robmar

wow- don't know how i screwed up this one so bad...

Great question- nice observation to catch something like this.

Don't we need a '1 week' option?

Tisha- thanks for the quick response. That makes a lot of sense and I'm glad to know what the rule is for this kind of situation.

I would argue though that I don't think the 99.9% rule could be applied to this question. Trust me, if the odds here were sitting at 99% 'No' I would be wagering on 'Yes'. If I had to throw out a number I'd say 90% which does leave some room to play on the 'Yes' side of things. I guess I just would like to see the rule only applied if it really is a sure thing and I don't think this market is at that point.

What? This definitely can't be settled yet (is it August?). Yes, I read the story that says she's planning on staying. So? That's one story that was reported. If markets are settled based on predictions and statements about the future we'd have a huge problem (people change their minds, inaccurate stories are published all the time, etc.). Markets should be settled when an event either happens or doesn't happen, not when someone says something will or will not happen. So what should have happened after the story yesterday? More people predict 'no' and people who had already predicted 'yes' might think about cashing in. That's what we do here- people get more information and update their positions. Markets fluctuate. The way I see it this has two ways of settling: 1) Heigl leaves the show before August 2) it's August and Heigl hasn't left the show. Neither of those has happened.

I'm gonna agree with Dan on this one- Rodriguez himself isn't paying all $4M- should settle as NO.

Shoot- wish I could have followed this more closely. Not gonna complain too much though- on vacation in Hawaii :D

@swilson- I'm a little confused but I think I get it. You want to use the Yahoo site for settlement purposes so that we can tell how low the DJIA goes now (since it apparently counts all movement and not just closing prices) but we're still using the 11,634.82 figure off of the CNN site as the benchmark figure. Is that correct?

Fair enough. The important thing is just that we know how it will be settled and that has been established.

Actually, I just thought about it a little more and here's what I've come up with:

I think that if we're going to use the 11,634.82 number that was established by CLOSING price then the market should also have to CLOSE under that number so that it establishes a new low, as measured by the sites that swilson has specified. If we wanted the market to settle if the DJIA dips below the magic number at any point during the day then the 11,508.70 number should be used.

If we don't do it this way then we could have the market dip below 11,634.82 but actually close above that number and under the settlement rules it would be settled as yes since it did dip below the magic number at some point. HOWEVER, the crazy thing about that would be that the sites we're using for our settlement figure wouldn't recognize that there was a new low established because they're using the closing number. That just doesn't seem right.

I hope that all made sense...

Hi all. I have no problem using the figure swilson quoted, if that's the correct number. I just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page. Let's open 'er up!

Thanks- glad you guys like it. I thought it should be interesting to watch this keep spiking and crashing until it happens.

yeah, i just decided it was time to check in here again too...

I'm seeing the 52 week low as 11,508.70:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^DJI

Seriously though, should we be having these questions be in play? I don't know if there are enough people following live to keep the markets fair. The second half tonight was the first time I followed it live but if I would've been doing this for the whole series I might've made 100K+

Wow- these in play questions are a little ridiculous. I made BANK tonight.

Wish I would've discovered them sooner :)

Interesting settlement choice- that's not the direction I would have gone. From the way I see things the email she sent signals her INTENT to drop out of the race; she will actually drop out with the speech on Saturday. I guess the test would be to pretend that the Saturday event was for some reason canceled- what is her current status then? Has she dropped out as of this moment? I don't have H$ on either option so this is just arguing for the sake of arguing at this point for me :)

Lame decision. I'm certainly not in favor of disenfranchising voters but it's also important to set rules and follow them.

Lame decision. I'm certainly not in favor of disenfranchising voters but it's also important to set rules and follow them.

stay down... almost there...

Yeah, this is pretty crazy. I'm betting totally against my own instincts and against who I want to win on this one. See dialidol if you want to know what that means (don't look if you consider that a spoiler).

Suspension = settled as yes would be my interpretation. And I agree- there's no way this thing is going to the convention.

