Donal's dashboard

Atrane; you are right in that the question was settled incorrectly, but not precisely for the reason you state.

When doubleheaders occur as a result of a postponement and scenarios such as this arise, we settle questions on the results of the game originally scheduled when the question was created. The originally scheduled game was the first game that the Rangers won but the question was settled by one of our admins on the results of the second game which the Mets won.

Thanks for adding the image with "in-play" for the questions that were such. This made them stand out and easy to find. I hope this can be done for all questions like this in future. – ontilt, on June 19, 2008 07:31

Considering I agree with everything stated above I would just like to thank Destry and all the Admins/Superusers who monitored the NBA Finals questions.

It should be limited to major sporting events where the questions receive action from a large group of users who can enjoy them and to prevent large gains for only a small few.

Wow, I am trying to think of something new to add but Donal and Infernalmachine already have me covered.
I guess I can add that as a regular Hubdubber, I enjoyed the in-play sports markets that have been allowed and believe they are good for the fun and growth of Hubdub. That is what we all want.

Some thoughts:

1) Amazing job, Destry.

2) I hope that in future some of the "major events" include some international action. The Euro2008 soccer, the World Cup, even a cricket or rugby match. Most of all, the Olympics - there must be some events that would work well with in-play.

3) I agree with Donal on the hesitation about cutting off wagering too early. To my mind, it somewhat defeats the purpose of in-play. Half the fun of in-play is the excitement of turn-arounds, especially as the deadline approaches. That gets lost if we cut off too early -- it's just an opportunity to recalculate new likelihoods based on later information. Of course, in-play only works fairly if there is sufficient participation. Otherwise it's pretty well free money for the few.

I do see the value of cutting off with a minute left though. But whatever is chosen as cutoff, it must be clearly announced so as to be understood by the players. If I had one small criticism about the NBA questions, it was that in later games the cutoffs seemed a little too early, and so felt a bit arbitrary.

4) If there's a worry about people making too much profit on in-play questions (assuming the market has liquidity), I'd suggest maybe lowering the maximum single bet to $1000 for these markets. When a given outcome becomes extremely likely in the collective mind (say 90+%), the way to still make good money is to wager high (5-10 K). Although it's still a small risk, it's basically a safe bet. If we lower the max, 10 people could get in on the action, and the profits are spread around a little. (NB I'm not saying a limit on how much you can bet on a question overall, just a limit per prediction for in-play that is lower than the $10K for general questions.)

5) It would be nice if a group of in-play questions that all are to be suspended at the same time could be done so with one command and message by the admin or superuser.

6) If in-play is here to stay, and is seen as an important component of hubdub, then I think there will need to be some consideration of technical issues particular to it. Page reloads are troublesome now (probably because of the cross-site social bookmarks additions). Also, the important info is just the likelihoods and ones own predictions -- it would be great to be able to refresh these alone in-page.

But the biggest irritation for fast-paced predicting is the issue of what happens when the market moves between when you see the prediction page and when hubdub receives your prediction. (The cash-in feature works ok for this - it alerts you to the change but allows you with one click to continue or cancel.) But with predictions, I have found that you need to cancel the whole transaction, return to the question page, and start again, which kind of ruins the in-play fun.

I believe the whole "queueing of predictions in a market" protocol needs to be looked at again to make this work properly for in-play markets.

First of all...Thank you very much to Destry for doing so much of the running on this. Thanks also to the other superusers who supported this endeavor. If we are going to have in-play going forward, we will need super-user support. We are really appreciative that the Super Users (especially Destry) made this possible.

Some thoughts on in play in general

- This was the second time we had in play and the first time we had in play supported by Super Users. We learned a lot from this and on our end, we will be working on the processes surrounding the selection, approval and running of in play events and questions.

- I agree with Destry that in-play should be restricted to major events. and this has been the policy since day 1. We will take a look at what events we will have in play for going forward. A lot depends on the liquidity envisage the willingness and capability of admins and superusers to monitor in play markets

- I think we did maybe have a few too many questions during the NBA finals games. For the superbowl, we just had 10 questions. For some of the NBA finals games we had over 15 (even approaching 20 I think). I think in-play works best when liquidity is concentrated on and spread over fewer markets during the game. I'm not saying we can't have lots of in-play markets for a given event, but going forward in the immediate future I'd be inclined to be initially restrictive of the number of in-play markets for a given event and over time as we get a good feel for the volumes we are likely to get on a certain event then we can increase the number of questions. For example on week one of the NFL regular season, we could have 5 markets on the MNF game. If that works well in terms of liquidity we could have 6 or 7 in week 2 and over time find the optimum number. What I am essentially saying is that we should take a more gradualist approach to the number of in-play markets on a given event.

