Interesting! I've never seen someone try to make a such a comprehensive set of baseline rules, it seems like a good project!
I think the most controversial item here is 13:
Markets will resolve early, even if the outcome is unknown, if the degree of uncertainty remaining is insufficient to render the market interesting, and the market is trading >95% or <5% (or for markets multiple years in advance, >90% or <10%), and I agree with the market but feel it mostly reflects Manifold interest rates. Markets will not be allowed to turn into bets on interest rates. However if it could still plausibly resolve N/A, then I will hold off.
Could you give some examples of markets you think this rule should apply to? For example, I run the the market on Eliezer's 150k UFO bet:
Would you resolve that market early, if you were the market creator and if it never went below 90% for a year?
For your own markets, is this policy retroactive? Will you resolve this market early?
For my own markets, it is not retroactive if I didn't say it at the time (which I did for many markets). In that case, I would resist doing so exactly because I think this is a low-probability but possible event, and I continue to find it interesting. If it was 3% (trading at Superconductor) I would be tempted to early resolve, but 5% isn't there yet.
To be clear, I WOULD likely resolve the Superconductor market now under this rule, I think it is trading at interest rate.
For the bet, at 93% with active arguing on both sides and real trading, definitely not. Even if this were 95%, I wouldn't resolve, because it is based on a 150-to-1 baseline bet and there is a clear contingent arguing the other way. So if I made a UFO market like this I would say 'This cannot resolve early to YES, period.'
For the election case, if I saw the desks collectively resolving I would resolve, but if something is going to be 99.99% a day later and it's 99% now, might as well wait. If it's going to be two months, do it now.
Note that it says "the degree of uncertainty remaining is insufficient to render the market interesting" AND <5% or >95%.
This seems reasonable to me. Note that degree varies by market - an absolute probability by itself wouldn't be a good rule. If it was already very unlikely (e.g. "Will a nuclear bomb be detonated in NYC this year"), then for the degree of uncertainty to become uninteresting it has to become much more unlikely in a way that rules out most of the previous probability space.
I've thought about this type of case a decent amount, and I think a perfectly reasonable approach is to resove early when the uncertainty is almost entirely gone, but with the commitment to re-open and re-resolve as needed in the event that the "almost entirely" turns out to be relevant.
Classic example: "Who wins election X?" Resolve as soon as projected by mainstream decision desks. But on a large number of election markets, there will surely be some small number of wrong projections, so you undo the resolution, reopen the market, and eventually re-resolve as needed.
Pro: avoids locking up mana unnecessarily. Con: undoing resolutions can cause people to have negative mana.
Philosophically, you can look at this as giving everyone a loan based on the presumptive resolution.
I agree that points 12 and 13 are at least mildly controversial. From the PoV of someone adopting these rules, it'd be enough if you changed the "will"s to "may"s.
By and large, the fewer points that are binding for the market creator, the easier it is to adopt the rules. I'm fine with a few big points being strongly binding (e.g. #15), and also fine with the more aspirational points where "Zvi's best judgement" automatically gets replaced with "Vitor's best judgement". But I'd rather not commit to some minutiae I don't really care about.
(It's more about "attack surface" or maybe in this case we should say "decision surface" than actual strong disagreement with the points, if that makes sense?)
These are great rules. I wish they existed on a decentralized general constitution ledger, so I could consent to them being true on an infrastructure nobody controls (yet everyone tends to obey because other people consider it an authority).
That way, when I read them, I could get paid by society for learning to be a good citizen and I could escape my oppressed state and make a living learning stuff (authenticating the social contract) on the internet.
If the question description or resolution mechanism does not match the clear intent or spirit of the question, or does not match its title, in an unintentional way, or is ambiguous, I will fix that as soon as it is pointed out. If the title is the part in error I will fix the title. If you bet while there is ambiguity or a contradiction here, and no one including you has raised the point, then this is at your own risk.
This is a great rule that I wish I had adopted earlier for all my markets.
This document was updated August 11, 2024. Broad intent has not changed.
All markets created by Zvi Mowshowitz shall be graded according to the rules described herein, including the zeroth rule.
The version of this on LessWrong shall be the canonical version, even if other versions are later posted on other websites.
Rule 0: If the description of a particular market contradicts these rules, the market’s description wins, the way a card in Magic: The Gathering can break the rules. This document only establishes the baseline rules, which can be modified.
Suggestions for modifications are encouraged.