This market will settle as YES if Trump wins the presidency and he nominates Robert F Kennedy to a cabinet position by January 31, 2025.
1,000
3.00I don't see the Manifold comment here in the comment section, but from notifications: "Briefly closing this market while we discuss the best way to resolve it. Will have a decision today and either resolve it immediately or re-open it for trading depending on what we decide."
If I may, while you deliberate: there is no reasonable interpretation of the title or rules that provides for an immediate (presumably affirmative) resolution. Not only has RFK not yet been nominated by Trump; he constitutionally, literally, metaphysically cannot be nominated by Trump until Trump holds the office of the presidency. If it is judged that the market should resolve as Yes, despite the criteria being unambiguously unfulfilled, simply because the market creator posted a comment several weeks ago plainly incorrectly suggesting the criteria had in fact been fulfilled, that will establish a patently ridiculous precedent for all future markets. Despite the rule of thumb that creator comments supersede titles and rulesets, that fairly obviously should not include situations in which the creator says something that refutes the only plain and correct interpretation of that title and ruleset, as is the case here. Otherwise, any market no matter how unambiguous, will always be susceptible to arbitrary ex post facto rules re-writing by market creators, which it goes without saying is untenable.
@FlipPidot It's safe to say Manifold will not be resolving based on the creator's comment two weeks ago. If it were to resolve today, it would be because of these earlier comments, which strongly imply an immediate YES resolution:
Unfortunately, there's a bug where editing descriptions while on the Sweepcash toggle doesn't save. It seems likely that this was why the clarification never made it into the description.
@bagelfan A) Maybe the bug was to blame for the description not being updated or maybe he just never udpated it. Either way it was never updated.
B) Even if it had been updated accordingly, the market would at most arguably be resolvable as Yes only if/when the "announced" column of a table of Trump cabinet nominees includes RFK.
Does such a table exist and is RFK in the announced column?
Not asking snarkily - maybe it does and it escaped me. But no such table is linked here:
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations_new.htm
If it doesn't, these comments (if controlling) make it even less defensible to resolve as Yes now.
@bagelfan Yes, I made the edit making clear it was supposed to resolve in exactly a situation like this.
@RichardHanania Alas, no such edit is visible in the description. And again, even if it were, that would mean it should resolve Yes if/when RFK appears in the "announced" column in such a table. That is not the case.
Mr. Hanania clarified 1 month ago that this market is resolving to the "announced" column. Then linked this. Here is a New York Times article from Dec 8 which confirms Joe Biden announced Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture nominee. Here is a recent article also from New York Times with the title "Trump Picks R.F.K. Jr. to Be Head of Health and Human Services Dept."
The https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations_new.htm page will likely not be updated until Trump is inaugurated on Jan 20 at the earliest. When it is updated the "announced" column will be backed filled with accurate dates. I expect RFK's will be Nov 14.
The earliest date Joe Biden announced nominees was Nov 23. Trump is already making his announcements. If you look under the received column, Joe did all his on Jan 20, 2021. Trump is likely to do the same. That means even if this market was resolving to the actual nomination the only way for it to resolve No would be if RFK died between now and then.
Manifold generally handles markets that have contradictory titles/descriptions/clarifications made by the market creator, with the following logic: Clarifications made by the market creator supersedes the description which supersedes the title.
As a trader I find it important to read each and every comment on a market, the description and ask and receive clarification before betting. If I don't and place a bet I do so at the risk of losing the mana/sweepcash to a technicality.
It has been clear and unambiguous that this market would be resolving to the announcement and not actual nomination of RFK to a cabinet post, which HHS is, for almost a month. I understand some of you are frustrated, but please consider that Mr. Hanania explained well in advance how this market would be resolving.
The only thing I think could have been done better is if the clarification would have been pinned and title/description updated.
@PuckMinder Pinned or not, posting a comment warning that you plan to resolve a market in clear conflict with the plain and unambiguous meaning of the language in the title and rules isn't an excuse to do so.
If the creator had commented, "By Trump I meant Harris and by RFK I meant Merritt Garland, so fair warning!" it would only be mildly more ridiculous to expect that to control settlement.
It goes without saying that no one's been nominated (in any plausible stretch of the word relevant to this process) and that no one can be until at least Jan. 20.
"Clarifications made by the market creator supersedes the description which supersedes the title."
Play money or "sweeps" , big no no.
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"As a trader I find it important to read each and every comment on a market, the description and ask and receive clarification before betting. If I don't and place a bet I do so at the risk of losing the mana/sweepcash to a technicality."
Did you read every comment on LK99? Presidential Markets? Barbie movie market? WvM?
If you need clarification, than the question and description is poor and nobody should be predicting on those markets if you actually want Manifold to be useful.
@DistinctlySkeptical I think you are misunderstanding what I typed, Sircrypto. I didn't suggest I read every comment on every market. I suggested that when I place a bet without reading what the creator clarified, I accept that I might lose my mana and be unhappy about it. I got screwed on markets before because of technicalities.
Spirit of the market has overruled logic and reason a few times since I've been on Manifold and people have lost mana because they didn't see clarifications in the comments. A simple CTRL+F on the creator's name is usually enough, but sometimes traders ask for clarification on fringe cases and the creator doesn't respond for weeks or a month+. If you are gonna take a large position on those markets it's a good idea to be sure.
Why are you bringing up LK99? I took one look at that market and realized I had no idea what I was doing and left. WvM was before my time and I don't think I even placed a bet on the Barbie Movie. Most of the mana I've made has been from your markets, Haws, Christian and my own sports markets.
As to what @FlipPidot said. I haven't seen any trusted news sources state, "Harris won the election." There are a couple that have their titles framed in a way to suggest he was already nominated. So I think it's semantics. There isn't a "nominated" column on the link the creator is using to resolve and he clarified, before many of the bets came in, that he was resolving on the announcement, which as he stated has already happened.
The creator has a 1 star rating and 2.82 average, controversy on this market is unsurprising.
@TheAllMemeingEye The article cites his experience as an environmental lawyer.
https://www.politico.com/story/2008/11/obama-considers-stars-for-cabinet-015320
@TheAllMemeingEye Environmental lawyer, democrat (until recently), and that was sixteen years ago. That doesnโt seem surprising at all.
@TimothyBandors Relative to what? Everybody recognizes Kennedy has changed a lot in the last few years. Reading 2008 in light of 2024 is not very informative.