- I wouldn't be as inclined to agree with the suggestion that we suspend in play markets before the conclusion of an event such as suspending after the third quarter markets on football games whose outcome will be known at the conclusion of the game. If we would have adopted that approach for the Superbowl we would have deprived users the opportunity to make predictions on who will win and who will be MVP during a very exciting 4th quarter. We must also remember that not all in-play markets will be exciting and that unlike the superbowl this year, the outcomes of many events will be pretty much a given during the fourth quarter/9th Inning/2nd half, whatever; its something we just have to live with.

I was one of those who had posed a casualty question before and seemed to catch a lot of flak over it in the question comments. I never came here to check out everyone else's opinions. I agree, it is a newsworthy question and probably should be posted. Perhaps one of the problems is that some are concerned about the 'making of money' on the lives of our soldiers. Of course, that would exempt Halliburton and others, but I do understand the point about wagering. So we're into this for prediction's sake, and we can do it purely on a predictive nature. So I'm going to resubmit the question for June using a different time schedule that will allow for less adjusting of the wagers during the month and focus on 'predicting' the news earlier on. Let's see if this flies.

One added suggestion. If the game is to be played the next day, a settlement request could be made (or a flag) to keep it open, and if donal decides okay, it stays open instead of the usual void.

The reason for this is that, first, people who bet on the original may not know it has been voided. Secondly, there's the problem with the 12 hour cash-in delay on a replacement question.

It would be nice if people (who have wagered on a question) could be notified by email if an extension is given (or unsuspended or voided too)

A void is the simplest solution.

I like it.

I'm sure there will end up being one or two predictions that get voided, and I won't like it! But it is the easiest solution for the greater good...

OK

In the case of the question BostonGraf referred to, the wording referred to March 31st and "Opening Day". Given that no precedent has been set for this, I decided that given that the game would be played the following day (technically I may be wrong on that contention) and that the same pitchers would be starting, I would edit and extend the question.

I admit though that this could cause difficulties in the future

I'd suggest the best way to go is as follows - MLB game questions should be created just like other good hubdub questions and feature
- wording referring to the date of the game
- accurate starting odds
- preferably a link to background material, in the case of MLB, info on likely starters would be great.

If the game is postponed, I would suggest that that questions directly about (I emphasize this phrase) the game be voided.

This, I feel is the simplest approach
- it means we can have multi-outcome and yes/no questions
- it avoids the unseemly inclusion of a postponement outcome

You could argue that this would be a little harsh if the game is postponed and re-scheduled the following day and ends up having the same scheduled starters; and that we could have rules to account for this.....but from my experience of Hubdub to date, this would undoubtedly lead to complications down the line.

So - to summarize, I am in favor of tieing an MLB game question to its scheduled date (at the time the question is created). In the event of a postponement, the question is voided.

Any thoughts????

BTW - big thank you and major props to BostonGraf for raising this issue

Other that that - Go Os!

"I wish Hubdub could show the number of participants in a market, that would help the question creators, know which markets were popular and which weren't."

Someday-maybe I was gonna make a suggestion that in the question "box" -- maybe next to the graph, or somewhere in there, have a line of text saying "nnn Other users have made predictions in this market"

Ideally, the number of users ("nnn") would be linked, and clicking on the link would show those users that have chosen to make their predictions on that question public.

