Resolution will be based on the Wikipedia articles for the hospital and the explosion as of close time.
Will resolve early if there is a clear and consistent answer before close. Resolution ignores Wikipedia vandalism, as defined by my judgement.
If the article lists a range, I will take the arithmetic mean of that range. If the article lists multiple numbers with equal prominence, I will take the arithmetic mean of those numbers. If the number is being actively updated, I will do my best to take the most recent non-vandalism-number as of close time, but may end up having to exercise some judgment or take an average if it's truly a mess.
I will not trade in this market.
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| # | Name | Total profit |
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The article for the explosion references three numbers with equal prominence: a range of 100-300; 250; 471. That would resolve as ((100+300)/2 + 250 + 471)/3 = 307, resolving as 301-450.
The article for the hospital clearly refers to the explosion article as the "main article", so I'll defer to the explosion article. I probably should have clarified that sooner, but it doesn't particularly matter; the hospital article has a range of 200-500, which gets counted as 350, in the same resolution option as the main article.
This answer has been stable for a while now.
If someone wishes to present a clear case for a different resolution, please do so promptly. Otherwise I'll resolve to "301-450" tomorrow.
I find that toll hard to believe. The pure physics of the size of the explosion in an open air environment in the midst of motor vehicles shielding the blast do not add up. For a similar example in an equally crowded environment, see the Kramatorsk missile attack last year. I thought the idea of Manifold was to come up with sensible results, not to be influenced by press releases?
@SimonMcMahon This is a question about how many people died according to Wikipedia. It's an extremely verifiable and objective question about a specific source.
My overall approach is to try to have a mix of questions, some of which are possibly hard to resolve and directly address the underlying question of interest (see the main question here of /MilfordHammerschmidt/did-the-idf-just-now-blow-up-a-hosp ), combined with ones like this that only indirectly address the core question but are much easier to resolve.
When those questions seem to disagree with each other, that often helps highlight exactly where the problems in the analysis / reporting lie.
But overall I agree with your assessment; a death toll of 307 seems implausible to me as well. I think the article I linked below about the mistranslation / misreporting of the initial report is highly relevant to that question, and it's had a little discussion in the Wikipedia talk page.
@SimonMcMahon For another example of a question about a source and their reporting, rather than the event itself, see:
/MarcusAbramovitch/will-the-new-york-times-definitivel
@SimonMcMahon In my view, Wikipedia has a certain kind of political bias. In this case it's even a bit more strange because Wikipedia does at least say (in my view, correctly) that Hamas/PIJ probably caused the explosion. But, in my view, the bias of Wikipedia gives them an incentive to increase the casualty numbers anyway.
@nathanwei I have to say that the premise behind Wikipedia is failing. It was supposed to be the distilled wisdom of the many, self regulated. There is just no way an explosion that small could do that much damage. One life is too much, but over-egging by 5-10x dishonestly or by omission makes the population doubt every other claim if they "know" something isn't right.
@SimonMcMahon That's why we have websites like Manifold Markets instead. We don't have the same anti-Israel political bias as Wikipedia. See https://manifold.markets/nathanwei/which-side-are-you-more-sympathetic .
Given that the Wikipedia page has been listing a death toll of 307 since October 25, and the market is closing in 9 days, I think the possibility that there's just no further meaningful change made to the page was being underpriced by the market. Accordingly, I bought YES on 301-450 from 38% up to 53%.
It's plausible to me that the price should be even higher, but the trade is not quite as attractive at 53c.
There's also the Arabic Wiki version of this market, which seems on track to turn out fairly differently:
/EvanDaniel/how-many-people-died-in-the-alahli-98d0ef8cbcf6
Fascinating investigation into the original "at least 500" quote. It may be a misquote / mistranslation of a claim of 500 victims or casualties, not deaths.
https://www.silentlunch.net/p/did-the-entire-media-industry-misquote
defering to my comment from Oct 18, 12:51am EDT:
from my initial impact assessment we're looking at <100 dead.
But big big caveat: I have no idea how many people were in the courtyard at the time of impact - I counted between 25 - 30 bodies on videos I reviewed. Casualties rushed off to others hospitals - some looked to be in really bad shape (although not at all of the casualties were from this event) might double this figure.
The Hamas staged press conference displaying the bodies doesn't zoom out far enough/doesn't pan around and thus I can't really determine a count. Looks to be in a similar range to the my first count.