Will anyone sue Manifold over "free labor" concerns before 2026?
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2026
4%
chance

Manifold outsources a lot of work to the community (espetially trustworthyish users). So far this hasn't been a problem, as everyone is caught up in the spirit of wanting Manifold to succeed, and most people here are libertarian-leaning and therefore ok with mutually-beneficial agreements between consenting adults.

In other subcultures, this sort of dynamic would lead to complaints about free labor, exploitation, and potential violations of labor law.

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Does Wikipedia get sued for this?

predicts NO

@JonathanRay Wikipedia is a nonprofit.

@IsaacKing But Fandom, the wiki host, is a for-profit company.

predicts NO

@oh Wikipedia is run by the Wikimedia Foundation, not Fandom.

@IsaacKing Does being a nonprofit actually provide any exemptions from labor laws

@IsaacKing My point is that Fandom is a for-profit org that essentially asks free labor of its users, so if Wikipedia doesn’t count as a counter-example because of its nonprofit status, Fandom should.

@oh I don’t think nonprofit status matters here, legally or morally. It’s fine if consenting adults want to provide free labor for an online community

@JonathanRay Agreed, I was just arguing that even if we accepted her premise, it wouldn’t make a difference.

I'd sue if I was actually doing work beyond resolving old markets once every few weeks. Everything else is hobby & social interaction.

You're a magic judge, right? DM me tips on how to set up our Trustworthy-ish

class-action

predicts NO

@MichaelWheatley That is definitely what inspired this market. The judge program has pretty much collapsed, as the work simply isn't worth enough to be worth paying a serious wage for, and any attempt to solicit volunteer work results in legal action or reasonable fears of such.

mfw i do free labour and I don't even get sent rare collectibles in return :/

So how does that work? Who judges GPs now?

predicts NO

@MichaelWheatley We get paid just enough for large events to meet legal guidelines. (It's often far below minimum wage after factoring in travel costs.) All the rest of the program work is done independently by volunteers, with Judge Academy refusing to provide any support to (or often even acknowledgement of) those volunteers.

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