So I almost hate to bring this up, but what happens if she "suspends" her campaign a la Mit Romney? Maybe we should just cross that bridge when we come to it, but I could see this question coming down to a debate over the definition of "withdraw"...

lol- the market jumped AS SOON AS this question suspended

Thank you Tisha! I really appreciate your willingness to continue to talk about this. The ability to have a civil debate and a determination by both users and admins to get things right is what will keep people coming back to hudbub in the long run. Thanks!

Our dialogue seems to have stalled here... I don't consider this a closed issue- I thought we would be able to talk about it and reach a reasonable conclusion. I also thought Tisha was monitoring so I was hoping we'd hear from her again.

I've flagged this before so apparently I can't flag it again. Could someone else flag this so we can finish working this out? Thanks!

Okay, here's my argument, plain and simple:

The goal of American Idol is to win the competition- to be the last one left on the show. Every week viewers vote FOR their favorites and whoever has the fewest votes is eliminated. Just to be clear, you can't actually cast votes against contestants, so the term "voted off" probably isn't the best choice of words, but it is commonly accepted to mean the person who failed to advance. See here:
http://www.hubdub.com/m6993/Who_will_be_voted_off_of_American_Idol_on_Wednesday_May_7
and here:
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Who_will_be_voted_off_of_American_Idol_on_Wednesday_April_30_6251
The competition continues week after week so now let's say we're down to the final three. One of the contests receives the fewest number of votes and fails to advance (is "voted off"). Now we're down to two. The votes are cast and one contestant has the most and the other has the least. The contestant with the most votes advances and as the only remaining contestant is declared the winner. The other contestant fails to advance (is "voted off").

Now back to the real world...

There are two male contestants in the final so the last male contestant to fail to advance will be the runner up. We don't know who that is yet so this cannot be settled.

Basically to summarize... contestants are never "voted off" American Idol, they just fail to advance. As we saw in the other hubdub questions cited above, even though contestants cannot actually be "voted off" the term "voted off" itself has been recognized to be the equivalent of "fail to advance" in its previous usage. The last male contest has not yet "failed to advance" so the last male contestant has not yet been "voted off".

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this. Hopefully it's clear enough and we can get this opened up again. Thanks for your patience Tisha and anyone else who is still following along.

@jenni- Thanks for the clarification. I've definitely got to agree with edogg here though and say that voting in the finale isn't any different than voting any other week. At no time are we actually "voting off" anyone. We're always just voting for who we like- that doesn't change in the finale.

@Tisha- comment #10 is confusing in that you seem to agree with bayoubear and then say you will rule differently.

Also, just to be clear, I have read Tisha's comments above on how she plans to settle but I believe that's in incorrect interpretation and my bets were placed before that was made (I'm 95% sure, at least). I don't even think that's what bayoubear was saying, and that's what she was referencing. Bayoubear seems to be saying that if Archuleta (the favorite at that point) won this would be settled as the last male standing before him. If a female won it would be the last male standing. That means if there are two males in the finals, as it turns out to be, the runner up is the winning settlement.

No no no... this isn't right! I initially read this question wrong and assumed it meant last male standing. And if you take a legalistic reading of the question that isn't what it says but I think that probably was what it was asking. However, technically if the winner is a male then the last male voted off would be the second to last male standing. That means this question CANNOT be settled yet. The question should be settled as David Archuleta if David Cook wins and David Cook if David Archuleta wins. I see no way to interpret this where Jason Castro is the last male voted off.

Who's with me here? Maybe Tisha can provide some insight into her reasoning?

Tisha- I also don't see how this was settled early and then you said that was in error and you'd wait for a later result but then it's still settled the same way. Please explain why you think coming in second is not the same as being voted off- I don't see the difference.

Wow- big payout on this one:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24558648/

I wonder why this wasn't settled as 'yes' per mork's request... looks good enough to me

@fingers - thanks so much for the photography comments :) It's definitely something that I really enjoy! I need to update that site... lately I've been doing a lot more "people" photography and the site doesn't really reflect that at this point...

So this was definitely settled too soon which Tisha recognized if you check the Info tab, but does that mean my H$ has been refunded? I don't know how that works when something is settled too soon and then that decision has to be taken back...

