Chris Hibbert has posted a comment:
The question I was addressing wasn’t whether mistakes get made in judging. It’s whether it’s possible to write completely correct and unambiguous claims up front as you advocate as a solution to the problem. Do you want to address that question?
I don’t believe it’s possible to get the claims correct up-front, so I don’t see your rule as a solution. My experience writing, advising, and judging at FX informs my belief. It’s all done in public on FX, so I’m not the only one with that experience. The other markets (IEM, TEN, BF, HSX, etc.) have closed processes, so the community can’t learn from their experience.
There is a lively community at FX and at each of the other markets, play money or not. The discussions can go on for quite a while. You may be right that there’s more outside attention for the real money markets, but that doesn’t help at the point that the claims are being written.
The question of party alignment of independents could easily have been addressed in an interpretation after the claim was written. Many people realized it was an important question over the last few weeks. On FX, players can ask the judge, and the judge can add his interpretation to the claim. I don’t know of other markets that have a facility for issuing clarifications that traders can see when they’re reviewing the claim.
My Partial Answer:
I acknowledge your experience at the Foresight Exchange, but you don’t convince me. Crafting contracts for TradeSports or BetFair should be done with a higher standard of professionalism, because influential bloggers would raise hell if problems arised.
I stand on my opinion that the floated prediction is the contract, and that the intent of the contract and the letter of the contract should always coincide, no matter what.
As for issuing clarifications, TradeSports does it almost on a daily basis and I object to that. In the cases that I have seen at TradeSports, if the contracts had been crafted in a serious and professional manner, there would have been no need for issuing so-called “clarifications” after the grand opening of a contract.
And some TradeSports (human) market makers and big traders told me that they asked many times to the management to unveil the draft of the upcoming contracts to them, for a short period of time before the marketing of a contract, so that they can correct the mistakes and make suggestions. Sounds like a good idea.
Addendum (November 10): Scientist David Pennock is with my opponent, Chris Hibbert, on that one…
I weigh in with Chris H. over Chris M. on this one. There will always be the possibility of bizarre circumstances arising that were unforeseen or overlooked by the contract writers. Only hindsight is 20/20. For example, did Pat Buchanan win the Reform Party nomination or not? Or, what happens to GOP.Senate contracts when Bush becomes a dictator, hires Saddam as his VP, and returns the US Senate to the Newt Gingrich?
I weigh in with Chris H. over Chris M. on this one. There will always be the possibility of bizarre circumstances arising that were unforseen or overlooked by the contract writers. Only hindsight is 20/20. For example, did Pat Buchanan win the Reform Party nomination or not? Or, what happens to GOP.Senate contracts when Bush becomes a dictator, hires Saddam as his VP, and returns the US Senate to the Newt Gingrich?