Improving and Revamping the Clarification System / Guidelines

1. More Transparency on When Markets Are Clarified or Not

At the moment, there is often ambiguity on when a market will be clarified by Polymarket or go unimpeded through the UMA dispute process.

If Polymarket has a stance on how a market should resolve, they should issue a rules clarification. If Polymarket does not want to intervene or does not have a strong opinion, then they should clarify:

“This market’s outcome will be decided by the decentralized UMA Oracle”

Do this for every dispute. This allows for transparency and less trader confusion on who will choose the winning outcome. We should also avoid situations where markets are suddenly clarified after several UMA disputes or after UMA voting has already concluded.

2. Time Window for Clarifications

To add to #1, there should be set timeframes during which rules clarifications are issued, and guidelines published on the platform. For instance, clarifications more than 12-18 hours into an UMA commit period should be avoided as this is too late for UMA voters to decide or change their votes. If Polymarket is dedicated to clarify beyond that timeframe, they must commit to pausing resolution on the market, and if necessary, emergency resolving the market. Otherwise, they should simply not clarify. 

Polymarket should also have dedicated staff who are active on the weekends and available to issue clarifications or escalate any possible market concerns.

3. Earlier / Preemptive Clarifications

Oftentimes, traders bring to light rules issues days or weeks in advance and request a rules clarification to elucidate areas of obvious ambiguity. However, these requests are typically ignored, with clarifications only issued after weeks of trading and a dispute being filed in UMA. The Polymarket Team should not shy away from immediately addressing rules issues, even if it seems unlikely that they will be a problem. It’s better to patch up possible disputes before they occur, rather than waiting to see if they become an issue.