As an example to show that there's a spectrum and not a binary here, my question about what would happen before I saw flags at half-staff is a verifiable-by-only-me market. Sure, it's asking a broader implicit question about national tragedy, but it's still technically a personal question.

I think these sorts of small stakes personal questions are the heart and best part of manifold. There are definitely examples that feel cheesy, but most I have seen are made in good faith. Especially considering how hard it is to truly prove something without a doubt over Manifold, I think we should allow them some lenience. (In a similar vein, I think mods are overly aggressive in unranking my questions…)

@GleamingRhino Following up on this, I think there is a very large number of questions where the answer could potentially be entirely up to the question creator. For example, questions about whether someone will get into a particular school, or draaglom’s recent cycling market (which I quite enjoyed!). In theory these people could choose to never apply to their dream schools in order to throw the market, or draaglom could intentionally give themselves flat tires and swerve in front of cars, but most people prioritize real life over Manifold enough that these types of market manipulation are not a concern. Many questions have the potential to be determined by creator, but this would be an overly wide net to cast.

I kind of see both sides. In one sense it can work to increase trust. In another it can do the opposite. It can also make one more cognisant that really there is a lot of trust involved, unavoidably.

I find this kind of spam a real issue on this site. I get that the culture of this site is generally very permissive, but I don't want to read through dozens of self-centred nonsense questions looking for ones that are actually meaningful and interesting.

@xjp what's your thought on questions about Jose Luis Ricon? 😭

@AlexanderTheGreater I blocked him.

@AlexanderTheGreater I also blocked him, and blissfully forgot about it. No thanks for reminding me.

I really do feel that this site could benefit from some moderation.

@xjp oh, I had no idea you could do that! Thanks for enlightening me!

Eh, caveat emptor.

fwiw questions of this sort should generally be unranked, to reflect the fact that profit on it doesn't ~really count. if they aren't, you can always ping a mod to change it. unranked means that at a minimum, the market won't count for leagues (ideally it shouldn't count for lifetime profit but that doesn't always work, the site has lots of quirks it needs to sort out).