Death markets now banned

We have recently changed our position on allowing death markets on site. The rule we have added is as follows:

Hubdub does not permit markets on the impending death (for example how or when) of people, or markets considered to be death tolls, unless expressly approved at the discretion of the Category Editor. This rule will apply even in the context of a mainstream news story. This rule applies to all markets created after February 10, 2009.

As seen above, this rule will not be retrospectively applied so all current death markets will be run until they are settled or otherwise. It was a difficult decision for us to make as we strongly value open speech and contributions from our members. However, we also have a responsibility to set the tone of our site and predicting on death adds very little value to our site to justify the negative emotions it provokes. I believe it is still possible to create good prediction markets from current news stories while avoiding focusing on death.

As always, we welcome your input on this change.

I avoid betting on death markets but I don't think they can be banned. They are mainstream news and headlines all over the world. Also most of death questions could just be rephrased (for example Will Kim Yong Il will still be president of North Korea...; will a public figure attend some public event already scheduled; in accidents focus can shift from number of dead to number of injured; etc.) subsequently idea of death remains. Also to let to category editors to decide which death market to approve or not could lead to harsher debates.

Respectfully, this is one of the dumbest ideas you folks have ever come up with. This has nothing to do with free speech. This is about predicting the news. Death, in all its forms, is always news, from obituaries for the unknown, to huge post-mortem pieces for the rich and famous. This is going to be a big letdown for this site.

"Death, in all its forms, is always news" - no, it is not.
It is not because there is something like respect and deference.

I've been bummed about this ban all day.

It might sound peachy at the onset, but there are simply too many things occurring around the world that relate to death. We aren't trying to glorify it, cheapen it or be abusive by acknowledging DEATH HAPPENS. (okay, i did once with my tiny little bomb q but that was about the disproportionate deaths....totally dif imo and besides, i learned that doesn't fly here).

There's already far too many rules to keep questions totally unbiased and latitude with creativity and playfulness is a pain in the ass balancing act. You guys want us to create q's but you have so many don'ts it's stifling here. Removing death from this site is ridiculous.

In the interest of saving myself some time I'm just going to wrap this up with what I said on one of J's latest q's:

I'm not fixated on death or tragedy but I do wish to be able to discuss these events, see updates from participants in the commentary section and I've learned of a great many things happening in the world as a result of these questions even being here.

I'm extremely disappointed in HD. In their attempt to sanitize their little world, they're removing themselves from the real news. It's nothing short of internet censorship. It's the very thing Bush would've done to the media had he been able. Well....he succeeded in some ways. No camera's allowed when dead soldiers bodies were flown home was one way to keep the war looking less offensive. So that's how I see HD going....the way of G.W. Bush.

I understand perhaps you wishing we'd develop the q's in a more sensitive manner so as to not be openly hostile or offensive. But I don't understand the desire to pretend these things don't exist or that a NEWS PREDICTING SITE should operate clear of the death zone. How would that play in any other news arena?

This is too big brother like. I openly lodge my opposition to this and am willing to permanently retire from creating q's as long as this policy stands.

Interestingly I find myself as a bit of a contrarian on this one in that I actually agree with and see the merit in this policy, but perhaps for a slightly nuanced different reason, I am of the personal opinion that 'death market' type questions are somewhat cheap and don't necessarily result from much creativity, a bit like sports results or indices results, eventually a bit boring, only boring+morbid.

Personally I think showcasing the genuinely creative questions is one of the best ways to stimulate more and new traffic. I simply think that death markets won't do much to stimulate new traffic. Besides, there are creative ways to get around a specific focus on an individuals demise... Which world leader will have the longest tenure? What will be the circumstance (from a list of options) that will cause person X to no longer be the head of state? That kind of thing.

