jenniandboys's dashboard

you can turn it off -- whereever you manage which emails you want to get, you can say where you want to go after you make a prediction... (i found it annoying too, but it might be helpful to new users) – jenniandboys, on April 19, 2008 03:15

Only 1-2 sentences? I have so much more to say!! Will go shout this at a couple of people..

Third, and motion carried!

This really does have eerie similarities to the Spitzer market -- unfortunately I actually bet on this one (a whole h$40!).

I also read the question "Would a merger actually take place" by the June date. There are a lot of steps between an announcement of intention and the merger actually happening. This is the key difference I see between this and Spitzer. There was no real reason to believe he wouldn't *actually* resign 4 days later. Here, there is good reason to think that this deal could fall through. I'm happy to keep the question in suspense until the deal is approved, although I'm guessing others here would complain about that idea.

In the future, announcement of mergers should likely be the default settlement of these question (as they are the ones which make the news) unless the creator makes it very clear they are asking about the probability of follow through.

1. Re: DIJA - To clarify: I like both of the DOW opening questions and bet on both (and made a lot of h$ on both this am!!). That doesn't change the fact that I think they are quite similar.

2. Re: Date shifts - I think the 95% rule may be too limiting. If there is some reason to think a change is imminent there may be good reason to have another question that asks about day n+1 or 2. For instance there is a very big difference between Hllary dropping out before Apr 22 or by Apr 24... On the other hand the vast majority of those date questions are ridiculous and need to be voided. Be careful that you don't rule your admins into a corner where they don't have legitimate reason to void clearly bad markets.

3. Re: Sports: Newswrangler brings up a very good point that I've been hearing grumblings about for a while now. I think it needs its own thread. (I nominate her) (Add to the Masters multitude the seemingly endless # of NFL first draft questions).

4. I'll use the VP example as another type of similar market. What about "Will McCain pick (Guiiani, Huckabee, Romney, Other") and then seperate "Will McCain pick Guiliani", Will McCain pick Huckabee", "Will...", etc. I'm heavily invested in many of these markets, so again, I'm not critizing them. But they do seem like duplicate questions. Orlin's F1 example is another good one. I would argue that a "Who will win" which includes Hamilton would imply that a specific question just about Hamilton would be a duplicate. Seperate questions like that are sure fire ways to make lots and lots of money without actually doing any predicting of the news. (Esp when the odds are very different -- Hamilton was at 15 or 20% to win and yet the yes/no question was at 60% to win)

Some of this needs to be settled by the direction Hubdub wants to take the site. If you want thousands of questions running then maybe the more the merrier. If you want to claim that this site has a predictive ability then you will need to keep the question focus narrower.

I agree that you should get to bet! Also agree (with most here) that category admins should _not_ bet on their own categories. Also feel no need for their other bets to be made public. As long as there is no conflict of interest, bet away.

As an aside to Newswranglers above aside: we currently have 5 ways to talk to you guys: Commenting, flagging, getsatisfaction, 'contact us', and email (I think I have nearly all of ya'lls emails now!). Some guidance on what you expect us to use each for and how much urgency you apply to each would be helpful.

Fine by me. I certainly didn't want to get rid of the earthquake questions, just wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page and understood there was some ambiguity in the settlement.

I do think we should plan on not doing the 1+ earthquake questions though as the numbers can change quite drastically over just the course of a couple of hours (even after teh 48 hour window)

I really am a slow typer.. Didn't even see this one.

I still think we should rely on news instead of any internal definition of terrorism (or any other word for that matter). After any significant event, the newspapers always ask "Is this terrorism??" and 99 times out of a 100 there is a response from Homeland Security that it is not. (I'm thinking about something like the Florida blackout here). – jenniandboys, on April 09, 2008 16:23

1. Settlement rules: As reported by a major mainstream news source. There was no act of terrorism reported by a major news source, therefore I do not think this should be settled.

2. The reclama to this argument has been the Spitzer decision whereby the newspapers all said he resigned, but Hubdub did not. At the end of the day, I think the resolution was that this was a _wrong_ decision. Therefore, saying this needs to be settled like that one was is backwards thinking to me. The quality of the questions and settlements are hopefully spiraling to some happy nirvana in which everything is clear and we never argue. However, this is an iterative process and history is to be more often learned from than repeated.

The goal should always be common sense solutions. If you feel the need to get out the dictionary, you're probably reaching.

As an aside, in this and other markets it seems like some users feel that they louder or more vociferously they yell, the more likely they will get their way. I hope I am not alone in not being swayed by the length or number of such protests and instead evaluate each only on merit.

oohhh wiki! That sounds dangerous...

Two more ideas, (I've mentioned elsewhere):
1. Tagging your own questions.. for instance tagging all the VP questions as VP so in when you're reviewing your bets you can look at all of them at once.
2. Rating or digging questions so there is some way to see good questions other than amount of h$ running through them.

