash" will decrease by exactly H$100 after my sixth prediction, but because my predictions increased by more than H$100, my net worth will increase by more than H$100.

As others have said, after a successful settlement, the amount of cash will increase by the amount of the original stake, plus the amount of "gain" from all of my six predictions.

My net worth, however, is unlikely to increase by that full amount, as my original stake is simply moved from "predictions" to "cash", and some amount of the gain I received was already reflected in the value of my "predictions".

dieseldoggg, please don't be offended if (1) this doesn't answer your question, or (2) if some/most/all of this you already know. Like others, I'm just trying to give your question "my best shot" ;-)

@jenni...i understand what your saying. maybe this has happen to you and you can say yea that happens. after the question settled in settled predictions it said gained $30,000. my net worth only increased by $10,000. i'm no math wizard but thats -$20,000. i don't have gains that big (first one in fact) do you? if you do, do you only get a 3rd? thats what caught my attention..i thought yee haw i'll break the $200,000 mark. well needless to say that ain't how it worked. on small gains, say $4 or $5,000 my net worth goes up by the settled predictions. after i here from you i'll close this out. thanks to all who helped.

Let me take a stab at this...

Let's say you invest 100 dollars at 50% odds. On your prediction tab, it says Staked 100, If right you get 200, Currently worth 100.

Then some more people bet on the market and now the market is sitting at 75 percent. Now your prediction tab says Staked 100, if right you get 200, Currently worth 150.

Finally, the market settles and you get that friendly little email: "Well done! You gained $100"

So the confusing part is what's actually going on with your money through all of this.. Your net worth is composed of your cash and your predictions (that's in the upper right of the screen).

Let's say that when all this started, you had only 100 dollars in cash and no other predictions. Then your screen would say: Cash 100, Predictions 0, Net worth 100.

After you make your prediction, the cash is put into the predictions. Now it says Cash 0, Predictions 100, Net Worth 100.

Now people are agreeing with you and your prediction has increased in value... You have Cash 0, Predictions 150, Net Worth 150.

Finally, after settlement the money moves from predictions back to cash... Cash 200, Predictions 0, Net Worth 200.

Where people get confused about is that the email said "You won 100" and yet it appears that your net worth only went up by fifty bucks. The important part is that your net worth had ALREADY gone up.

So its not that your not getting your money at settlement, its that you already HAD some of it. It was in your predictions money, not cash, but was already affecting your net worth.

I hope that helps a bit and didn't make it even more confusing!

now let's see chris. i gained 4,231 and lost 3,096 on cash in. that gave me a net gain of 1,135. my net worth was 173,715. so add them togeather you get 174,850. i'll be darn it that ain't close to what my home page is saying. so since "it is painfully obvious that the problem is that you don't understand what the figures mean" according to you, maybe you would like to explain them to me. oh wait it's not a priority. i sent ryan the same info i sent you and asked him to give it to you. i still haven't got an email from you requesting any info. maybe between the two of you something can be worked out. have a nice day.

i've never got a request for more info from you chris. did you receive the info i sent you? i sent you 2 pages. is chris@hubdub.com the right email addy?

I asked you for further information. Specifically, a copy of your open predictions screen at a point in time, and then of the open and closed predictions screen later when you think some settlements have failed to update the total correctly. I'm sorry that we aren't treating this as a priority, but it is painfully obvious that the problem is that you don't understand what the figures mean, rather than there being a fault. We just need the information we've requested so we can try to resolve your misunderstanding. – chris, on July 01, 2008 08:42

maybe just be a little patient. I'm quite sure they're looking into it - but there are still other things they have to do, so it could take a few minutes (or days). – kruijs, on July 01, 2008 07:09

well totally at my wits end. nothing being done here, nothing being done on the contact us link. what do i have to do to get somebody to help me? i got (IMHO) undispurtable evidence of my account not updating correctly and nobody will do anything.

haven't heard back from you (chris) so i'm guessing you haven't received or haven't had time to review what i sent you. if recently settled adds to net worth (which as always been the case before) don't know why it didn't this time.

ok i emailed you the info. sorry for not using the contact us link properly. i sent the info to tom, and never heard from him. i shoulda expressed that more clearly.

Feel free to – chris, on June 29, 2008 17:18

can i email you at chris@hubdub.com? i can send you the page so you can see what i'm talking about. to gain $40,000 and only get $10,000 added to my net worth is a bit confusing. i understand after bets are made the move up and down. you say my net worth would go to $5,500...then why i only got a fourth of my gain is really confusing. it's never happen like that before. if my gain is say a $1,000 (settled predictions) my net worth has always went up by a $1,000.

But a week after you made the H$1000 prediction it could be worth more like H$1300 because the outcome has become more likely (this is the cash-in value listed in your open predictions), so actually your net value would have moved to H$5300. The win value of the prediction is still H$1500 though, so when it does win your net worth would move to H$5500 (as expected), but this would be an increase of H$200 rather than the H$500 you were expecting.

ok let me see if i understand you correctly. let's say my net worth is $5,000. i have $2,500 cash and $2,500 in predictions. i got a $1,000 that pays $1,500 if i win. i win..should my net value then be $5,500?