Will markets show comments above the graph on a market page?
20
20
160
resolved Oct 24
Resolved
NO

We have very low (<2%) new user conversion on the market page - why is this?

Showing the graph upfront shows new users that they can ask a question and get a market as a response. This makes sense to me and other financially versed people but I doubt new users actually understand what a market for a question means. I doubly doubt that they understand that a market is a general information aggregator as opposed to a tool to invest in equities/assets.

My argument is that the graph doesn't help a new user understand what our site is about. A new user also doesn't know why they should trust the answer we're providing because:
1. They might not understand/know/trust the efficient market hypothesis, (though our markets are doubtfully efficient anyways given the liquidity).
2. They don't know understand why the graph says what it says, i.e. the arguments for and against. Maybe they see that people are betting on different outcomes but these bets only represent the opinions of a small number of users. How does the new user & creator judge whether they're right or wrong? How can they tell whether the people betting are good bettors? The only way they can understand the quality of the information that the graph is aggregating is to scroll down and hope there are comments. We should be doing more to encourage, highlight, and reward comments. Otherwise we are just a betting site with a far less useful currency.

If we show comments up at the top we'll get a win-win-win:

1. It'll make betting easier by highlighting the best arguments for and against (do you agree or disagree with these comments?)

2. We'll get more comments

3. People will get more (interesting) engagement on their markets that will make them more likely to return

background: https://manifoldmarkets.notion.site/Socialize-Manifold-245d3174e57940a5bff3b9ceaa98c480

cc: @SG

Aug 23, 4:10pm: Resolves YES if we show comments above the graph for >1 week at a time during the next 60 days (will update closing time). otherwise resolves NO.

Close date updated to 2022-10-23 11:59 pm

Aug 23, 4:52pm:

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To someone who doesn't know what a prediction market is, the graph is weird and new. To the same person with the comments on top, this site is just Quora.

bought Ṁ10 of NO

I think the current market page makes sense for people who are well-versed in trading. If that's your target audience, I think it's fine to leave as-is.

To further expand, I believe Manifold Markets attracts a very niche audience, as not everyone is interested in the markets (most of the markets I see are about topics I'm not interested in, so I don't bet on them and I don't create markets because the topics I AM interested in don't seem to be encouraged on the platform), and others get the impression Manifold is a gambling site due to the UI and instantly click off. The learning curve is steep, and even after doing some quick research on trading, I still didn't understand much of the lingo used on the site. I feel that a large chunk of the Western population isn't well versed in trading and things surrounding it, so having an intuitive interface plus some simple onboarding for complex concepts will help with user stickiness, both on and off the market page.

Right now, most markets I see are surrounding high level thoughts, so it doesn't feel like Manifold is a platform for friends to gather and bet on the silly things they're curious about within that friend group. The actual betting on questions is hard to understand if it's anything other than yes/no, in my opinion.

Manifold Markets seems to be designed around:
1. People who already know how to trade and...
2. People who are highly educated and are interested in discussing these topics via betting

In order to use Manifold markets, it feels like you must have both of the above 2 attributes, which narrows down the audience quite a bit. If that's your target audience, then maybe doing some marketing for Manifold within spaces that have many people that cover those 2 bases, otherwise, if the target audience is intended to reach people outside of that, I believe some UI/UX changes are necessary.

@RachaelNg I don't know, I personally new next to nothing about trading (I had to google what subsidy meant, the concept was entirely non-obvious). Agree with 2 and Manifold's audiance, but I think having like, 2-3 high tipped comment on top couldn't hurt (so like

Highlighted comments

Graph

All comments
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Though maybe that further proves your point actually, since indeed, the learning curve was very steep for me as well

@RachaelNg Also, can I offer to tip you M$150 for you to create a market you like? I am getting the sense that Manifold's markets are not very appealing to me right now, and I figure if more people who felt this way created market not incentivized by the platform, it might breathe some sense of new into it

predicted NO

@JoyVoid Thanks for the offer! I have created markets I'm interested in, but got the feeling these questions were not meant to be asked, especially when the "Fun" tag was removed from categories. This, alongside the steep learning curve, made me feel like the platform isn't made for people like me.

@RachaelNg Interesting. I also get the feeling that the meta around questions has changed though I am not sure why. I never used categories, and there are a lot of groups for fun questions, so it might come back to the discoverability issue? I completely get the feeling about being unwelcome though

predicted NO

@JoyVoid I don't use Manifold everyday, I check back in once a week or 2. I notice they make a lot of changes with the UI/UX each time I check-in, but honestly the changes make me more confused. They're adding a lot of features I don't understand, which is fine if the target audience is what I mentioned in my original comment.

Prior, categories weren't groups, but now they are. It's kind of confusing; when groups was first implemented it felt like what Facebook has, a place for friends or a community to join and get in on a shared interest. Now it feels more like a reddit forum. The behavior completely changed.

The platform is adding on new features and changing existing ones at such a rapid rate. The learning curve was already steep when I joined Manifold a couple months back, but now it's even steeper. I can understand how new users could become overwhelmed and click off.

