A lot of people seem to be afraid that the whales vs. minnows market will be misresolved, or at least resolved in a way that some people disagree with. But will the ultimate resolution even be controversial?
This market will resolve YES if I notice significant disagreement over the resolution itself or whether factors that led to the resolution were handled fairly. This would include, for example, disagreements over the list of alt accounts, controversy over the time of the market closing, or credible accusations that someone knew the time that the market would close and used that to their advantage. However, any such controversies have to be over factors significant enough to affect the resolution - if people disagree whether a specific account is someone's alt, but the market would resolve the same way regardless, that is not enough for a YES resolution here.
One obvious way this could resolve YES is if any of the derivative markets claims that Isaac has resolved the market incorrectly by some metric (assuming that the derivative market isn't unambiguously agreed to have resolved incorrectly). However, this market could still resolve YES even if all the derivative markets agree that the original was resolved correctly, as long as there is some significant controversy among traders.
I will also take into account how sincere the disagreements are. If someone seems to be just claiming that they disagree with the resolution to get this market to resolve YES, I will ignore them. I will also ignore anyone who is just being a sore loser by contesting the results, unless they can make a serious case that it shouldn't have been resolved the way it was.
Whales vs. Minnows:
🏅 Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ṁ1,615 | |
| 2 | Ṁ1,496 | |
| 3 | Ṁ913 | |
| 4 | Ṁ875 | |
| 5 | Ṁ744 |
Well, no new information has been brought to my attention since my previous comment, and no one has complained about the NO resolution in the comments on WvM, or anywhere else that I noticed. There definitely does not appear to be significant controversy, even after more than a day has passed since resolution, so I think I can safely resolve this NO now.
Despite the many controversies surrounding the Whales vs Minnows market itself, most of them do not affect the ultimate resolution, so they don't qualify for this market. Minnows were ahead at every single suggested close time, so the arguments over the closing time did not ultimately affect the resolution. You could claim that, counterfactually, whales might have been ahead earlier if the closing time had been set to earlier, but I have already stated that I'm not going to consider a counterfactual argument like that when determining what affects the resolution, since it's impossible to verify. Similarly, none of the controversies about the exclusion of alts, Isaac's use of API keys, or the mana refund affected the resolution, so they don't count either.
Currently, the only argument that seems to be serious and good faith for why the market should not have resolved the way it did is @Odoacre's argument that it should have resolved N/A. Others have expressed a similar sentiment, but I can't find anyone else making statements strong enough to conclude that they disagree with the NO resolution (I thought I found such a statement from @duck_master on the Manifold discord, but he has since then edited it to cross out the comment, leading me to assume that it was either just a joke or that he no longer agrees with it). I don't think that statements from only a single person are sufficient to count as "significant disagreement", and it's also not yet clear whether it's actually the resolution that Odoacre disagrees with, as opposed to the allowance of the market (see here).
I will leave this open for a little longer just in case something else comes up and to give people an opportunity to bring any new evidence of controversy to my attention. However, I don't think there is sufficient controversy, and I will resolve this market NO if I am not given any new reasons to resolve it YES soon.
@JosephNoonan Thank you for taking this seriously. Can you please wait 24 hours before resolving ? Not everyone is online during the weekend plus, timezones make it so some people are still not aware WvM has actually closed.
@Odoacre Yes, that's part of the reason I still haven't resolved yet, the other being to see if anyone brings evidence of controversy to my attention that I wasn't aware of previously.
@JosephNoonan Just saying I agree with it being No, the resolution was the expected one, and delivered rapidly with good provided reasons for why they resolved the way they did. No one I even saw crying fowl right afterwards.
@PlatonicSystems This doesn't seem like a reasonable complaint to me, and I haven't heard anyone else complain about this, so I'm not inclined to consider it a significant disagreement.
@JosephNoonan not sure how much of an argument you take this to be, but this market being controversial is evidence that the WVM resolution is
@MarcusAbramovitch No, it’s evidence that people expected to be. Not that it actually was.
The council clearly made the least controversial decision, and nobody is disputing the final resolution other than a few people who think out of principle or protest it should have resolved N/A. Totally unrelated to the market conditions itself, but because of isaacs spending and the manifold refund.
