@IsaacKing and @DesTiny together manipulated @DesTiny 's personal goal market to earn Ṁ16,000 profit. Will manifold users find that ethical?
Resolve to Yes if my "ethical" comment below get more likes at market close
Resolve to No if my "unethical" comment below get more likes at market close
What happened:
@DesTiny had a personal goal market on whether his profit will be above Ṁ1,500 by the end of Jan 1 2023. His profit up until Dec 31 was still -Ṁ9,000 and he holds no large enough position that could pull his profit up to Ṁ1,500. The market price was hovering around 5-10% up until a few hours before closing. To the surprise of many, @IsaacKing bought 20,000 Yes position and pushed the price up to 90% before the market closes.
https://manifold.markets/DesTiny/will-my-profit-be-above-1500-by-the
One the next day, @IsaacKing created a private market and artificially generated Ṁ19,000 profit for @DesTiny, pushing his total profit to +Ṁ10,000 (and then +Ṁ23,000 with another private market)
Eventually @DesTiny resolved his personal market to Yes. @IsaacKing got a whopping Ṁ18,301 profit from it, while other big No position holders such as @GeorgeVii, @ahalekelly and @Lifejacker lost Ṁ9,127, Ṁ3,800 and Ṁ3,050 respectively.
@yaboi69 nah, the poll should have been anonymous, and this is the best approximation we could have done. What matters is that the correct option gets chosen in the end.
@Catnee Perhaps, can't say I'm going to put up much effort into a fight here. Someone else can take the incentive of they want to rally the troops. But that's a big (for manifold) incentive your posting. Hope you know what you're doing ;)
I may have been a bad influence… there are some "gamble" markets where this kind of creative interpretation of rules is common. Whereas, I think most of Destiny's crowd are here for free subs and not really interested in complicated market games or even prediction markets in general except as a novelty.
I think if you put a generic "This market is intended to resolve independently of its traders. It is taboo to take action intended to cause the market to resolve differently to profit." That should catch leaking insider information to someone so they make profits, private markets to inflate them, etc. and I suspect most people would respect it. And if they don't, it would definitely be unethical.
In general, there's a conflict between Manifold making it easy to bet on markets with a simple question in the title and easy "swipe left" "swipe right" actions where people don't think too much about even the current probability; and complicated 4D chess markets where you're using limit orders and derivative markets to manage risk. I don't even know what the semantics would be, but there should be something like a "simple market" for the average joe to swipe left and right on.
@Mira Maybe the common currency contributes too, and "per-group currencies" would help? If Destiny's markets are half the activity, then people betting in political, game, etc. markets who would otherwise not care are incentivized to trade in them if they want that leaderboard position.
@Mira Once again I have no objection towards market creator/trader manipulating for fun or for profit in obvious meme markets (e.g. those that you are famous for). I think very few traders considered the 1500 profit market of @DesTiny a meme market.
@IsaacKing's manipulation might be considered acceptable, but on @DesTiny's part, colluding with market manipulators to take advantage of a loophole you yourself created is pretty sketchy in my book.