Background
Bashar al-Assad has been the President of Syria since 2000 and has maintained power through a devastating civil war that began in 2011. He currently controls most of Syria's territory with strong military and political backing from Russia and Iran. Recent developments include Syria's readmission to the Arab League and growing regional normalization of relations with the Assad regime.
Resolution Criteria
This market will resolve YES if Bashar al-Assad is alive and remains the President of Syria through December 31, 2025. The market will resolve NO if:
Assad dies from any cause before December 31, 2025
Assad is removed from power through any means (military coup, revolution, voluntary resignation, etc.)
Assad no longer exercises de facto control over the Syrian government
Considerations
While Assad faces ongoing challenges including regional instability and economic crisis, he has consolidated his military position with support from key allies
The U.S. Biden administration has shown limited engagement in Syria, reducing external pressure for regime change
Recent regional diplomatic developments, including normalization with Turkey and other Arab states, have strengthened Assad's position
Previous predictions of Assad's fall have consistently proven wrong since the start of the Syrian Civil War
1,000
3.00Hello traders - mod stepping in. As you may know, the original title of this market, "Will Bashar Al-Assad survive 2025?" was highly misleading, as the resolution criteria indicated that the market would resolve NO if Assad was only removed from power. However, longstanding Manifold precedent is that the description takes precedent over the title. (Now, the title has been changed so the two are in harmony.)
Based on a consensus of credible sources, my opinion is that the market should now resolve NO, although I will give @datachef a bit of time to do so. The situation does not warrant an N/A resolution.
In the future, please remember to have a title that does not conflict with the description, and to clearly communicate how the market will resolve to traders.
@Conflux Thanks for stepping in. I welcome an affirmation of "description overrules title".
I wonder how far this goes. Hypothetical market:
Title: Will COVID be a pandemic?
Description: Only resolves Yes if COVID is officially declared to be a pandemic by the WHO.
Resolve No, because the WHO does not "officially declare" a pandemic? What if the market stands at 99% with no comments? What if someone pointed out that the WHO doesn't declare pandemics, market drops to 50%, commenters argue, market rises to 97% again? What if the creator comments "Sorry, I messed up the criteria. But of course I will abide by what I have written and resolve No at the end of the year"?
There are many possibilities between this market and my hypothetical example.
@Primer I think there are legitimate gray areas here. In the pandemic case, widespread reporting was that WHO declared COVID a pandemic - even though I guess it declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and later characterized the outbreak as a pandemic? Is that what you're saying? I feel like that market would resolve YES, and if the creator wanted to resolve it as NO, it would likely feel like a Levi Finkelstein-style "trick" market.
Also, the percentage a market is at should not affect its resolution. If we made a policy that markets at 99% shouldn't be resolved NO, you could win any market by betting it to 99%.
@Conflux Yeah, that's what I was trying to say with the COVID example. Of course it's all on a spectrum. But I feel in the COVID example, traders who carefully read and thought about the description ("I know something most other traders don't") would lose. Here, Manifold precedent would be either "intent trumps description" or "what the average trader would reasonably expect [according to how either the creator or a mod imagines an average trader's thinking]". Both seem closer tied to the title than to a description.
I brought up the percentages, because that's often how "what did the traders expect" is determined in cases without (and probably also with) mod intervention. I think we can easily imagine some market similar to the COVID example where traders notice "according to the wording in the description, this resolves No", most traders buy lots of No down to 1% (not in order to influence the resolution, but because "everyone knows" how it will resolve) and the market resolves No, because "obviously, traders agreed on how to interpret this market". I think Manifold policy would not be "Description takes precedent", but "That's within your power as market creator to decide" in that case.
I don't feel it's possible for me as a trader to know in advance which direction those resolutions go.
I want to mention again that those slightly ambiguous markets will end up mispriced, thus attract more traders and pull liquidity, engagement and trader bonuses away from well-written markets.
@Primer That's a nice writeup of some of the problems faced. I think the point about bad markets getting more trading activity due to mispricing is a good point, and definitely a problematic incentive of Manifold.
You're right that this is a really thorny issue, and "description overrides title" is only a heuristic - I do think it's reasonable, though, since you may want to write a title that's short and snappy but doesn't cover the edge cases properly. In general, we do like to defer to creator discretion, but that also presents issues.
Resolves NO:
Fall of the Assad dynasty - Wikipedia
Assad regime collapses as Syrian rebels enter Damascus | Axios
Syrian army command tells officers that Assad's rule has ended, officer says | Reuters
Syrian rebels advance into Damascus, claiming they seized control of the capital | NBC
Opposition declares Damascus ‘free of tyrant al-Assad’ | Al Jazeera
Syrian rebels declare Damascus “free,” claim Bashar al-Assad has fled the capital | CNN
Syrian insurgents enter Damascus, President Assad flees Syria | AP News
@datachef We'll see what the mods have to say. You still never answered me about why you won't cancel and make a new one. Instead of replying to my question (because you have no valid reason), you blocked me, attacked me without allowing me to respond (toxic, and got ratio'd hard), and then unblocked me later (I assume you saw my message on Discord?). I'm just not sure why we should have people who bought pre-title change and post-title change holding the same contracts. Anyways, usually when someone can't handle their position being challenged is they tell the person to "let it go", or "chill", or any other variation of "I don't have an argument but please let me pretend that I'm not being challenged". Alright bro, people on this market will know not to deal with you anymore, if that's what you want then whatever 🤷♂
Your tactics are known in advance, you aren't fooling anyone lol:
@PeterNjeim they aren’t going to do anything. And since you started complaining this market has gotten 20 new traders so I don’t think it’s going to bother a single person that you are upset. Good luck trying to get people to hate me though bro. Sounds like you love wasting time.
@datachef New traders didn't have to deal with the old title... are you understanding what the problem even is?
@datachef I am a big NO holder and a new trader, but still I'm probably going to give this market a less than 5 star rating because of the initial misleading title. Probably not 1 star, I reserve that for extremely terrible markets. Maybe 2 or 3 stars.
@datachef Also notice that, despite me repeatedly asking for a reason, you still haven't answered why you won't cancel and make a new one. It's almost like you have no reason
@PeterNjeim There's already this market https://manifold.markets/jks/will-bashar-alassad-survive-2025-uCA5EC2PNS which is at 15% as it seems that
Assad's plane may have crashed.
@datachef I don't need to convince people to hate you. On the contrary, you tried to make people hate me, and ended up only ruining your own reputation
@PeterNjeim I’ve illustrated the point in other comments which the creator has agreed with. You’ve responded to the comments so you are aware of the affirmative case to keep the market open. You just disagree.
@PeterNjeim where was my toxicity? I don’t understand why you won’t stop. This market is not going to be canceled. Get over it.
@PeterNjeim I am just asking you to please stop. We all got your point. There is nothing left to say. You do have a deal and it’s annoying so stop.