Ignore those external factors and just look at the market conditions. Isaac bought 5.5million shares, it wasn’t enough, NO wins.
The resolution is not disputable, so it’s not controversial. Unless you want to make a case that it should have resolved YES? Or N/A?
The market was controversial. The resolution was not.
@MarcusAbramovitch I don't think that's very good evidence, though. This market is currently much lower than 50%, which suggests that most people think that the WvM market is, in fact, not controversial. People might be holding a YES position because they misread or misunderstood the resolution criteria (e.g., you were initially confused about why it hadn't already resolved YES because you didn't realize that the controversies over close times, alts, and API keys wouldn't count if the market resolved NO). They could also be holding YES shares because they believe that the probability that my judgement differs from theirs is >9%.
Also, I don't think the volatility of this market is a sign at all. The big swings in this market were a result of the big swings in the WvM market, since the outcome depended significantly on how WvM resolved (e.g., it went up to >90% at the same time that WvM did, since I had already stated that this market would resolve YES if WvM resolved YES). Ever since it became clear that WvM was going to resolve NO, this market has stayed fairly stable, with a few spikes that were quickly corrected and just now a large drop as the resolution actually came, eliminating any possibility of an N/A resolution or a sudden whale comeback.
@JosephNoonan i didn't see this until now but the reason for that is all your comments saying that you don't think it's controversial any time someone would bring something up.
I maintain that this market resolution was controversial, just not enough according to you. I'm not asking for a re-resolve or anything. The danger in betting on these markets is, well, that they are subjective.
I do think more clarity could have been provided but I'll live, I made enough in other markets.
https://manifold.markets/IsaacKing/will-the-whales-win-this-market#x0Sf1l4x96jEmYmTUx91
proposal from @DavidChee regarding N/A
@JosephNoonan I think these arguments are legitimate and in good faith. I don't think they are simply "self interested", contain people who have profited off the market (and will have profits erased) and are arguments made in good faith
@MarcusAbramovitch Some of those(Alex Rockwell) are just predicting that it will resolve NA, and some people(Odoacre) think all whale markets in general should be canceled so their opinion isn't specific to WvM.
@MarcusAbramovitch Some of these are just predicting N/A, though, and even the ones that suggest that resolving the market N/A would be good don't really seem to be saying that resolving to something other than N/A would be a misresolution. What I am looking for is disagreement over the resolution, i.e., if it resolves NO, will there be people who think, "This isn't right, it should have resolved N/A"? None of these comments give me a strong enough sense that the users would disagree if the market were to resolve NO.
I agree that these comments are reasonable and sincere, the question is just whether they are enough to constitute a controversy if the WvM market resolves NO. My current thinking is that these comments alone aren't enough to prove that a NO resolution is controversial. If it does resolve NO, though, I will try to get the opinions of people who previously made statements in favor of an N/A resolution to see if they disagree with the resolution.
@JosephNoonan The only people advocating for N/A are doing so on some sort of principle, not because a NO resolution would actually be wrong. You could argue the same types of reasons for literally any market so I don’t think they should apply here
@JosephNoonan Personally I think it should have been cancelled by manifold as a strong signal against these kind of markets. Even it the 00 block arrives and the committe somehow decides to go with NA I still would not be happy, as I'd feel that it should have been done as an administrative action by manifold earlier.
At this point i've mostly given up on this happening though.
Im still holding YES in this market becasue I personally feel the resolution will be controversial, but I'm happy to sell if that somehow influences your decision (and am happy to go down with the ship if not)
@Odoacre So, would you consider your disagreement to be more of a disagreement with the existence of the market itself (or at least its continued existence), rather than the resolution? Now that it has resolved NO, do you think that the council has made the wrong decision?
(You can keep or sell your YES shares if you want. Even if it did influence my decision, that would just mean that your holding the YES shares gave me some information that I considered relevant to the resolution, which isn't a bad thing. The only person whose shares could unduly affect the resolution is me, and I already sold all my shares and avoided buying any more once it looked like the resolution might require a judgement call).
@JosephNoonan I don't think the comittee is in a position to choose anything else than NO. Their mandate is to resolve per the criteria that were negotiated when the committe was put in place. The only people that can reasonably cancel it are Manifold as an administrative action.