Hello @traders, I'm sorry that this market turned into a mess. I think the Beats announcement yesterday is especially annoying because: while Beats operates somewhat independently and is a subsidiary of Apple, their products are marketed and perceived similarly to Apple's own products. Notably, many recognized Apple reporters treated the Beats Solo 4 release as an Apple product announcement. All this information was publicly available yesterday which, unfortunately, didn't really provide enough time to have this discussion in full.

I don't want to set a precedent of resolving based on pedanticism, but I don't think this is that pedantic of an edge case. With this in mind, this morning, I messaged the "mod-help" channel on Discord looking for outside opinions, and you can see below how well that went. I will be reopening this market so that individuals who have expressed the desire to sell their shares may do so. I will then be resolving this market at 50%. I believe this approach reflecting the most honest answer to the question that this market asks, which is basically "sort of".

I know showing weakness ambivalence as a market creator just invites traders to bully you, so I am committing to this resolution and will not be taking further arguments into consideration.

Beats Solo 4 Headphones Debut With Improved Acoustics, Longer Battery Life, and More - MacRumors

Well RIP my mana lol

@esusatyo Do you think the headphones count?

Alyssa wisely pointed out that we've spent so much time discussing insider trading norms that we've barely discussed the actual resolution lol

@Joshua It’s hard to say. Apple distanced themselves from the brand Beats, they even didn’t use the word “Apple” anywhere in the box I believe.

The relationship between Apple and Beats isn’t as complicated as others, but I’m leaning slightly towards YES resolution. In all of my Apple markets, I would not even consider Beats as a part of it though. In fact I might update my resolution criteria for my Apple markets.

@esusatyo Yeah I def think resolution criteria on similar questions should clarify edge cases like this now that we've run into it

I also just wanted to say to @probajoelistic that I hope this drama doesn't cause you to want to create fewer markets. I'm sorry this has become dramatic, and I think there are clearer and kinder ways to simply say "hey, commenting on Discord without commenting on the market isn't the best way to handle it because everyone's not over there" etc. and in the future, I'll check and suggest that.

I, like lots of people, have learned some lessons on fine-tuning my approaches on Manifold by sometimes doing things a less desirable way, but that's all just part of the game, really.

@traders https://discord.com/channels/915138780216823849/1107730740898168832/1235219549977182360 fyi

@mattyb Feel this heat in your heart? It is what the feeling is like when "Obamacare" isn't saying "Obama. 😆

@Mirek my problem wasn’t how this is being resolved, but how the market creator is going about sharing this info (Joel still hasnt added any clarifications here…), and how the site’s mods decided not to share the info here, to bet multiple times (which is not against the rules fwiw, just a bad look imho)

@mattyb lol, some wild arguments in here.

@Mirek not for people who don’t have the discord 💁🏻‍♂️ gotta have the other app to use this app

To recap to the best of my knowledge for those that do not have the second app:

• Apple owns Beats

• New Beats headphones today

• Joe posted to discord with a rumor forum post about the headphones asking if people agreed it should count

• Stefanie googled and found that it was up on the apple store, not just a rumor, and traded on that

• I then also traded on that and pinged Matty when I saw him trading against us

• Debate then continued about whether the new headphones count for a yes resolution

• I suggested we close the market, joe closed the market.

• Now we're here

I don't think Joe or Stefanie or myself did anything bad here, edge case news breaking on the last day of a market is usually going to lead to some classic manifold chaos.

However, I do think it would probably have been good to close the market immediately, sort out the resolution criteria, and then re-open the market. I probably should have just closed the market myself as soon as I saw that chaos was brewing.

small correction: New Beats headphones yesterday (all the news is 24 hours old, making it April)

product is Beats Solo 4

@Joshua

and pinged Matty when I saw him trading against us

The reason that you pinged me was that you felt badly trading on insider information that you had from the market creator’s own words on the Discord. I’m sorry that I didn’t lose enough Mana here to have my complaints taken seriously, but I don’t like Mods perpetuating an already (admittedly, by your actions) unfair situation.

I would like to see a change where Mods have a responsibility to democratize information when shared externally, ESPECIALLY when you’re trading on this yourselves. I shouldn’t have to be the one posting this shit here. This makes me want to trade a lot less on this site, less than I already am doing.

Also, if Joel is seeking mod feedback, I would encourage him to get it from mods who don’t have positions here. It’s clear that you’re both partial to a singular resolution, and Joel came to mod help for impartiality (my assumption).

Sorry if this was insulting

I otherwise agree with Joshua's recounting here. there are definitely things that could have gone differently, and I want to be clear that Joel was not acting out of integrity as a market creator - he was checking in Discord for a second opinion about a market. (equally, Joshua nor I did anything outside of the rules or common parlance here.)

it's understandable and valid that there is frustration about clarifying a market in another place without commenting here first and perhaps closing for trading. I'll echo that sometimes lessons come on the fly and things can happen differently in the future.

@mattyb I mean on impartiality, I bought it to 50% because I thought it might still go either way. Mods aren't deciding the market, Joe is. So no one has any reason to stay impartial except Joe.

On the subject of fairness, it's certainly true that being on the discord server is an advantage, and people who want to be competitive in any prediction market ought to join that markets' server. That goes for Manifold or Polymarket or Kalshi.

Mods are usually people active in discord, but we don't ask them to stop trading on anything posted to discord after we mod them. If we did, then fewer people would want to be mods. Mods are just supposed to stay impartial if they are taking over resolution.

All sorts of norms around this stuff might change as the site wants to introduce cash prizes, but for now it is just a game and "insider trading" has always been fully part of the Manifold play money norms.

All that said, I again do think that specifically bc this is an edge case that closing the market asap would have been better for all involved. Trading under resolution criteria uncertainty isn't fun for anyone.