Ideally ;-) the text would also include the total H$ predicted on the market (which, as we know, is different from the "Total Activity") -- so the ideal text would be:

nnn other HD users have made predictions in this market, totaling H$nnn,nnn

Well I think it is because the majority of users have never heard of the IPL or ICL. The ICL is what a couple years old, has only a few teams, and the sports you are comparing it to have international appeal. Any sporting event could have tons of questions created about it, during the super bowl there were close to 100 hundred "prop" bets. Lets take baseball, a question could be created about who wins, who scores first, will "x" number of runs be scored, who will winning pitcher be, how many home runs will be hit, how many singles, double, and on and on. You look at the number of Major League Baseball games everyday and the site could be flooded with markets. I think the important thing is to create questions and see how the response to them is. How much was gambled, were there more than 1 or 2 people moving a market. I wish Hubdub could show the number of participants in a market, that would help the question creators, know which markets were popular and which weren't.
I have no problem with the ICL or IPL questions, I don't know enough about them to wager money on them, so I don't. But if they are created with fair starting odds, then I think there is a place for them. Hopefully as the tagging system is rolled out, we will be able to only see questions we are interested in, and that would help plowing through the hundreds of new questions.
I created a couple questions about the March Madness and wish I could get statistics on it so I could know whether to spend the time creating more or not.

NFL(15); NCAAF(2); MLB(19); NBA(25); NCAAB(16) and NHL(14). If these can have their own separate categories for a few measly(in brackets) questions, why can't ICL and IPL have a separate category? There are about 90 matches of these, and 2 questions per match means 180 questions(which is more than the sum of the above categories). A separate category is needed for more clarity.

tee hee. i thought you were going to say "Roadies"

You already have a category....its called "Cricket"

Proposed resolution to contentious questions here: http://getsatisfaction.com/hubdub/top...

Let me know your thoughts.

Really throught provoking discussion here. To answer one question about what does Hubdub want to be; I have always intended Hubdub to be a news forecaster, something that would combine the excitement of fantasy league and betting markets with utility of having accurate forecasts of future events, insightful comments and links to the most useful news articles. Unfortunately, that dual mission (as it were) means that different users see Hubdub as different things.

This discussion reminds me of firestorm that the US Policy Analysis Market kicked up (although the discussion here is better considered). Article on the PAM here:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage...

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_A...

Very interesting write-up of the press response here (the authors was one of the architects of PAM):
http://hanson.gmu.edu/PAMpress.pdf

There have been for years, the wishful dreamers amongst us that would like the evening news to lead with a little boy saving a puppy dog, and how a kitty cat, made the final moments of life for an old woman much more graceful. But unforutnately that is not the real world, the news stories are leading with sex, death, corruption and anything else that gets the peoples attention. This is a news forecasting site, we are here to forecast how news events will play out. That means we will have to wager on the number of deaths, the number of women raped, the other stuff that none of wish was on the news but it is.
I am a fan of the freedom of speech, even if that means allowing you to say something that offends me. I know of very few rules where that freedom is restricted, don't yell fire in crowded theater, hate speech, and those terms that would serve no purpose but to incite hatred amongst them. I would rather err on the side of too much freedom, than the side of too little. News is a nasty business, don't want to be involved in it, then don't read websites that promote it.
We need to buckle down and accept that we are all reasonable people, we can take the highs and lows, we know when we have been beat and when to live on to fight another day. In regards to all the other questions that are escalating, just apply a common sense, as a 12 yr old kid the question and then tell him what happened. Using that test we will get a fair and honest reading of intent and will wipe away every minute challenge of every word in a question.
As a piece of smart marketing, take down the questions in the limelight and don't let the new players get caught up in the insanity of it all.

Sorry, "avarage american", if i offended you with this post.

But I just want to point out the difficulty for the measurement of what is moral, or a morally correct question.
Maybe my posts seem to be trolling, but one must speak explicitly to get heard. In the end, I will agree whatever the HUBDUB responsibles decide to do.
Also, I want to point out, that I personally don't feel good either on putting money on one's suffering.

After reading this, perhaps he has a point:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

Infernal, Lady Lara, HD Admins & Jerry's Just Trolling,

I ask the question, "What is Hubdub trying to be?". One minute it's a news prediction site, the next it's a casino.

I refuse to take a philosophical position on this issue. IMO Hubdub is a game. I like the combination of news prediction and casino. OTOH, I think this causes a great deal of conflict in the HD community. It would be good if the HD admins would clarify their mission and broadcast it to the community.

Through questions and comments on Hubdub, and more so through participation here on GetSatisfaction, I've been engaged with quite a few folks who have earned my respect and admiration. We sometimes (usually) have differing opinions, but the level of discourse has been pretty high. I'm not trying to dictate to Hubdub whether they _are_ a news prediction site, or a futures market. I do think it would benefit Hubdub if the folks running the site made a decision regarding this issue and enacted rules in support of their decision (whether I like or not, I volunteer to help with the rules).