There will be a www-service similar to Idea Futures accepting some form of electronic money (like e-cash/modex etc.), or units that can be converted into traditional currency, before 1st of January 2000.
Clarification as suggested by Wendell Craig Baker (wbaker@splat.baker.com) and Karl Hallowell (hallowel@math.unc.edu)
IF (as run in Canada by ARC) does not trade in futures on sports events, commodities, currency, or election results. There are existing futures markets that allow you to trade on such futures using real money.
Virtually Yours Michael F. Schreiber
(From my fx-discuss comments of 10 Mar 1999 with regard to the Iowa Electronic Markets) I would urge traders in $vIF to consider what "www-service similar to Idea Futures" meant in May 1995. The purpose of IF was to allow for group estimates of the probabilities of uncertain future events. I have two comments.
First, as Neal et al have suggested, there must be a mechanism for asking the questions. IEM has allowed trading in two "claims" in areas not explicitly excluded from consideration for $vIF (one on Euro adoption and one on box office levels). IEM markets are chosen by the IEM administrators. Put more broadly, IF was envisioned as a means to ask specific (scientific and technical) questions. The IEM was designed as "an educational and reseach [sic] project" for the investigation of market behavior.
Second, I would further urge traders in $vIF to draw a distinction between the IF of 1995 and the FX of 1999. The IEM markets in question may make IEM look more like today's FX, but these are the kinds of claims originally only tolerated as part of IF.
A couple of interesting items on these matters:
Robin Hanson's discussion of Idea Futures markets: http://hanson.berkeley.edu/ideafutures.html
James Surowiecki's 2/17 piece for Slate, discussing groupwise probability estimation: http://www.slate.com/Code/Moneybox/Moneybox.asp?show=2/17/99
Previous fx-discuss comments: http://www.ideosphere.com/fx/lists/fx-discuss/1997/0881.html http://www.ideosphere.com/fx/lists/fx-discuss/1998/0667.html There are also comments in 1999, but the hyperlinks are dynamic. Search for my name in the 1999 "by author" fx-discuss message list.
************** I will judge based on the intent of this claim, if I perceive such intent to be obvious. If such intent is ambiguous I will judge on the basis of the precise wording. If both are ambiguous, I will look for a solution which follows IF/FX precedent insofar as such precedent is apparent to me and applicable to the claim. I will seek the guidance of the claim's owner/author in interpreting the claim. It's his or her question - s/he ought to get the answer sought. If I believe this claim to have met a YES or NO condition, and if I believe judgement will be controversial, I will post a prospective judgement to fx-discuss and forestall entering the judgement for a comment period to be announced in the post.