Just to give some more background to this decision:

We've been discussing what to do with death questions since we launched about 12 months ago. We progressed through troop deaths in Iraq to Patrick Swazye etc. Previously we changed the rules to require that all 'death questions' be related to a news story but still weren't happy with the situation. We've discussed the question at length with the super users and category editors and we never really reached a consensus.

In the end we decided to go for the ban for a number of reasons:
(1) A lot of users found them offensive
(2) Our partners (and potential partners) found them offensive
(3) We were starting to get negative publicity with regards them. Fortunately we've managed to keep a lid on that so far (although one national newspaper in the UK wrote about them) that was unlikely to last. Significant negative PR could have very serious consequences for the company.

While Hubdub is a community, and we nearly always try to achieve a consensus answer on decisions like this, it is also a business. Only if it is successful as a business will it continue to exist and grow.

I'd be interested in that negative PR. Could you give us a link?

The sad part of the story is, that your partners (and potential partners) are selling their death toll articles for probably good prices and you are the ones bowing down to their influence on the market, because they feel like there could be something blotted about their new partner.
As I understood this from sqlman's email, there's gonna be a huge grey zone now, in which a death relation may be tolerated. I supposed he has no objections to publishing the examples he gave me:
--
NOT OKAY: "How many people will be killed by Hurricane Ike?"
OKAY: "Will there be an further hurricane-caused fatalities this year in the
US?"

NOT OKAY: "What will be the final death toll from this week's rioting in
Belfast?"
OKAY: "When will this week's deadly rioting in Belfast stop?"

You get the idea...
--

I suppose my question on the extradition of former dictator Mengistu is still ok, although he's definitely going to be executed when it happens. But I don't see where to draw the line, yet. Will everything related to death be just translated into "Will there be a fatality?" - sure not.

Somehow I get the feeling our precious play money is losing its innocence, the more "real" investors put worth in it.

I, for one, welcome this ban as a good first step. The strong emotions and divisiveness created as the result of some (death) questions have a profound effect on how we, as a group, are perceived. There needs to be some refinement and sound judgment in any social group or it’s simply a mob. We’ve bordered on this at times.

Like most of you I choose my friends in the real world based on their expressed thoughts and desires, opinions and politics, like and dislikes. And if I were a new gamer looking for the intellectual challenge of peers and potential friends there have been times, frankly, that I would avoid this group simply because of the ill feeling generated by some questions.

While some of us may see this as overreaching and draconian, I see it as a good start. I expect some moderation and flexibility will come with time. There are valid questions and offensive questions - we simply need to draw a line between the two.

Very well said constable1664.

I believe that the genesis of this site was somewhere compared to the robust give and take of a live verbal debate in a pub, if I were a patron and had the option to mingle in the room amongst a variety of discussions, I think a loud boisterous one speculating on the pending demise of someone would be unattractive.

I think the main point is that there will be a grey zone. For example, death markets which are not explicit but implicit are still allowed. Such as Will there be a major terrorist attack on US soil? or What's the cause of the fatal Buffalo plane crash? or Where will the next fatal aircraft accident occur?

Users shouldn't think that Hubdub doesn't recognize that death, accidental, intentional or otherwise isn't part of the news. Hubdub's main focus is on current events and of course we recognize that death and its attributes are part of the news. This is why we are still implictly allowing death related markets.

In the end the decision was made as Nigel alluded to on a logical business thought process. Hubdub needs to grow, and if one of our main focuses is the American market we can't have markets on how many soldiers will die in Iraq, or how many people will die in the next airplane accident. This is because although we might not agree with it the larger American and European markets are sensitive to these types of issues and would not at all take kindly to us having markets like this. Honestly, even if Bill O' Reilly is a dick if Fox News had run a segment on Hubdub when we had markets up on how many US soldiers would die, we would of had a PR nightmare.

I agree that it's silly we have to play the 'game' of pandering, but we can't risk not pandering to those who are overly sensitized, because if Hubdub wants to grow its market share we need to enter into a more mainstream audience, where the 'overly sensitized' will be in the majority.