Imagine for the sake of this question that Manifold had a program that would compensate you (mana, maybe even real money) if you would be able to help another user come up with a market that was very valuable to them.
I'll do an entire example just because:
Let's say a new user Alice really wants to know what (specific!!!) date(s?) to plant her large yearly spinach crop. She just signed up to the site, she's never made a question, and she hopes that the markets can help her make a decision.
If she plants too early, they won't grow due to the cold weather. If she plants too late, they'll get cooked by the sun before they're ready to harvest. It's a slim window and she hopes to maximize her yield.
Instead of relying on general published information about the growing season, Alice hopes Manifold can make specific predictions about her specific situation, in markets tailored to her!
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1. Do you think you could help Alice create 1 or more questions that would help her decide when to plant?
2. Are the questions you think of very straightforward or more creative interpretations of her situation?
3. Do you have some way of demonstrating that your questions helped Alice make a decision that was better than not having any markets?
4. Do you think the amount Manifold might compensate you for helping Alice would impact the quality of your work?
Feel free to respond as broadly as you wish, it's just a starting point.
I think it would be difficult, because even if it was well written, these types of niche semi-personal markets don’t tend to get much user traction. So getting enough other people to participate is key to making the question valuable, and is also the hardest part to influence.
@Eliza based on the efficacy of boosted markets, I don’t think this would make much of a difference.
@GleamingRhino boosting markets is very valuable from what I can tell. In my testing, subsidizing and also boosting markets that were new or mostly unseen resulted in dozens (sometimes 100+) of new traders and significant updates to the market probability.