Community Guidelines
Manifold Markets holds the belief that we should prioritise user autonomy over their own markets as much as we can. Our philosophy is to keep Manifold’s censorship and moderation to a minimum and maintain users’ freedom of speech. Our goal is to eventually have Manifold Markets take no moderation action (unless compelled by law) and provide users with tools to control the content.
However, in the short term, we may take occasional moderation action, although this will almost always be a last resort after multiple warnings. This is because our site isn’t currently equipped to handle spam or malicious content without it being exposed to the majority of users against their will.
Below we have outlined a list of circumstances that could result in warnings or moderation of some kind. Over time these are likely to change as we continuously distance ourselves from moderation as the site evolves.
Types of markets subject to delisting
Delisted markets do not show up on the home page, but can still be found through the search bar, profile pages, and groups. Users can choose to delist a market during the creation process.
Admins may choose to delist a market for the reasons below. We intend to use this sparingly. Upon doing so they will inform the creator in the comments of the reason and any actions they can take for it to be relisted. We don’t intend to shadowban anyone’s content.
- Markets containing images, videos, or links of sexually graphic content or significant violence (including death).
- Markets that are hateful in nature including those that discriminate based on race, gender, sex, or disability status.
- We understand that these topics in particular are subject to personal belief more so than other types of offending content. But, moderation of these topics on a case-by-case basis is important until we can add tools that minimise users’ exposure to it against their will. We will aim to only delist the worst offenders.
- Markets that clearly encourage and could directly lead to terrorism or abuse.
- Markets with acceptable content which we nonetheless don’t want on the front page for one of the following reasons:
- A large quantity of related markets.
- eg. the Fantasy football tournament markets.
- Markets with titles containing spoilers.
- Markets only about their own activity.
- e.g. “Will this market get more up-votes than down-votes?”
- Markets designed to defraud users.
- This includes markets that say in the title or description that they will resolve inaccurately
- Markets designed to to exploit the manifold codebase
Types of content subject to deletion
- Content that is illegal in the US.
- Markets and comments revealing people’s personal private information.
- Sexual content involving minors.
- Sexual exploitation, blackmail, revenge porn etc.
- Spam
- Repeated commenting of unrelated topics to the market and discussion.
- Posting multiple low-effort or promotional markets.
- Markets and comments that are made with malicious intent to harass an individual or specific group of people, particularly those who are users on Manifold.
- Media showing self-harm or suicide.
Examples of Markets
We’ve included some examples of controversial markets and whether they would induce moderation. Keep in mind though that all markets will be looked at on a case-by-case basis so this is just to help provide some baselines.
1. "Christians who believe lgbt is okay are hypocritical. The bible teaches LGBT is a sin in book..."
- No moderation.
- These sorts of markets which express an opinion/belief as a statement that could be perceived as being negative towards a group of people are definitely frowned upon but won't be delisted.
- This is right on the line and anything marginally more hateful would be delisted.
- "Christians who do believe and support LGBT should burn in hell and are Satan lovers"
- Definite delisting.
- Deletion if the user has a history of bad behaviour or if there is any additional content in the market along those lines or if they double down in response to delisting.
- "Jews made up the holocaust and are acting as victims for no reasons"
- Delisting.
- Very similar to the first example, this is where you start to see the danger of personal bias with centralised moderation. That's why we wouldn't delete these sorts of markets, but we will delist them. The reason we would delist this one is mainly because it's gaslighting victims. However, if they made this market and actually presented it in the form of a compelling argument explaining their belief (and didn't make snide remarks towards victims) then it probably wouldn't be delisted.
Account rules
- Impersonation is bannable. Pretending to be someone you are not including individuals, groups, and organisations.
- Creating multiple accounts is permitted. However, action could be taken by Manifold if:
- Abusing the unique trader bonus by consistently betting on your own markets with multiple accounts.
- Abusing referral, signup bonuses, or daily streaks to funnel mana to your main account.
- Using alt accounts as fake identities to malevolently deceive others.
- Leveraging balances of multiple accounts to boost an account up the profit leaderboard.
- Usernames violating the content guidelines will be changed to a different name until the user changes it to something appropriate.
- NSFW profile pictures showing nudity or extreme violence will be changed to a default image until the user changes it to something appropriate.
Resolving Markets
We expect market creators to decide on the correct resolution and resolve their markets accordingly.
- Once resolution criteria are met users are expected to resolve their market promptly.
- Market creators have the final say on what the resolution is, even if it is inaccurate.
- If clear resolution criteria are met and 30 days pass without hearing from the creator, Manifold may step in and resolve markets on their behalf.
- Markets will be added to the please resolve group and receive an @ comment to the author. For very large markets we may send an additional personal email reminder.
- Note: We won’t be able to send a personal email reminder or manually resolve every unresolved market. But we will prioritise those which have a large amount of mana invested or those requested in Discord.
Keep in mind…
- Offenders to the above guidelines may receive a warning, partial ban, or complete ban.
- Manifold Markets reserves the right to unlist or delete any comments, markets, groups or accounts we see fit.
- These guidelines are subject to change as our site and community develop.