@RachaelNg Thanks, that makes complete sense! I think it helps me reconnect a little with my own confusion about all this

I notice I also tend to be very confused whenever things change around, I have to check the discord to see the changelog. It's particularly marked when there are some bugs which I'm not sure whether those are intended or not. Then again, if Manifold had an alpha version of the site, I would definitely use it :D

> when groups was first implemented it felt like what Facebook has, a place for friends or a community to join and get in on a shared interest. Now it feels more like a reddit forum.

It definitely feels to me that Manifold has switched from "a group of interesting people" to "a group of interesting topics". Not that the people here aren't as interesting, just that it feels like the focus changed. I want to say it's bound to happen when more users join, but I don't know how much that's a factor, I haven't seen a wave of new active users in comments either...

That's an interesting insight though, I did not think website changes could be repealing, I tend to be quite attracted to novelty.

Re: Reddit vs Facebook. I am interested to know whether you had any preference with regards to which one you wanted Manifold to be, if you want to share. Like, whether there is a specific ideal version of manifold you'd have in mind for you, or that it's just that the constant changes make it hard to even grasp the platform.

predicted NO

@JoyVoid It doesn't help that the changelog is entirely on discord, yeah. Would be really handy if there was a way to access the list of major changes on the website directly.

predicted NO

@RachaelNg FWIW, Manifold IS a gambling site. I think if it tries to pretend it is anything else it's fooling itself.

predicted NO

@RachaelNg For what it's worth, I followed the market about your puppy learning to "drop it" keenly. I generally enjoy these types of markets, and it's why I joined Manifold over more "serious" prediction websites.

In fact, because Manifold is still semi-"play" money, to me a lot of its more serious markets are just worse versions of real money prediction markets (albeit with a better UI). Whereas the silly, fun, and personal markets on here are the kind of thing you can't find anywhere else.

I can see how it would feel alienating how much high-level trading conversation is going on here, but to me it's a bit of a win-win. I feel like the more hardcore trader nerds there are on this site, the better the silly/obscure personal markets can become. It's a bit of a hilarious contradiction that with enough incentive even the silliest, most obscure market can attract research and discussion when there's enough mana on the line. I see the recent changes as a way to cater to those power users who will eventually find their way to weirder markets as it gets harder to make money on more traditional markets.

Of course, if by catering to the hardcore traders Manifold is chasing away the types of folks who would create different, interesting markets, I think that could be an issue in the long term.

I too don't quite feel like that "target" user of some of Manifold's tools, and I've created several markets that attracted 0 bettors besides me, but I've mostly attributed that to low userbase + limited incentive. I've found that even for my most obscure markets, when there's been enough mana on the line, things do get interesting.

All that said, based on how few of my friends seem interested in actually signing up when I talk about it, I do think that Manifold is more likely to go the way of Reddit than Facebook-- more centered around topics and communities of strangers than identities and groups of friends.

@Charlie > In fact, because Manifold is still semi-"play" money, to me a lot of its more serious markets are just worse versions of real money prediction markets (albeit with a better UI). Whereas the silly, fun, and personal markets on here are the kind of thing you can't find anywhere else.

Yes exactly! This is why I joined Manifold and started enjoying it. I think Manifold is headed away from this type of markets. Also, I don't think the incentive things maps really, my markets tended to have success when they were fun to bet in and demanded little efforts, not when I added a lot of liquidities

predicted NO

@JoyVoid What makes you think they’re headed away from these types of markets? You just don’t see others creating them? Or do you find that one’s you create don’t get the action they used to?

And yeah you’re right that an interesting market trumps all. I guess what some folks are observing is that “interesting” is subjective and skewing in a certain direction.

@Charlie I guess it's just an ethereal impression. I see less silly markets now (like, proof of work markets, markets where the highest bid outcome wins, nomic markets etc), and I also see manifold features being less focused on the friend aspect of things (Market of the day markets are very serious, groups are not emphasized as anything but categories, the manifold team banning E. Harding, etc)... For me all those changes go together in the kind of direction manifold is heading

I don't think you can do this until comments can be minimized

bought Ṁ30 of NO

I don't really understand why the smartest money in any market would bother to explain itself. Unless it's a pump & dump ploy, doesn't sharing research/arguments just make it less likely for dumber money to bet against you?

predicted YES

@Charlie It depends on you opportunity cost - if you can move the market to the prob you're expecting sooner, then you can cash out early

Right, tips are going in the right direction for this, but are an incomplete mechanism to incentivitize agents to share information. Though note that if the liquidity is very high, you could buy, then share the information, then sell after the market has updated for immediate profit

New users come to manifold and do not:
1. trust manifold
2. trust our markets

What will convince them to trust us?
1. The market - An anonymous graph
2. The best ideas & evidence our community has that they stake their money on?

predicted NO

@ian the comments are a mix of good arguments, pictures, embedded markets, memes, etc. Broken into a bunch of subthreads. You think some rando is gonna stumble on the site and think "oh, a comments section, I immediately trust this"?

@MattP It's not about just showing the comment section, check out the proposal in the description (https://manifoldmarkets.notion.site/Socialize-Manifold-245d3174e57940a5bff3b9ceaa98c480)

@MattP I do think that the images would present trouble, that's a good point

Changed resolution criteria to the next 60 days and the comments have to be shown above for >1 week

bought Ṁ10 of NO

I'm doubling down, that would look awful.