1,000Status summary after reviewing this market:
The creator did not resolve Yes when [something happened]
Participants eventually gave up on asking for clarifications and assumed that meant it would not resolve Yes based on the past events
No new events happened
I researched this on Manifold and some other markets resolved and acted as if this was a coup:
/Schwabilismus/is-prigozhin-leading-a-coup-right-n
/levifinkelstein/will-the-wagner-group-actually-star-25a114f083a4
Then there are several markets from @johnleoks about this same topic. This one resolved:
/johnleoks/is-the-news-of-there-being-a-coup-a
So johnleoks thinks this was either a coup attempt or a civil war incitement. (Or the news was not fake but it was not one of those?)
And then we have:
/johnleoks/will-there-be-a-coup-attempt-in-rus
The comment section has @johnleoks saying:
You can be treasonous and not do a coup. I need either Putin or the Wagner boss saying that it's a coup.
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I feel like we are in this situation from the mod guidelines:
If the close date has been reached, and the resolution is ambiguous
If resolution criteria have been “met”, but it’s unclear how to interpret them:
Try to get the creator to resolve the market. They usually do respond to pings after a while even if seemingly inactive. Waiting for a couple of months is fine if the alternative is to N/A thanks to the loan system.
3 out of 3 mods unanimously agree that it’s skewed far enough towards one interpretation to resolve it that way. This process should happen ~1 week after close if the creator is inactive.
Failing the above two, resolve N/A.
@johnleoks never responded to the questions from Martin Randall, and it has been way more than a couple months.
I think we need to see if 3/3 mods unanimously agree that it's skewed enough
I wanted to be one of the 3 mods but I think I got biased or something:
I really liked the writeup here and it convinced me I thought it was a coup. So, I cannot vote to resolve No even though the creator indicated it was not a Yes. I could probably be convinced to resolve N/A, but I should stay out of it because I feel like I'm biased now.
We need some other moderators to at least weigh in, in order to resolve the market, 3/3 moderators need to agree the market should resolve the same way. Taking into account that the creator made clarifications asking for evidence on the day of the events, and the market participants reacted to those claims, would you resolve Yes, No, or N/A?
I will tag some additional moderators because the mods tag 19 days ago did not seem to make any progress.
@Eliza Thanks for the summary. I will take a look at this, but not until tonight or possibly tomorrow. If y'all get it figured out before I manage to weigh in, please don't feel like you have to wait for me.
@Eliza I think this is a fair summary. I would emphasize that the creator clarified the rules of the market a year ago (I.e. that the Wagner coup did not count), and then the market traded for the following year based on those stated rules.
If mods believe that the clarification given made the market fundamentally incoherent (because the clarification is at odds with the title, and no one could reasonably not call this a coup), then that seems like a fair reason for N/A. But this isn’t a case where mods need to subjectively resolve and are choosing between what they believe and what the creator probably believed—the creator’s clarification was part of the definition of the market, as traded on for the past year. A creator clarifying the market rules in the comments is generally considered functionally equivalent to the original rules of the market (in fact this is basically the formal policy of the site given that they made an AI tool to encode exactly that).
I care about this one at least a little bit as an active trader who likes to count on the stated rules of the market being reliable, even if they rely on definitions we might not agree with.
@Ziddletwix I think that's also fair, although I would slightly tweak the framing of the creator's statement:
- The Wagner group rebellion did not count
UNLESS
- Someone presents 'the evidence'
If someone showed 'evidence' that would convince johnleoks, then it could have still counted. And in the other market, he specifically said that for Wagner group or Putin to refer to it as a coup would count as evidence. (Maybe something else also would.)
@Eliza that’s fair! the creator clarification is mostly clear, but the one point of complication/ambiguity for me is that while “a statement from prigozhin or Putin” is the stated required evidence, it’s possible that what’s left unstated is that other (unspecified) forms of evidence could have been acceptable as well (the creator just hadn’t seen any yet).
That interpretation would push it from “the creator clarified the rules of his market” (which I would be strongly against overturning) to “the creator deemed the current evidence insufficient but was open to new evidence” (which is more squarely in the area where mods can exercise their own judgment—even if I would personally think the evidence after the creator comments isn’t much different from the evidence available before, it’s now a question of judgment not applying the existing rules)
Meanwhile, according to a Guardian analysis, "The emerging consensus – from experts and in western capitals – is [that the rebellion] was far less than an attempted coup, and more an impulsive demonstration that quickly got out of hand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group_rebellion
Though personally I don't understand where the line is where it would have transitioned into a "real" coup attempt.
Edit: I cannot participate because I don't agree with the creator of this market
@Eliza who was #2?
I have a NO position here so will obvs not opine as a mod, but to add my argument as a bettor here—the creator issued a clear clarification that the Wagner march did not count as a coup, and people then proceeded to bet based on that clarification. I would find it extremely strange if mods later overruled the clarification that people had been basing their bets on for the last year.
(Pic of the first comment, but they said so twice, even after being shown reporting that claimed it was a coup. The creator clearly did not believe it counted, and a YES resolution would require the creator’s ruling to be overruled after a year of people betting based on it)
I would find it extremely strange if mods later overruled the clarification that people had been basing their bets on for the last year.
I am following the mod guidelines, it says nothing about this.
@Eliza I didn’t say that was in the guidelines? The guidelines don’t say anything at all how to determine resolution, just when mods should step in*. I am arguing that it is this would be a bad standard to follow. Traders trade based on the title, description, and clarifications issued by the creator. The creator issued a ruling for this market, traders traded based on that ruling for the following year. I don’t think it’s good for market rules/rulings to be changed a year later.
* (although if you were to use the guidelines, personally I would say the spirit of “Try to get the creator to resolve the market” strongly implies that their previous statements should be the default, but again the guidelines don’t say anything at all about what standard to use to resolve the market, they provide no guidance here)
@Ziddletwix there have been 19 days since the original ping for any other moderators to step in, but no one did. I cannot resolve this market no or vote to resolve no because I do not believe that is true. So I put in a word of what I would do and we can wait for one or two other moderators to see what they say. Do you want me to just delete my comments and not participate? I can do that.
Now that Wagner group is going to be disbanded, this seems to be a market in whether the creator thinks that past events qualify as a coup.
/Jack_Rose/will-the-wagner-group-still-exist-b
/NickelChen/will-the-wagner-private-military-be
@johnleoks It looks like you believe past events don't qualify as a coup? Pease confirm in market description. You may also want to resolve early.
@harfe Wagner boss has so far insisted that it's no a rebellion/coup. Unless you have evidence otherwise.
@johnleoks Man I need to learn my lesson with resolution criteria. The FT at least is reporting and classifying this as a coup: “It was the first coup attempt in Russia for three decades.” - https://www.ft.com/content/eb029083-ff02-4a8a-87ab-7813e5c01f11
@johnleoks Also even if he successfully pulled off a coup I doubt he would personally call it that