That would be crazy if Syesha ended up in the final after the number of times she's been in the bottom 2 or 3. Still, your logic makes sense bayou... it'll be interesting.

@fingers - please let me know when you plan to buy more "no" - I want to be ready to pick up some more "yes" :D

I've got a boatload of H$ on her dropping out of this thing distributed across a few questions- getting close to 10K on this one alone.

this may need to be voided:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24509403/
apparently the sea lions weren't shot

Wow- I'm definitely second-guessing all the H$ I have on Narnia. What do you all think- does it have a chance?

I can't believe that people really think this will go all the way to the convention. Once the primaries are over the party will encourage super delegates to make up their minds asap to get things settled. Everyone involved knows it would be horrible for the dems to drag things out for another couple months. I guess maybe there are still people who think she has a shot at winning but this is over as far as I'm concerned. I guess I'll just keep pouring my H$ into yes :)

why did this have to suspend so early? :(

seems like this would draw the most attention in the last few hours leading up to the race...

Only one more week to go- I wonder if the action here will pick up

uh oh- there it goes...

Thanks sd. I think this could have an interesting result. If you put much stock in dial idol then syesha's going to shake things up a bit. Seeing David A. in the bottom two would certainly shock people.

Excellent. That's what I would've guessed but I figured we would want to have that in writing somewhere.

Interesting question, but we need some kind of cutoff time (by the end of May? 2008? 2025? 3000?).

just had an unsuccessful attempt by a non-monk:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24335263/

Yes, perhaps. But I would argue that it doesn't necessitate being voided though.

If Archuleta appeared in the bottom 2 then that would also mean he was in the bottom 3. And who knows- they may switch back to doing a bottom 3 next week. Also with this question I specifically chose not to include the settlement caveat that the question would be voided if the bottom 3 was not revealed for some reason (something I have done on other questions).

But I do agree that there is some gray area here- how can we know if he was in the bottom 3 if the bottom 3 wasn't revealed? And then one could answer- well if there is no bottom 3 then he obviously wasn't in it, which is what the question asked.

What do others think?

Haha... so it looks like the new question got voided for being a duplicate. We could just interpret this to be who will have the best record of THESE teams. And odds are the best record in the league is going to be from one of them anyway. That still doesn't solve the tiebreaker problem though, which could easily happen.

Yup... too bad. That ruins my 100% previous questions settled successfully stat :(

Good questions- should we have any kind of tie-breaker?

I don't know if it's necessary or not, but after what happened on my question here:
http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/Will_the_Fed_make_another_rate_cut_before_its_next_scheduled_meeting_on_March_18_1394/view
you might want to specify that you're talking about the federal funds rate.

Valid points jenni. I think it's a tough call tonight. I don't know who's going home but I think think the odds on Brooke @ 59% (currently) are too high. And therefore I'm betting on other people :)

Jenni- you asked before who my favorites are and I'd definitely have to go with the remaining guys. I always look forward to David A. and think he's the best overall. David C. gets respect for his creative side. Jason isn't the most talented but he's probably the only one I'd listen to post-American Idol.

Agreed- good question. And it's nice to have it up early- should be a fun one to track.

Valid points jenni. I think it's a tough call tonight. I don't know who's going home but I think think the odds on Brooke @ 59% (currently) are too high. And therefore I'm betting on other people :)

Jenni- you asked before who my favorites are and I'd definitely have to go with the remaining guys. I always look forward to David A. and think he's the best overall. David C. gets respect for his creative side. Jason isn't the most talented but he's probably the only one I'd listen to post-American Idol.

Do you really think a slip-up like that hurts a contestant that much? I think it alerts Brooke's fans and they know they needed to call as much as possible and probably did. It's not realizing you're in trouble that's more dangerous...

yes- definitely meant to stay suspended today. thanks jenni and tisha!

They better not. For me hubdub isn't about predicting the actual outcome it's about evaluating markets and betting on undervalued positions. I routinely bet on outcomes that I don't think will actually happen but are more likely to happen than the current odds suggest. Or you can play from the frame of mind of what you think other people will predict vs what will actually happen. There are so many ways to play this- why shut any down (as long as they're not abusive)?

