NewsWrangler's dashboard

MRaleigh -- FWIW, I absolutely agree that emails ought not be used as a settlement source.

That said, in the past, when there has been "no news" on a question at the "Suspend Date", I have, on a couple of occasions, contacted organizations to try to find out if there was "mainstream news" available anywhere that would settle a question. However, even when the result of that contact (email, etc.) resulted in an "answer to the question", I've never submitted that as a basis for a settlement... and only used it as a "clue" as to where to look.

You were right to bring your concerns to this forum, and I hope you were satisfied with the recent settlement.

Disclosure: I had one prediction in this market that I cashed out more than three months ago.

The addition of a message board will be the realization of a long-held dream of mine! There can be multiple sub-forums for question creation; specific categories, resources (such as betting odds sites, etc) ... I look forward to it! – NewsWrangler, on August 05, 2008 00:32

For many users "an extra H$1000 - H$2,000" is 100-500% of their total net worth! Done for a week, such markets allow a user to <cough> GAIN H$10,000 ... based on, often, zero risk.</cough> – NewsWrangler, on August 05, 2008 00:26

Just after we launched we placed the limitation on category editors that they couldn't place predictions on questions in their category. That was to ensure that there was no hint of a conflict of interest when settling questions.

Nigel,

Have these limitations on category editors making predictions within their category been changed?

Destry -- FYI, heres a Q&A on the "negative balance Activity" you asked about in this discussion thread.

<http://getsatisfaction.com/hubdub/top...>

The different results you getting in Activity based on if you cash out the same day or the next day isn't something I understand.

From the earlier comments, that's not the same result that (all) other users are getting.

For me, adding/subtracting from Activity seems to depend on if my prediction is public or private.

It will be nice to know from the Tech Team how it's supposed to be! – NewsWrangler, on July 23, 2008 04:24

letmewinplees -- just to "close this out", as there wasn't a response here to your post from a Cat Editor/Admin, I'm glad to see that settlements for both of these markets have been reversed, and your screen name has been affirmed ;-) – NewsWrangler, on July 17, 2008 20:07

Hi letmewinplees -- Sending the flag, as you did, is likely the fastest way to get a settlement corrected.

(It's always helpful to include a link to a source that supports the settlement you believe is correct ... as that will often make the process of re-settlement even faster.)

Although it's not necessary to also post a disputed settlement to this forum, it certainly isn't "incorrect" ;-) and may even speed up the process!

If there hasn't been a response to your request in 24 hours, or so, please feel free to post a follow-up message in this forum.

To echo a message I sent to Chris, I like the "direct view" of comments very much! -- it's wayyy more inviting to users, I think.

Too bad about "News" being moved off to the right ... Chris said that, currently, "news" isn't getting enough attention to justify the space it was given.

I confess I don't understand that, as for me, I thought "news" was a 'foundation pillar" on which the premise of HD was built.

I have read comments from the Tech Team! over the past months that there were "problems with news providers" drawing in relevant news"... Some markets had no news, many had stale news. It was stated that the new "tags" scheme in "creating questions" was changed, at least in part, to enable "better" news feeds.

I had hoped for news feeds to get "better and better" (and more timely) -- with almost the "direct view" that "comments" has now.

In my view, that would let users see "what's the latest news" about a particular market -- and encourage more user participation, with more informed and spirited predictions!

@Markov ... I just read your comment in the market thread.

I don't know why you haven't received a reply to your flags or emails.

I'm confident your post here will result in a response -- which in no way suggests that your prior messages via other means shouldn't have been responded to.

onedave -- I don't know that there is any more information than what Nigel posted in that thread:

"1. We can't yet unvoid questions so unfortunately the alien question is gone (sorry!)"

and

"I literally cannot un-void it. (I can send you a screen shot of a greyed out button if you like!). Ryan may have unsuspended a question but there is no way he could have unvoided a question."

and

"Will I un-void the alien question?

No, I can't. Unfortunately, I can't change that until we put in that functionality. I admit it was a mistake to void it."

I haven't seen any further news or official discussion of adding the functionality to un-void a question.

"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"?).

The current status of the dolphins seems to be that officials have decided to leave them alone (for now). It appears your question was voided because that was the news at the time of suspension. You may want to consider that outcome may still exist when you create your options and/or in relation to your suspend/settlement dates.

Perhaps adding some definition to "what human aid is" may be helpful. For example, does "human aid" include or exclude "boats motoring around trying to 'encourage' them towards the ocean", or is human aid more direct/physical, such as "capturing them, then releasing them in the ocean"?

It would seem that because there are officials currently monitoring them (in boats, etc.) some definition may be necessary. (It may be likely that there will be officials/humans in boats for the duration ...)

As an aside, there was a similar instance of this, last year I think -- somewhere in the Pacific Northwest (I thought it was the Columbia River, but I couldn't find anything) ... (and it may have been a whale, not a dolphin ;-) ... where 'officials' tried something like a "flotilla of boats" ... but, at the end of the day, as I recall, they gave up on that, not wanting to stress it, and just monitored it. Eventually it returned to sea.

Hope this helps -- I appreciate your knowledge of dolphins, and hope you will excuse mine :-| I look forward to your new question!

@ 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" ;-)