1. Gaming rules: Although I agree with some users that unambiguous gaming deserves more than a warning, some gaming is harder to identify and so it is a little harsh to suggest that the first penalty is knocking a user back to 1000$. That said, the admins should hold the right to skip step 1 and go directly to step 2 in the case of egregious cheating. Otherwise, am in agreement. Flags reviewed: its fine if you don’t tell us the resolution of the flags, we just need to trust that they are being read (and acted upon when necessary).
2. Users active in a question: Love it!
3. Question approval: YES YES YES
5. List: It wasn’t those particular accounts I was worried about (although I’m glad you’re going to check them out). My point is that gaming is more widespread than one person. I’d like to see gaming as a whole addressed rather than endless discussions about what to do with one person.

Satyaki resolution:
1. To everyone else, note Nigel said the vote is being done based on COMMENTS not on money wagered. This does not cross the picket line.
2. I do think that Satyaki has been unfairly targeted, however I also think he should be heavily penalized. Between options 2,3 and 4 I’m somewhat ambivalent. Again, I think this particular case of gaming is not egregious. However, it is his third warning and so I’m understanding of the calls for banning.
3. I don’t especially like the precedent of voting a user “off the island”. I appreciate that you’re trying to represent the will of the community (and will participate when the question is posted), but I hope you don’t plan to follow a similar pattern for future problems.

Public/Private:
I keep all my bets public, but that’s my choice. I don’t think you should force users to keep their bets public. For that matter, its not really our job to find gamers. (is it?)

I'm glad this got fixed, but Orlin brings up a good point. I also flagged (and asked for settlement in the first place). It wasn't until it was brought up here that it got settled though.

I know it was the weekend and Andrew appears to have had a few days off. Maybe someone needs to be assigned to babysit the category when the editor is away? There is a LOT of money that flows through the DOW questions and between the 36 wait for settlement on Friday and then the incorrect settlement, you can definitely ruffle some feathers.

I thought it was too early to settle before, but I think we're at the 99% margin that they won't do anything too hairbrained at this point.

CNN says they are just working with DNC to get people seated now, not working out any new contest ideas. I feel safe closing this one out.

BTW you forgot to suspend the market while its in arbitration...

I went back throuh to find some of who I consider the repeat offenders. Two big flags for probable gaming for me are brand new users who either: 1) create new questions 2) Bet all 1000$ on one question. That's not a real new user.

These users have consistently made similar gaming markets with very bad initial odds. Possibly working together?
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5221
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_4275
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5248
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_4255

One user made a question on his first day, the other user bet all 1000$ on that one question (on his first day) and made 25k in one day. Neither one has been back since.
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5331
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5303

Rohan called attention to a group of new users with similar sounding user names. They all dropped their 1000$ right off the bat and havne't been back since. These accounts were probably created to swing a particular market - find that market, who profited, and you have another cheater. His post:
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5348
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5349
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5350
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5345 AND http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5346
http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5371 AND http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5372 AND http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5373 AND http://www.hubdub.com/e/User/_5374

So far, only one of these users is on the watchlist. Most of these people don't have much money, but I think it likely there is another account profiting from their actions.

Here are 15 users I suspect after only a cursory sweep. (Greatest apologies to any wrongly accused) I'm sure admins with access to actual bets can find MANY more if they look. (Suggestion: go look)

Have my coffee and have worked through most of the 70 posts that came in while I was sleeping... (Must go get some chocolate first...) Ok. Here I go...

Still a couple of disjointed thoughts here:
1. I am greatly looking forward to the power vetting feature. I think it will drastically reduce a lot of heartache on this site, although I'm sure there will be growing pains with implementing it as well. *(Rohan's note about regional markets needing someone with knowledge of the issue is a VERY good one).*

2. There has been a level of trust that the admins are actively working to eliminate gaming. I and many other users regularly flag suspiscious users and markets to the admins. I have never received any feedback on these flags and just assumed that it was being taken care of and the admins were trying to be discreet with their anti-gaming activity. Many users now feel that trust has been betrayed. More communication across the board (not just Satyaki related) on gaming issues is neccessary at this point to regain that trust.

3. If the issue in question is setting inaccurate odds and then benefitting from them, I could list a number of other markets and users I think have been regularly gaming the system this way. Why aren't we talking about them and posting nasty messages on their boards? Three partial answers:
a) They aren't as active on Hubdub's comment board so it doesn't seem as blatant
b) Most of them aren't in the top 20 of the leaderboard
c) Everyone doesn't know about it

I will wager my entire hub"fortune" that he is not the first to do something like this. We just happen to know about his actions and so he is becoming the focus of the anger.

4. In regards to satyaki, the original call was to have his h$ taken away, but as the mob got louder, the demands changed as well. A complete ban is not warranted, in my mind *for this offense*. I still think a temporary suspension will help both sides calm down a little.

What I don't know, and hope the admins are looking into, is if the question practice extended beyond the ICL markets.

(There have been another 6 posts while I was composing this one...)

Now I'm going to go spend my 20$ and stop thinking about this whole mess.

EVEN MOM'S PLAYING THIS GAME????? WHAT'S THAT ABOUT??????????