There are three main factors we are trying to find the sweet spot between:

• Preserving creator autonomy. Many users feel proud of their markets and feel a strong sense of ownership.
• Ensuring speedy resolutions once criteria are met.
• Improving the clarity of ambiguous or confusing markets as they are in progress.

<aside> 💡 The term “active” in this document refers to any creator who has made a bet, comment, or market on Manifold in the past 2 weeks. We hope to make an indicator for this in the future with better signifiers.

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Resolving abandoned markets & inactive creators

When is okay to resolve a market of another creator?

• Assuming the resolution is obvious:
  • Markets made by Tomek, NathanYoung, Gigacasting, Manifold Markets account, and Manifold staff are generally fine to resolve as soon as criteria are met. If you know someone personally who is okay with you resolving their market then this is also fine. At some point we hope to implement a system that allows creators to pay mods to manage their markets.
  • If the creator is not active, you may resolve
  • If the creator is active, then you should ping them in a comment, and then resolve if they don’t respond after 1 day.
• If the close date has been reached, and the resolution is ambiguous
  • If appropriate, just reopen the market. If the creator is active then ask if you can reopen it/suggest they do so.
  • If resolution criteria have been “met”, but it’s unclear how to interpret them:
    • Try to get the creator to resolve the market. They usually do respond to pings after a while even if seemingly inactive. Waiting for a couple of months is fine if the alternative is to N/A thanks to the loan system.
    • 3 out of 3 mods unanimously agree that it’s skewed far enough towards one interpretation to resolve it that way. This process should happen ~1 week after close if the creator is inactive.
    • Failing the above two, resolve N/A.

Unresolving markets & handling fraudulent creators

When is it okay to change the resolution of a market?

• The creator asks you to unresolve it because they made a mistake
• The creator optimistically resolved it too early (in what is 90%+ the correct way). In these scenarios don’t force it back open, but ask the creator to unresolve and set a new closing date. If they refuse then leave it as is and in the future it can be re-resolved if events play out that would change the resolution.
• The creator blatantly misresolves the market - this means everyone agrees that the resolution is wrong based on the criteria. In these instances you can feel free to correct it and warn the creator.
• The creator “misresolves” the market but there is room for interpretation and it’s defensible, even if poorly. In these instances you can comment suggestions, but not change the resolution, and leave it at the creator’s discretion.
  • If the creator is a large benefactor of an ambiguously resolved market then give them the benefit of the doubt the first time with a warning unless it’s very obvious it’s fraudulent. If it’s fraudulent or a repeat infraction, N/A if ambiguous or correct it if there is a correct resolution and report it to the admins for potential fines/bans.