POLL: Should we remove being able to bet on your own free markets?
14
13
Ṁ103
resolved Jun 20
Resolved
NO
This is a poll. Please vote YES, NO or ABSTAIN in capital letters at the beginning of your post (you may post again to change your vote) This market will resolve to YES if a majority of voters vote YES, NO if a majority of voters vote no, and PROB 50% in case of a tie. The question was simplified for the title, the actual question is: Would it be a sufficient fix to the current problem to remove the ability to bet on your own free market. Please vote YES if all of: - You believe we should keep the current free market system - You believe we should remove the ability of free market creators to bet on their own markets (If you like the current free market system and would like for every market to disallow their authors to bet on them, also bet YES) Please vote NO if any of: - You believe we should get rid of the free market system - You want the author of a free market to be able to bet on it - You want restriction on free markets which do not include disallowing authors of free markets betting on them (Note: I'm opting for a resolution based on majority because I do not believe the volume of bets to be high enough for proportionality to make sense) Jun 13, 3:36am: Note: This is mostly about not being able to take profits from the free markets. If you support author betting on their own market but not being able to take any money from it, count this as a YES Jun 18, 9:30am: Bet policy: Abstain (except to bump the market by buying-reselling a dollar)
Get Ṁ200 play money

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Interesting discussions! I think this made me change my view a little, I no longer believe authors should not vote on their own questions, just that we should have a norm that they explain their betting intentions at market opening The position that convinces me the most now is that we should have ephemeral daily money, M$100 that we can use to open markets or bets or tips, but that disappears if unused Thanks a lot for participating :)
predicted NO
@JoyVoid I think the ephemeral daily money is a great idea. Id consider doing a slightly longer time-frame on it to lower the average amount (maybe M$250 weekly or something) but overall am pretty convinced that's the right way to replace daily free markets.
Re: norms about market opening, here is my current policy and conventions https://manifold.markets/Angela/repost-under-what-conditions-is-it#AbqapM5wyao8Lr87sJVO
(Bumping market for final day before close)
YES Might as well cast my own vote now that the market has started
predicted NO
NO. I strongly support being able to meaningfully bet on your own free markets. Jack has the right idea IMO---incentivize people to provide liquidity, so that free markets aren't so necessary. Make them weekly if you want a compromise.
YES
NO.
Worth noting that I proposed and validated a method for making sure free daily market creators cannot profit from those markets a while back. It is an alternative that allows for free market creators to still bet on their own markets, but ensures they can't take any of the free liquidity (they can take liquidity they or someone else provided, though). Details are here: https://manifold.markets/MattP/will-gurkenglas-convince-me-that-mu The problem with this solution is that it makes betting on one's own free markets a generally undesirable thing, since you can't really make any money. That's why I switched to just recommending free market creators be disallowed from betting on them, since it's a similar end effect but easier to implement and much less confusing.
bought Ṁ20 of NO
NO - I think removing the ability to bet on your own free market would be a _sufficient_ fix but not a very good one. I think in general you should be able to bet on and profit from your markets, whether you paid for the initial liquidity or not. I also think being able to create markets cheaply is good. I think the issues with the current system is just that if you don't actually want to ask a question you are incentivized to spam daily free markets to extract the profits. I would prefer addressing this specific issue in a more targeted way. I also think market creators shouldn't be required to put up M$100 of their money for liquidity with the expectation that they'll most likely lose it, and that the new liquidity systems that are under discussion could help by making providing liquidity profitable instead. So maybe once those new liquidity systems are in, there won't be a need for markets to be expensive in the first place, so there also won't be a need for free markets.
NO. Several ways to be NO per description, I haven't decided which one.
NO. Creators of free markets should not be able to profit from those markets. All winnings they make should just flow back to Manifold Markets. On the market creation page they should be able to chose to not use their free market if they want to be able to profit from it. A related suggestion / market by me: Sometimes you want to credibly state that you won't bid on your own market as creator, should this be an option? https://manifold.markets/Milli/will-manifold-markets-add-an-option
@Milli So you mean, authors are able to bet but not profit? I think that counts as a YES according to the spirit of my question, when I say "not being able to bet on one's own market", I really mean "take profit from it"
predicted NO
@JoyVoid Yes, that's what I mean. Count it as YES if that's what you meant but please add it to the description. I thought I was firmly in the NO camp.
@Milli Thanks, added
NO! I think anyone should be able to bet on any market - not being able to bet on my own markets would take a lot of the fun and utility out of Manifold for me! I think the daily free market is an ugly hack on top of an otherwise elegant system that creates weird incentives and inefficiencies. The people milking them for a dollar a day are a symptom of that, not a root problem. Restricting would be sorta acceptable if there were a way to create a market without it being free, but that's too much complexity dancing around a feature in which I don't see a lot of utility in the first place. If you want to encourage more market creation you can give people their liquidity back as they attract bets and liquidity injections, or give people a few free markets upfront to remove initial friction and then stop (although I think the initial M$1000 is sufficient for that), or reduce the price of creating a market, or make people pay back the M$100 after the market resolves, or - if you absolutely insist on subsidising market creation - own it and give people M$ every day they log in (probably less than M$100), which would pay not only for market creation but also for more betting, which I think is a bigger problem facing Manifold right now.
@NcyRocks "own it and give people M$ every day they log in (probably less than M$100), which would pay not only for market creation but also for more betting, which I think is a bigger problem facing Manifold right now" 100% think this is the right move. Some subsidy to keep the market moving is probably a good idea, but right now it's directed entirely at market creation. Just give users the subsidy (maybe M$100 per week login bonus) and let them decide what to use it on (betting or market creation).
YES - I would like it if market creators could never bet on their own markets. Certainly for free markets at least.

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