tisha's dashboard

Hi there - unfortunately you can't change your questions once they've been published. So the best way to edit the question is to send a flag to the category editor (little icon just under the settlement details) which will send an email to the category editor, and you can just explain what changes you'd like to be made.

You can only send one flag though, so if you need to make more changes, maybe just put a note in the comments page - a less reliable way to make contact with the cat ed but they are usually picked up by someone.

Dear MRaleigh,

Our Category Editors and Superusers are required to maintain impartiality when settling and clarifying questions. If you are unsatisfied with the way a question has been handled, you can always let me know.

I'll work with you, Destry and Ryan to look into this question personally and have an official response in 24 hours.

Yes, thanks Destry for the quick reply. We are getting excited about having forums on the site and glad to hear that you have some topics for discussion up your sleeve!

In the meantime, though, please feel free to start discussions on this website as it is still being manned by all the staff and superusers, as well as some of our other users.

Hi letmewinplees - your consideration of the cat eds is commendable! However, ultimately it's our job to settle questions, regardless of whether they are fun to settle or not.

As Nigel has said, it would take a huge influx of tedious questions to effectuate a ban, because ultimately we don't want to limit question creators, and we have quite a solid supporting team in place now so we are generally happy to take on bigger workloads if it means more questions and more users.

It is always appreciated when question creators provide solid settlement details and links for their questions (and also when they keep members informed via the comments pages!). This could well be a requirement in the future, but as we've said, for now it doesn't seem to be a big enough issue to warrant a rule being made so it will be up to negotiation with the individual category editor.

Thanks for the really interesting discussion. I thought I'd summarize and let you know where we're at on the community side of things.

I've identified three main problems you guys have raised:
1. Overwhelming the Category Editor and site with questions
2. Having many questions with few predictions placed
3. Having 'trivial' questions or sidebets and how to judge whether they're acceptable

In resonse to No. 1 - the sports cat ed is obviously swamped and doing a valiant job at getting through questions, but this is an internal issue and shouldn't be grounds for limiting questions.

For 2 and 3 - in Hubdub's community spirit, we don't want to limit questions but we want to create solid and accurate prediction markets. Ideal prediction markets are:
1. Markets that move (ie short term, or volatile long term);
2. Markets that have lots of predictions placed, both number and quantity
3. Markets that are well structured (simple, have clear outcomes, settlement info easy to find).

For now, we are not implementing any bans on question types, so my advice would be to keep trying new questions that hopefully meet the criteria above. What we are doing from the admin side to try and get more markets fitting the above are:
- Publishing good question creation guidelines (will be out shortly)
- Promoting good questions through the community aspect - voting on them, commenting on them, and publicizing them
- Looking into potentially rating questions and having a question creator leaderboard
- Creating an on-site forum to discuss questions and hubdub tips, that will be monitored by me and the supers.

Other points you've raised
1. Question creators should be more accountable for the questions they create - Agreed, we've started adopting this ethos by referring clarifications back to the author.
2. We should have a holding period - I think that there are already too many barriers to question creation, which are offputting to a new user. Again, I would avoid putting a strong mechanism like this in place in favour of being quick to jump on and suspend problem questions (which the supers already do) and providing constructive discussion and feedback.
3. Limiting bet sizes - I quite like this idea, but it entails another huge discussion. Probably best to save for another thread :-)
4. Recategorisation of the markets - this was one I had too, but again involves drawing some sort of line between 'news' and 'side news'. I'm happy to entertain more discussion on it though.

Hello! Maybe I'm misunderstanding things, but I think there was a rule change that said that these markets close 15 minutes before close now ... should be in the updated Rules shortly. You're still welcome to discuss though!

Actually it wasn't, Markov was dealing directly with the Category Editor.

If the Get Sat forum and Contact Us forms are getting ignored, we would definitely like to know.

Hi all,

Thanks to the Supers for being so vigilant about monitoring this site. I have emailed Markov directly; he explained the situation to me and I think we reached some sort of resolution.

We are very concerned when users complain they have not received a response from us, so please use Get Satisfaction or the Contact Us form if you feel your comments have been ignored.

Cheers,
Tisha

I like this idea, but I have also noticed that the news getting pulled up is of a lot better quality than when the site was first launched.

Also, some questions do not generate any comments - would it be possible to make 'news' the default if this is the case?

Ok. All earthquake questions will be settled not less than 48 hours after the date in question.

Thanks for the comments and discussion on this issue. Questions on pre-recorded TV shows where the outcomes are known in advance are now officially banned.

This is to maintain consistency with the Roadies ruling. It is a shame because I enjoyed reading the discussions on show questions, but it is obviously too easy to find spoilers and too difficult to monitor all questions for signs of gaming.

Some of the questions this will affect are Lost, Survivor and Make Me a Supermodel, although the ban is obviously on plot/vote off outcomes rather than the show per se.

Shows on which questions will still be allowed include American Idol and Dancing With The Stars.

Now it's back to you guys to come up with some equally engaging questions on your favourite entertainment topics to fill the temporary gap!!