I just wanted to point out that it's impossible for this question to settle as "Never" since this has no end cut off date.

seems like this should have been voided not settled if the terms were already met at the time it was posted

Sounds great Lesley

@kruijs - I wrote the question using the MSNBC article as a reference so I guess we'll just have to see how this pans out

Interesting development- thanks for the update *fingers*. We'll have to see how Peru feels about this explanation...

billboard, US, international... ??

i guess it's top 10 anywhere, any category since it's not specified

haha... Mariah Carey, ehh? should be an interesting week for comments from Randy

thanks jenni! i appreciate all your questions as well- keep it up!

It does that with the suspend time every day. I got annoyed the first couple times I was watching and that happened (was planning on cashing in a few positions but then they suddenly suspended an hour before the suspend time). Anyway, it always says its going to suspend an hour later than it actually does. Maybe it's a daylight savings time thing- I don't know...

Shouldn't markets like this be settled so that bets that came in after the event occurred are voided? Basically if the news reports a time that the event happened then any bet placed after that doesn't count. If no time is reported then the time that the story was published could be used.

haha... RALLY!

Cool question but doesn't really work unless we can see total number of unique betters somewhere. Also we'd need a clarification on if it counts when someones bets and then cashes in. It would make the most sense to have it be total number of betters at the suspend date.

Alright, I created this question but I'm still confused about how it's going to be settled (since I don't get to make the decision and I should have made it more clear to begin with).

Tiger's currently playing in the WGC-CA Championship at Doral. If he pulls another comeback and wins this I would consider that to be his 7th win in a row. Is there any agreement on this?

I'm going on the fact that the settlement details mention PGA and International events, but do not mention charity events, such as the Target World Challenge.

Well isn't this tricky...

I just skimmed through the comments to get a quick idea what's going on here and can see why there's so much confusion. If you didn't know that the question was referencing the federal funds rate then you would've read the headlines yesterday, saw "rate cut" and assumed that this could be settled.

However, as scott has made so clear, questions on this subject are pretty much assumed to be about the federal funds rate. I created the question and that was my intent.

I guess for the future we might spell it out in detail, but I'd hate for every question to have to be so legalistic.

alright, this has got to be edited to the proper spelling- "Favre" not "Farve"

yeah, i saw 12,000-12,100 flash to 30something right at the end too, but i didn't catch if it had suspended- i was refreshing like made at that point...

it was very, very close to the suspension (if not after) though- i was trying to cash out in that range when i saw that but didn't get it in time

"taken to a hospital"... does this mean by ambulance or would a scheduled test that is done in a hospital count?

i read this to say that any visit to a hospital where mccain receives medical treatment would count

i doubt anyone's checking this anymore, but just to clarify i was pointing out the duplicate range options, not the fact that there are similar questions. i love bayou's market questions

duplicate categories need to be removed...

I'm guessing this is supposed to be $100.00

why did this suspend all of a sudden?

yeah, i noticed the odds changing after suspension as well. the winning outcome jumped an extra 10% or so (guessing).

so if we're going with the streak standing at 5 then background info needs to be changed back to 5, correct?

Five, as reported by the AP, was the number what I used when writing the question. If six is the correct number then great- we'll go with that. Should the text in the question part be changed as well? I'm talking about the part that says "no more wins- will lose next tournament". I just don't want to mislead people with that still in there.

I counted 3 times in the opening monologue

That's strange that there's a discrepancy. I would lean towards going with the AP total- the golf world one seems to be just one guy on his blog. I must admit I don't know too much about UPI...

Maybe this could be simplified if we changed it to PGA tour victories

Why was this settled early? It's still not 6pm PST as I'm writing this. Granted it's not looking like this is going to happen, but I should still have the option to place additional bets or pull my money from the ones I have. I really don't like when questions are settled early. This occurrence cost me at least 1000...

To further complicate things, today it's announced that she DID get her visa but "logistics and timing complications" will cause her to miss:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23074123/

Yes, this should have already been cutoff. Results are out.