Rename "Stocks" to "Contracts"

Rename "stocks" to "contracts". iPredict is not a venue to trade "stocks" and iPredict portfolios do not represent ownership interest in anything. Rather, iPredict's investments closely resemble futures contracts, thus we should consistently refer to them as "contracts" throughout the system, rather than "stocks". This is in fact the terminology that the granddaddy of prediction markets, the Iowa Electronic Markets, uses.

Though stocks can provide some illusion of ownership,
they are merely financial instruments facilitating the wealth expropriation. Contracts usually assume that they can be legally enforced.
Therefore iPredict bet pools are similar to stocks.

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It is difficult to predict, especially others' predictions.

Our theory at least early on was that people new to the site would not understand what "contract' means, whereas we felt that "stocks" was a way to get across the idea of what you do on iPredict ie. buy and sell things.

Language is a juggle for us. The upcoming site refresh is problem going to change our langauge a lot - we are contemplating replacing the word "Trade" with "Predict".

Personally, I feel there are things of greater priority for iPredict at this point in time.

Oracle - I agree.

Wouldn't mind some new stocks ... its a bit quiet round here now the Mt Albert and Worth stocks have closed ...