Moderation Guidelines

Role expectations

Mods are expected to:

• Be welcoming and fair — a lot of moderation is nuanced and will upset someone. Own your mistakes openly.
• Go above and beyond the guidelines without exploiting technicalities or oversights.
• Stay active on Manifold and check #mod-help in Discord regularly.
• Work collaboratively with the team and other mods.

Mod status can be removed and reinstated without it being a reflection on you personally. Reasons for removal include:

• Not wanting to do the work
• Extended inactivity
• Being consistently negative toward Manifold, staff, or users — we have high tolerance here and will warn first
• A communication style that consistently creates conflict

How new mods are chosen

Once a month during the mod call, the team reviews whether new mods are needed and discusses candidates. Candidates should exceed the expectations above.

A casual poll goes out to existing mods to vouch or raise concerns. The community manager makes the final decision and sends the onboarding form to selected users.

Ban types

When to use which:

• General bad actors: consider all three
• Spam or harassment: posting ban is usually sufficient
• Market abuse: market control ban, possibly with trading ban
• Financial manipulation: trading ban

Ban guidelines

• Always include a reason — the user sees it as a banner and it stays on record for future mods. Be information-dense and impersonal.
• Consider the user's warning and ban history. Repeat offenders get treated more harshly.
• Mods should only issue permanent bans for obvious spam. All other permanent bans go to admins.
• If someone is actively problematic, issue a warning first. If they escalate, contact the community manager. As a last resort, issue a temporary ban and make that clear to the user.
• Self-promotion by a genuine user is not spam unless posted across many unrelated markets in large quantities.

Mod alerts

Mod alerts send an anonymous dismissible banner to a user. Use them to deliver warnings, keep a record, and make sure the user sees it without attaching your name to it.

• Keep alerts information-dense and impersonal — they're a record as much as a message.
• Don't use mod alerts to anonymously attack users.
• Once dismissed, the alert no longer shows as active on the ban management page.

Market intervention thresholds

You can initiate a mod takeover of a market when all of the following are true:

• Over 40 traders
• There's an influx of activity or new events requiring criteria clarification
• The creator is unresponsive for at least 24 hours — use judgment if they're generally active or it's not urgent

The takeover process

1. A mod who holds no significant position in the market is delegated as new market owner. They commit to not buying shares to stay impartial.
2. Delegated mod comments and edits the description explaining what's happening and the proposed new criteria.
3. Creator has 48 hours to return and override the new criteria.
4. If they don't return, the mod runs the market from that point.
5. If the creator returns and wants to reclaim the market, they need a good reason to modify the mod's criteria. If they hold a lot of shares and are trying to swing the market in their favor, you can deny them. Escalate to the community manager if needed.

Resolving abandoned markets

When is it okay to resolve another creator's market?

Assuming resolution is obvious:

• Markets by Tomek, NathanYoung, Gigacasting, the Manifold Markets account, and Manifold staff can be resolved as soon as criteria are met.
• If the creator is inactive, you may resolve.
• If the creator is active, ping them in a comment and resolve if no response after 1 day.

If the close date has passed and resolution is ambiguous:

• Reopen the market if appropriate. Ask the creator if they're active.
• If criteria have technically been met but interpretation is unclear, try to get the creator to resolve first. Waiting a couple of months is fine given the loan system.
• If 3 out of 3 mods unanimously agree on the interpretation, you can resolve that way — roughly 1 week after close if the creator is inactive.
• Failing the above, resolve N/A.

"Active" is defined as any creator who has made a bet, comment, or market in the past 2 weeks.

Handling fraudulent or disputed resolutions

You can unresolve and correct a market when:

• The creator asks you to because they made a mistake
• The creator resolved too early but in the right direction — don't force it back, ask them to unresolve and set a new close date. If they refuse, leave it and re-resolve later if events play out differently.
• The resolution is blatantly wrong by any reasonable reading — correct it and warn the creator.

Do not change a resolution when:

• It's defensible even if imperfect — comment suggestions but leave the final call to the creator.
• A creator is a large benefactor of an ambiguous resolution — give benefit of the doubt the first time with a warning, unless it's clearly fraudulent. Escalate repeat infractions.

When to escalate to the community manager

• Market is large (over 80 traders) and needs creator input — ask the community manager to email them directly.
• You've issued a correction or warning for a questionable resolution, especially if the creator benefited — always loop in the community manager.
• Any situation that's unique, unclear, or getting significant blowback from creators or users.
• Any permanent ban that isn't obvious spam.