The only reason you should ever have a problem is if the question is at all ambiguous. Otherwise, I think people are just being petty if they'd get upset at that.

I don't have an issue with moderators resolving my markets, assuming the mod correctly interpreted the criteria and the criteria is objective. This should not be interpreted to mean that I think this should be a general policy.

Creators should always be given a warning by a moderator (if not already @'d or tagged by a trader (AND UNACKNOWLEDGED)) before resolving for them, imo.

and 24 hours i think is even a little short for it tbh. Question Makers are an important part of your overall ecosystem. It's important they are enjoying making and resolving questions. What do they gain by moderators auto-resolving before them? I don't think so much. But they have much to lose.

Maybe traders gain something, namely, getting their invested mana back (in event of a correct prediction), but we also have loans now to help with this

+1 to this. To expand on my own view:

I enjoy having sense of responsibility for my markets. Clicking the resolve button is a nice way to close the loop; I asked a question, and now it has been answered! In the past, a mod resolved one of my markets quickly after it closed, while I was offline. When I came back online and discovered this, I felt surprisingly disappointed at having been preempted.

Of course this has to be balanced against timely resolutions for traders (though loans mitigate that pressure somewhat). I think a warning period is a good compromise.

If the creator is responsive but doesn't resolve the market, I think it's important to try to work with the creator. Here's how I'd hope for the mods to approach some example situations:

• If the creator says "I want to verify the answer but I don't have time to check carefully right now. I can look at this in two days." -> Ask if a mod can perform this task. Accept the delay if the creator doesn't approve this.

• "I want to verify the answer but I don't have time to check carefully right now. I can look at this in a week." -> Indicate that this is an untimely delay for market resolution. Ask if creator can make time in the next day or two, and note that if they can't/won't then a mod will resolve.

• "I won't look at this until the listed close time." -> OK if the market description explicitly specified that the market would not resolve until a particular date. Otherwise, indicate that this is an untimely delay for market resolution, ask if creator can look into resolving the market in the next day or two, and note that if they can't/won't then a mod will resolve.

Different people will have different ideas for what constitutes a prompt or timely market resolution. In my opinion, 1-3 days delay is completely reasonable for a market that's been open for months.

This is my perspective as a very infrequent market creator. Perhaps this sense of ownership/responsibility is absent for a top creator with hundreds of markets, and for them resolutions are just a chore?

@jcb Overall, I think the values/ideas expressed in your comment are faaaaaaairly close to how the site works in practice these days. Or at least how I handle things when they come in front of me. I voted for the same option you did.

1-3 days delay is completely reasonable for a market that's been open for months.

Agreed. Especially with loans. It seems like in recent months the standard warning period has shrunk to roughly 24 hours, but if I'm involved I'm usually trying to use my discretion when assessing the situation.

For example, it is extremely common to find markets by users who have abandoned the site for over a year. If they didn't show up in a day, they're probably never showing up. These would likely be resolved immediately unless it specifically calls for the creator's personal input.

In cases where I know the creator is still moderately active on the site and the resolution might be important to them, I'm often pinging multiple times and giving as much time as seems reasonable. Traders seem to generally accept this. Here's an active example -- I don't know what will happen next, but I assume within a few more days the market will get resolved even if the creator doesn't show up.

When I came back online and discovered this, I felt surprisingly disappointed at having been preempted.

I think it is imperative that the site minimize the amount of times this feeling happens to people! It's one of the worst feelings, especially if you really like the site -- enough to be a creator.

So far, based on the results of this poll, it seems like there would be more users in favor of "reduce the number of times creators have this feeling by making it clear up front that their market can be resolved by someone else" rather than "reduce the number of times creators have this feeling by giving them ample time and extra warnings before doing so".

Messaging and communication of expectations is very important here.

I think it's important to try to work with the creator.

Part of the motivation for this poll came from moderators noticing an increased amount of labor relating to attempts to contact ghosted creators. It has been tough to determine which creators are still active or semi-active, and which are in a phase of "I don't care about this product anymore and leave me alone".

Regular site users who are actively trading are not coming in contact with these abandoned creators/markets, so they may not have a good sense for how widespread the issue is.....and of course it will only continue to grow.

@Eliza Thanks for the insight. I think I probably do not have enough appreciation for the work you all put in, including in these situations. Thanks mods for everything you do!

Also FYI that the site interpreted your comment as a clarification to the question and updated the description with LLM word salad.

Even conditioning on correct resolution of a specific market, my sentiment is determined by the base rate:

• In a world where mods resolve 99.99% correctly: Yeah, great, thanks!

• In a world where mods resolve 80% correctly: No! I'm upset! It happened to be resolved correctly this time, but that was an unnecessary risk!

I meant to say No, not under any circumstances, but i said yes, in almost every case

i'm the lizardman

@Bayesian would you be upset if a moderator (you) incorrectly resolved your poll answer before you could do it correctly?

@jskf yes. this is why mods cannot be trusted (thank god for the reresolution ability)

I could imagine a hypothetical situation in which the outcome is ultimately correct but a moderator used the wrong reasoning to reach that conclusion. Or if something was being left open due to ambiguities or allowing trader comment, where it was ultimately in line with the final outcome but done prematurely. But I don’t have any personal attachment to being the person to hit resolve. I just want to make sure it’s done right.

Not my market, but an example that is somewhat in line with what I’m thinking about: the “all living presidents inauguration” market. Was this intended to refer to US presidents? Almost certainly. But I would have liked to have the opportunity for that clarification before resolving immediately, even if the outcome is the same.

I can't think of a single reason to be upset given correct resolution, but I can think of all kinds of ways a moderator and I might disagree on what's correct.

@WilliamGunn Could you give examples of ways you think this would be most likely to happen?

@jskf The obvious ones are things like:

Misinterpretation of the resolution criteria

Choosing a source of information that I don't think is reliable

Resolving based on early reports or estimates rather than waiting for the official numbers

I have seen some people prefer to run a poll or get feedback from traders before resolving something, and I guess in that case I can see someone being upset, but those aren't likely to be the kinds of questions moderators would resolve proactively anyways.

I'm generally strongly in favor of proactive moderator resolution, provided the focus is on really clear-cut cases.

If you create markets on the site, I'm interested in seeing how you feel.

creators, pls vote