IF FAQ Entry

3.8. What are claim types (Boolean, Real valued, etc)?

• Boolean
  The claim values represent probabilities (or something closely resembling probabilities), and can only be judged as 0 (false) or 1 (true).
• Discrete
  The claim terms enumerate several possible judgement values. Claim proposers are strongly encouraged to pick numbers no less than 0 and no greater than 100.
• Real-valued
  Judgement values may be anywhere within a pre-specified range, with up to 6 decimal digits of precision. There are two variants whose automatic market makers behave somewhat differently:
  • Real-valued, geometric
    Prices have a well-defined lower bound (normally 0), and a price changes are more likely to equally spaced on a log graph than a linear graph. (e.g. stock market prices).
  • Real-valued, linear
    Claims without any obvious lower bound, and/or where price changes are more likely to equally spaced on a linear graph than on a log graph. (e.g. the U.S. Government budget surplus/deficit)

All claim types must have upper and lower limits on what values are legal, even if the idea involved refers to things with unlimited values. The lower limit must be at least -1000 and at most 0. The upper limit must be at least 1 and at most 1000.

Boolean claims must have limits (for both legal and probable values) of 0 and 1.

Limits below 0 or above 100 are generally discouraged unless they enable a direct mapping between claim values and the standard representation of the idea that the claim is trying to predict. If the natural representation would produce a significant chance of numbers above 1000 or below -1000, the claim terms should scale them by some power of ten to produce numbers that are likely to have absolute values below 100.

Edit this entry / Log info / Last changed on Thu Dec 23 14:02:01 1999 by Peter McCluskey