Rules
How to play
While playing Knew The News please alway keep the following in mind:
Rules, In Short
- Question must be clear well-structured, non-duplicate, and with accurate likelihood estimates. Settlement must be possible based on publicly available news sources.
- If the meaning of a question is not clear, the question may be voided or clarified, without prior notice.
- Unethical, offensive or abusive questions are deleted immediatly. Any form of spamming will lead to deletion of the user account.
- Settlement is done on a "best effort" bases, there may be a delay between suspension and settlement.
- Predictions made after the settlement conditions of a question are met will be voided.
- Questions may remain open while, during an event which is relevant for settlement takes place.
- When selling a position before settlement of the question, a 10% fine is applied to the stake value refunded.
Detailed, General Rules
Complete rules are as follows:
About The Rules
- Rules are subject to change and changes may be applied retroactively.
- Based on user response, rules may (partially) be amended. Any input is appreciated.
Technology/Availability
- The application may be unavailable for technical and/or other reasons without prior notice.
- Losses due to technical issues or bugs will not be re-credited.
Date/Time, Geography, Currency
- If not explicitly mentioned, any date and time data is converted to the user's timezone (editable on the settings page of the users profile) which default is GMT, although date/time related questions refer to the local timezone.
- A "week" runs from Moday, 0:00 to Sunday, 23:59.
- The term "by" is interpreted to be read "on or before" when referring to a specific date or time. In case it refers to a specific year, it reads "before". Example: "Will X happen by 2011" means "before 2011", and is identical to "Will X happen by 31.12.2010" which means "on or before 31.12.2010".
- If not explicitly mentioned, when referring to world regions, these are considered to cover countries as specified by the UN: for Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
- If not specified, any reference to a currency is interpreted to be in local currency.
Question Creation
- Any questions are user created.
- Every user is allowed to create any question, as long as the question does comply to these guidelines.
- Questions must be created in English.
- Questions must cover mainstream media topics addressing a broad audience and settlement based on publicly available, mainstream media must be possible.
- Questions may not be offending or unethical.
- Questions on the death of people are generally allowed, but must be phrased in a non-invidious manner.
- Questions must specify clear and comprehensible settlement conditions, and clear, comprehensible, non-ambigious settlement options.
- Question options should cover any settlement posibility.
- If chronological options are provided, it is assumed that settlement is to be done upon the option which fits best. This includes subsequent ranges without an explicit lower border. Consider: "Less than 10", "Less than 20", "20 or more". The "Less than 20" option implicitly defines to read "Less than 20 but not Less than 10".
- Question options starting prices must reflect settlement probabilities at time of question creation/publication. Any option must have a starting probability between 1 and 99%.
- Question outcome may not be open to manipulation by users of Knew The News.
Question Adjustments
- A question violating any of these rules may be voided and deleted on Knew The News discretion.
- Generally, questions may be changed without consultation of the creator, but the intend of the question will be preserved.
- Minor edits to the question will not be specifically accentuated.
Question Lifecycle
- The question creator specifies both publication date (which may differ from creation date) and suspension date.
- If settlement is possible, questions will suspended and eventually settled regardless the suspension date.
- Suspension date should be set as close as possible to the time on which definite settlement is possible earliest. This means that question suspension on sport events is to be set on the end of a match, stock question related ones are to be suspended at the end of the trading day they refer to.
- Publication and suspension dates may be changes to reflect changes in circumstances.
Trading
- Any user is allowed to make predictions on a question from publication to suspension.
- The amount of virtual money to be invested in a prediction is limited only by the cash balance of the user.
- Any investment in a specific question option will lead to a higher price of that option, and lower prices for all other options.
- Any position may be sold at any time while the question is not suspended.
- Selling a position is fined. The refund to the users cash is reduced by 10% of the nominal value of the position.
- Refunding of positions at settlement of the question is without fine.
Question Settlement
- Question settlement is done manually and may be delayed.
- Settlement will be carried out only if settlement conditions are actually met.
- If there are no news available to determine settlement at the question suspension date, it will be assumed that an event has not happened. The question will be settled accordingly or voided if no option allows this outcome.
- In case the question can not be settled on one of the options unambiguously the question may be voided.
- On settlement, any prediction made after the first online news source available for settlement will be voided.